Can hair be fine AND coarse? (long winded, sorry)

[shutterpillar]

I am extremely confused about how to categorize my hair.

Let me back up a bit...
When I first came to LHC and was trying to type my hair I went through all the helpful articles and I have no doubt that my hair is 1c/2a. My problem lies with trying to figure out whether or not it is coarse or fine or both (if that is possible) ... am I medium?
Here is what the hairtyping guide says, which I am sure you all are familiar with:

"F - Fine: Thin strands that sometimes are almost translucent when held up to the light. Shed strands can be hard to see even against a contrasting background. When rolling a strand between your thumb and index finger, fine hair is difficult to feel or it feels like an ultra-fine strand of silk
M - Medium: Strands are neither fine nor coarse. When rolling a strand between your thumb and index finger, medium hair feels like a cotton thread. You can feel it, but it isn't stiff or rough.
C - Coarse: Thick strands that where shed strands usually are easily identified against most backgrounds. When rolling a strand between your thumb and index finger, coarse hair feels hard and wiry. As you roll it back and forth, you may actually hear it."Now let me go through this. In the "Fine" category, I have a few hairs that are like this.. hard to feel when I roll a strand between my fingers, but none of them are hard to see when held up to the light, which might be because of my hair color.
in "Medium" category, this doesn't really sound like my hair because my hair IS stiff when I roll it between my fingers. At least, most of my hair is. The ones that seem to be more fine are more floaty and light.
In the "Coarse" category it sounds like the majority of my strands to a T, except I do not hear my hair when I roll just one strand between my fingers. (though I did when I first began LHC about a month ago) It is a bit rough and stiff. So, I based my type on this, since it sounds most like the majority of my hair.

What is confusing me about all this is my ponytail circumference. It is 2.5", putting me right in the very beginning of the "ii" category. So is my actual AMOUNT of hair making my circumference on the small side, or is it the fact that I have some fine hairs throughout my coarse ones? I really do think I have a good amount of hair. I am not shedding excessively or balding in various places. I dont think it is "thin" because to me, that means I have lost some of my hair. Like when people talk about men or women having a receding or thinning hairline.

Now, back to the present. I recently posted a thread about whether or not I should cut bangs into my hair. In my original post I had mentioned that my hair was fine (I was talking about my ponytail circumference, because to me this seems to be the only way to explain it). I got some very helpful information, but I also got a member asking me how I can have both fine and coarse hair. She never returned to answer my question, which was pretty much "I don't know, can I?"

I honestly have no idea, and I am extremely confused. Can anyone help me out? WHAT is my hair, exactly? Thin? Fine, Coarse? Medium? Did I measure my ponytail circumference wrong? I am soooo completely lost. :confused:

[shutterpillar]

And forgive me if this has been posted before (or something similar). I googled and everything and I didn't come up with anything. :(

[excentricat]

It is possible to have all thicknesses of hair on your head. Most people just base that category on what the majority of their strands are. Also, 2.5 is not as "at the begining of ii" as it seems. Think of how many hairs it takes to make another half inch of circumference. You're 1/4 of the way into the ii category. Or maybe these are things I tell myself when I see all these thick heads of hair on here start to feel like mine is thin.

[Kiwiwi]

Ok, first you need to understand the difference between thickness of individual hairs and volume/amount of all hairs together.

The thickness/structure of an individual hair is fine or medium or coarse.
The volume of hair makes it either i or ii or iii.

A person with fine hair can have an iii volume.
A person with coarse hair can have an i volume.

Although I guess it would be true that if you have two people with the same volume, or amount of hairs can still be different in i/ii/iii. Because a fine haired person would have a lesser circumference than a coarse haired person, even if they have the same amount of hairs. Because the coarse individual hairs a thicker than fine hairs.

Fine hair doesn't mean i or ii hair. It has nothing to do with that per se. Fine hair can be i or ii or iii.

Ok, now the other thing. I cannot really help you with that.
I seem to have fine hairs but they feel a bit coarse. So I also wonder if you can have fine hair, like, thin individual hairs but have the structure of them be quite coarse.
I do know I don't have completely coarse hair because my friend has that and her individual hairs are really thick and feel harsh. So it sure is different.
But I don't think I am fine haired.... So yeah, confusing to me too.
So I think I just call my hair F/M... Which doesn't feel right but that's ok.

[shutterpillar]

Ok, first you need to understand the difference between thickness of individual hairs and volume/amount of all hairs together.


Right, I understand the difference, which is what was confusing me. Just like your statement below... this is what was confusing:

Although I guess it would be true that if you have two people with the same volume, or amount of hairs can still be different in i/ii/iii. Because a fine haired person would have a lesser circumference than a coarse haired person, even if they have the same amount of hairs. Because the coarse individual hairs a thicker than fine hairs.


Ok, now the other thing. I cannot really help you with that.
I seem to have fine hairs but they feel a bit coarse. So I also wonder if you can have fine hair, like, thin individual hairs but have the structure of them be quite coarse.
I do know I don't have completely coarse hair because my friend has that and her individual hairs are really thick and feel harsh. So it sure is different.
But I don't think I am fine haired.... So yeah, confusing to me too.
So I think I just call my hair F/M... Which doesn't feel right but that's ok.

Right, this is exactly my problem. I have also felt very coarse hair. Most of my african american friends have coarse hair and it feels very different from mine, which is why I am hesitant to label mine as coarse. But it makes me wonder if you can have fine hair, but with a different structure, which makes me hesitant to label it as fine because I have also felt fine hair and it feels nothing like mine either. Much smoother, lighter, and flowy.

So would I be in the Medium category, then?

Confusing, indeed.

[Kiwiwi]

Ok.
But I don't find the part where a fine can be iii and a coarse can be i confusing.
i - thin (less than 2 inches/5 centimeters)
ii - normal (between 2-4 inches or 5-10 centimeters)
iii - thick (more than 4 inches/10 centimeters)
It doesn't matter what the structure is.

But yes, we are both confused by the last part, haha! :)
What I understand about the medium hair type is that it isn't stiff or rough of fine (very thin) or coarse. It holds a style easily (fine haired people often complain about ponytails just sliding down for example). Coarse hair holds a style easily too....
Lawd, it's just too confusing! :D
I am not coarse, that's just really thicker and rougher than my hair.
I am not fine because that's much softer and more flowy.
My hairs are to the fine/thin side but feel a bit... crunchy? Though soft! It's weird.
So I think we need to make up a new word for what we have! :)

I do have a LOT of hair. I haven't measured in a few months and I was bordering iii. I know my hair is getting thicker because of the good care. But I think I need to wait a little while before the thickness reaches my ponytail that I put straight on top of my head for measuring :)

Ok, can't really help you as I am confused myself.
But I don't really mind being confused. My hair is happy and healthy so I'm doing good :)

[shutterpillar]

Ok.
But I don't find the part where a fine can be iii and a coarse can be i confusing.
i - thin (less than 2 inches/5 centimeters)
ii - normal (between 2-4 inches or 5-10 centimeters)
iii - thick (more than 4 inches/10 centimeters)
It doesn't matter what the structure is.



No no, I get that part. Sorry if I came across as otherwise. What was confusing to me was the terminology of "thin". I guess when I think of thin, I think of a head of hair that is shedding and potentially producing bald spots. That was my problem right there. I had the wrong image of Thin in my mind.


But I don't really mind being confused. My hair is happy and healthy so I'm doing good :)

And thats all that matters! :D You have gorgeous hair and you obviously know how to take care of your specific type (which may also be my type because your description of the texture of your hair sounds exactly like mine.) Now if only we could figure out what type that is! lol.

[88Marisa]

Sometimes fine hair can feel coarse if it's curly, because curly hairs aren't round, they are oval or flat and they tend to be drier than straight hair too. I used to think I had coarse hair on my crown, but in reality it was just curly hair that needs a lot of moisture and as soon as I started keeping my hair better moisturized, those hairs softened up a lot.

There are other factors besides hair density on the scalp and hair texture that effect your diameter too, like head size or hairline.

[BlazingHeart]

It sounds to me like you have a mixture of medium and coarse hair. It's not uncommon to have more than one type of hair on your head. It's slightly unusual to have all three. If your hair doesn't seem to kind of disappear in the light, I'm not sure it's fine hair. A friend of mine had very dark brown hair that was fine, and if you held it up to the light, it seemed like the part that crossed the light almost disappeared. Really weird.

I have hair on my head that fits all three categories, though about 95% of it is either medium or coarse, which is why that's what I chose to indicate. I also have very low porosity. Even though my fine hairs are hard to see, they still don't do the floaty, delicate look, and I think that may be because of the low porosity - the scales that make up the exterior of the hair fit more tightly, so it makes sense to me that it might cause more stiffness. My coarse hairs do not make any noise when rolled between my fingers. They just don't roll very well because of how stiff they are.

I hope some of that is helpful!

~Blaze

[krissykins]

Fine = individual thickness of a strand of hair.
Thin = overall thickness of hair. Your image of someone with bald patches is relevant, but not everyone who has thin hair has gone through hair loss. Some people just don't have that many hairs on their heads. :p A common misconception in pop culture is that fine and thin are the same thing.

As far as whether your hair is fine/medium/coarse... it's hard to tell without more detail. Does your hair still carry most of the characteristics listed for coarse hair? Or does it fit more closely with medium hair now? The only explanation I can think of for you not being able to hear your hair when you roll it between your fingers now is that you have clarified your hair since then and there was previously product buildup.

[Bagginslover]

It is certainly possible to have a mix of hair types on one head-I definitely do! From baby fine, to almost wire-like coarse. Most of my hair is somewhere inbetween the 2, but those 2 extremes are in patches, not evenly distributed, so I do consider myself to be a true F/M/C, which of course, there isn't an option for ;)

I think a lot of confusion also arises from looking at the texture of individual hairs. I am a 1b texture, of this I am certain, but my coarse hairs, when shed and alone can look like they should be 2b/c! They do not behave that way on my head, possible due to weight. They are also very crinkly to feel-if you run your fingers down their length, they almost feel bumpy (think of what your 'down there' hair feel like, I have that on my head!) Some of my medium hairs are like that too, and it took me a little while to actually figure out that that was texture, not thickness related. Hope that makes sense?

[plurabelle]

I'm pretty sure there is a difference between thin and thinning/balding hair. Thin hair can be perfectly healthy and beautiful. My hair is ultra-thick (think "bushy" or "big hair") and when I was younger my hairdresser actually thinned it out for me which made it easier to handle. I went out and bought a pair of thinning shears once we moved away so I could thin out my hair. I stopped doing that (and stopped getting layers which had the same effect) and sometimes my hair is overwhelming.

Hair thickness (both in terms of volume and in terms of individual strand thickness) is mostly genetic but it also depends on care. I wouldn't have really believed how coarse my hair was, but I got empirical proof: my best friend and I were faffing about in the biology lab and decided to put anything and everything under the microscope. So finally we got a strand of her fine hair (half-Chinese) and a strand of my coarse hair (Indian), and yikes. My hair was like a thick copper wire and hers was sort of like a much, much thinner cottony string under the microscope. Oh, and despite having fine hair, she has a thick head of hair, volume-wise.

It's hard to know with normal visual comparisons or touch alone. So if you're still in doubt, break into a science lab with a fine/coarse haired friend and measure! ;D

[shutterpillar]

Thank you, everyone. I think I may change my type to M/C now. I am now convinced that (at least the majority) of my hairs are not fine. I do have a few floaty ones which usually show up around the base of my skull, but the majority of them fit the M/C categories, I suppose. Though I am even hesitant to do that because I know most of them are probably not coarse either. In my daily amount shed (which is around 100-150. I dont keep count), I usually shed about 10-20 actual coarse hairs. The rest are not as thick, but the majority of them do feel rough.

*sigh* My hair is a pain. But I guess it is not completely fine since none of my hairs seem to be transparent.