Confused about hair typing pictures

**Andalusite** · February 14th, 2024, 08:59 AM

So. I've read about how to post proper hair typing pictures. But I am confused a little bit. We're not supposed to brush or finger brush the hair after shower. And air dry it.

I have some questions

How should I handle my hair when I stepped out of shower? Should I let it sit on my shoulders until it's dry? (oh my god that will take ages)

Should I separate my hair with my fingers after the shower? Because when I'm done rinsing, I squeeze my hair. Should I just leave it alone after that?

My hair looks so different when the weather is humid vs it's dry. I have completely straight hair in dry weather so if I was in Germany (for example) my hair naturally drying would be completely different. If I was living in Vietnam (for example) again my air dried hair would be different.

**Sarahlabyrinth** · February 14th, 2024, 10:09 AM

Yes, just let it sit until it's dry, it's a pain, I know.

**lapushka** · February 14th, 2024, 12:14 PM

You can, let's be real, squeeze your hair out in the shower, then pat it dry; it's not gonna hurt. It's what I did. You can not possibly get your hair out the shower soaking and expect it to dry like that, that is not gonna happen in 48 hours even, you actually need to squeeze it out, get the excess water out, at least!

**Lady Winchester** · February 14th, 2024, 02:35 PM

I brushed mine. There's no way I would have posted a picture without it brushed, since it would look like a bunch of frizz. I washed and conditioned it (since I use an anti-dandruff 2 in 1), brushed it out, let it air dry and then brushed it out again.

**lapushka** · February 14th, 2024, 03:04 PM

Brushing is totally different. That is purposefully, truly, messing with the texture. But you know, you have to be able to do hairtyping pictures or not, I think. Not everyone wants to go through the process.

**Chasemi** · February 14th, 2024, 07:05 PM

Originally Posted by lapushka

Brushing is totally different. That is purposefully, truly, messing with the texture. But you know, you have to be able to do hairtyping pictures or not, I think. Not everyone wants to go through the process.

Honestly my hair doesn't change if I brush it versus not, it'll eventually curl back up as it's drying. If I brush it after it dries? The texture will stay, but my hair will look 3x the size and frizzy. Yes the clumping will separate, but the curl is still there. Now if I continously brushed it as it were drying, it would certainly dry more straight that usual
Overall I don't think brushing makes a huge difference, depending on where you fall in 1-4. In 1s I doubt it would make a big difference, because 1A is clear due to a lack of frizz, and the differences between 1B/1C are usually seen even on styled hair (in my opinion). The 4s will all still be 4s after brushing, the texture is too tight to be altered
I'm not sure I'm making a ton of sense but I think my point is in there somewhere haha

**The Lizard Wife** · February 14th, 2024, 07:37 PM

My personal conclusion about hair typing pictures is that it's really difficult to make an exact science of it since we're not in a vacuum. The strict guidelines to try not to manipulate your hair at all are ideal circumstances, which can be difficult to achieve, especially if you have hair that takes longer to dry. If you do the best that you reasonably can to follow the guidelines, I think hair typing photos are great used as one piece of evidence among other observations, and can be very helpful for getting an idea of the range of types your hair might read as. If it's useful, this is how I used my imperfect hair typing photo attempt combined with other observations about my hair to narrow down my hair type:

I was confident that I have hair that is in the "straight" category. It was definitely 1b as a child, and it still tends to behave in the way that straight hair generally behaves. I was seeing a drastic increase in waviness in my hair when growing out an undercut and wasn't sure from the hair type example pics how much wave action straight 1b and 1c hair could have before it stopped being straight. Should straight hair be, y'know, doing that spiraling thing at the ends?? So I took some hair typing photo attempts that I knew were not exact. In my case I cheated by using the dryer on it a little (without combing through it at all and trying to avoid touching it with my hands) because it's very thick and I would have been slinging it around to get it out of my face for many hours. Also because I know from long experience with my own hair that using the hair dryer would bias my results to be straighter, not enhance waves. Since it really seemed more likely that my hair was straight and not that I was secretly curly, I took the calculated risk that I'd disrupt a wave pattern. When I posted the pics I got suggestions from 1b in front through 2a on the underlayer.
And then.....realized hours later that probably my hair had not in fact dried all the way

It wasn't a perfect hair typing photo, but at least the discussions helped me get a better idea of the differences between 1b, 1c, and 2a, which I definitely needed!

Based on the fact that I know my hair tends to follow the conventional wisdom of straight hair, that my hair can range from appearing 1b (well-combed, straight and fluffy with some flip) to 1c (most common, straight and clumpy and some flip) to 2a (not yet bone-dry or not properly clarified, braid waves), I've narrowed it down to 1c. Regarding the spirals, in hindsight the underlayer was just having incredibly flippy ends enhanced by having a layered hemline, and that my terrible shower wasn't getting my hair 100% clean. There are definitely no more really defined waves and spiral bits once it started getting on to APL.

**ETJ CURLS** · February 14th, 2024, 08:17 PM

I think you could diffuse your hair and that would be fine. Diffusing doesn't disturb the natural pattern when done correctly.

**Andalusite** · February 16th, 2024, 02:16 AM

Originally Posted by lapushka

You can, let's be real, squeeze your hair out in the shower, then pat it dry; it's not gonna hurt. It's what I did. You can not possibly get your hair out the shower soaking and expect it to dry like that, that is not gonna happen in 48 hours even, you actually need to squeeze it out, get the excess water out, at least!

Got it! Good to hear hahah.

**Andalusite** · February 16th, 2024, 02:17 AM

Originally Posted by lapushka

Brushing is totally different. That is purposefully, truly, messing with the texture. But you know, you have to be able to do hairtyping pictures or not, I think. Not everyone wants to go through the process.

Yes brushing removes my curls so I can't really do that for typing. My photos gonna be a frizzy mess but that's the only way.