Hair Basics

Hi there! Welcome to Carefree Curls.
When you're just starting the curly girl method, everything can be really confusing and overwhelming. What on earth is porosity? How do I determine my hair's texture? What's all of this 2b, 3a, 4c, etc. nonsense?! Yeah, those were some of the things I was stressing about at first. In this post, I'll go over some of the basics and explain what these things mean.

Porosity

Okay, so you may be wondering what porosity is. Essentially, the porosity of your hair is how quickly (or slowly) your hair absorbs stuff like moisture. People say that you can do this "float test" with a strand of hair, but several trustworthy people have told me that this test can be unreliable and can be confusing if it gives multiple results. The easiest way to tell what the porosity of your hair is is to simply see how long your hair takes to dry without any products on it. If it takes less than two hours to dry, that means your hair is high porosity. If your hair takes 6+ hours to dry, your hair is low porosity. If it's anywhere in between those two time frames, then your hair is medium/normal porosity. Keep in mind that it's possible to have multiple porosities in the same head of hair! For instance, the front sections of my hair are high porosity, but the rest is medium.
Now that you know how to tell what the porosity of your hair is, you're probably curious about why this matters. Like I mentioned earlier, high porosity hair absorbs moisture pretty quickly. However, it also loses moisture quickly, so higher porosity hair tends to need more moisture while low porosity retains moisture longer. Different products will work better for different porosities.

Texture

Next up: texture! The texture of your hair is basically how thick each individual strand of hair is. If your hair is really thin & isnt very thick or strong, your hair is probably fine. If your hair is thick, strong, and each individual strand is easily visible when held up to light, your hair is probably coarse. If your hair is somewhere in between, it's probably medium. You can always compare your hair to your friends' hair to see how thick it is compared to theirs.

Fine hair tends to need more protein because it's thinner & needs the extra strength, but coarse hair is already thick & strong, so it usually doesn't need much protein.

When your hair is medium texture (or porosity), it generally needs a good balance of protein/moisture. Click this link if you want to read about protein/moisture: [link]

Curl type

Your curl type doesn't matter as much as your texture & porosity do. Your curl type is basically just how curly your hair is. The possible curl types are 2a, 2b, 2c, 3a, 3b, 3c, 4a, 4b, and 4c. Don't get overwhelmed by that. The 2's are wavy hair, the 3's are curly hair, and the 4's are tightly curly hair. It's possible to have multiple curl types on the same head of hair! If you want to see what your curl type is, take a look at this: [link]

Naturallycurly.com also has a quick quiz you can take to help you find out your hairstyle. I encourage you to explore naturallycurly.com and check out their forums!



Those are the basics of your hair! You'll find that certain products will work with certain hair types. Eventually, you'll figure out what your hair likes & doesn't like. I hope this will help you embrace your beautiful curls & set them free! ;)

-CK