3 Steps to Create The Perfect Natural Regimen: Pt 1 - Understand your Curls
If you’re ready to take your curls next level, then stick with me for this three-part series! I'm about to spill all the juicy details on building a naturally curly regimen that is perfect just for YOU — from homes and term papers to recipes - having an effective foundation will either make or break the results you end up with. It’s the same with your hair — finding the right combination of products, tools, services & styles should be created using your curl characteristics as a foundation. Let's get started...
First Up, Understanding Your Curls
If you're looking for ways to make your natural journey easier, determining the characteristics of your locks is key. Porosity, density, texture, and length all play important roles in finding that perfect combo of products and styles! It took me a while to figure this out, but lucky you we’ve got you covered. If you’d like to skip ahead and get your curl profile rolling click the button below:
Porosity
Don't let porosity intimidate you! It's just a fancy way of saying how well your hair can soak up and keep moisture. The structure of the outer layer of each hair strand lets us know if we have low, medium, or high porosity curls. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with any of these levels of porosity. Don’t believe me? Let’s break this down a bit.
If you have high porosity curls, the cuticle on your hair shaft will be more open. As a result, those curls will easily be able to take in moisture. However, they will also have a hard time holding onto the moisture it takes in. On the flip side, low-porosity curls have much tighter cuticles. This means that hair with this porosity has a harder time absorbing moisture, but has a much easier time holding onto the moisture it takes in.Now that you know the meaning of porosity, let's determine what your level is. We'll keep it simple with an easy test: grab a strand of hair and slide it towards your scalp - if there are frequent ridges, then yours is likely high; slightly bumpy = medium; slick as ice = low! Easy peasy right?
Density
Did you know that there are a whopping 2,200 strands of hair per square inch for the average person? That's right - your mane is made up of more follicles than stars in the night sky! While porosity measures how much moisture your curls absorb and retain, density tells us exactly how tightly together those precious stands are packed. This helps to understand what kind cut or style best suits your locks as well as giving ideas on products and treatments tailored specifically just for you.
To find out your hair density quickly and easily all you need is a mirror. If you can see your scalp without touching or moving it, congrats sis - those curls of yours belong in the low-density club. Only able to spot that scalpy goodness after gently parting some strands? Your tresses are rockin' medium density. And finally, if nothing's wanna reveal itself no matter how hard ya try -- high-density locks for the win! It couldn't get much simpler than this folks...
Strand Size
Strand size, also known as hair width, thickness, or texture is the measure of a single strand of hair’s width. There are three categories: coarse, medium or fine — with thickest being classified as "coarse", and thinnest as “fine”. Stand Size also plays a role in determining the strength, the amount of manipulation it can take, and ultimately your hair’s ability to retain length. Rule of thumb: thicker strands mean more strength!
Measuring your strand size is kind of fun. So let’s get to it:
Grab your brush/comb and pull out a strand of shed hair.
Pull the strand tight and tape it gently on a light-colored piece of paper.
Take a bit of thread and pull apart the strands. Tape one of these strands next to your hair on the lightly colored paper.
Compare the two strands. If the hair is thinner than the thread your curls are fine. If the hair is roughly the same thickness as the thread strand your curls are medium-width. If the hair is thicker than the thread strand then curls are coarse.
Length
This characteristic is pretty self-explanatory, right? Trymyfab defines the length characteristic as the measure of the average distance (in inches for our purposes) from the scalp to the very ends of the hair shaft. This characteristic is generally used for tracking purposes, so you 100% want to be as consistent as possible with the method you pick to measure your length at a given time. Fun fact, Length is a great tool to track progress on growth goals but can also help you figure out how much product will be best for achieving luscious locks.
Notice that our definition of Length mentions “average”. We like tracking the length of curls from a few different spots on the scalp — the crown, nape, forelock, and sides (left & right). this way you can easily identify any stubborn problem spots when they appear! Measuring your curl length is pretty straightforward. Before you begin, part and clip your hair into the sections described here.
Take a portion of hair from one of the sections you’ve made — an inch-wide portion is plenty — and gently stretch the hair until it’s straight.
Grab a ruler, a or flexible measuring tape and measure from your scalp to the end of the section of hair.
Record the measurement and repeat steps 1 & 2 for each of the sections.
If you’re not that into precision length measurements, you can 100% use the more general/holistic measurement method; it’s actually what we use during onboarding. Here you are basically matching your current length with common growth stages. We’ve added an image illustrating these stages for reference below:
But what about curl typing? For us, typing is just a collection of characteristics that typically appear together. These are constructs created to help us better understand groups of characteristics, and we often have several Curl Types within our fabulous crowns. Team Trymyfab definitely uses and references types in conversation and when communicating broadly about natural hair, but we prefer leaning on characteristics as they are closer to the science of curl care — and we are major nerds 🤓.
Starting to see how just knowing your curl characteristics can help put you miles ahead of the regimen game? We know we wish someone had explained this to us a long long time ago too. If you’d like to save your curl characteristics for future use or reference, we’ve got you covered. The team has built a curl profile tool that not only saves your curl characteristics but also gives you better insight into how to use these items to further personalize your regimen.
