Hair Types Chart: All 12 Curl Patterns From 1A to 4C

Hair is typed on a 1–4 scale by curl pattern — 1 is straight, 2 is wavy, 3 is curly and 4 is coily — and each number is split into A, B and C by how tight the pattern is. That gives twelve types in all, from 1A (the finest straight hair) to 4C (the tightest zig-zag coil). Your type is set by the shape of the follicle beneath the scalp: round follicles grow straight hair, oval follicles grow waves, and increasingly flattened, curved follicles grow curls and coils.

Knowing your type is not vanity admin. It decides which products actually work on your hair, how often you should wash it, which haircuts hold their shape — and, if you are considering a hair transplant, how a surgeon plans and performs the operation. This page is the master chart. Each family also has its own in-depth guide, linked in place below.

The complete hair type chart (1A to 4C)

How to find your hair type in four steps

Type your hair clean, product-free and air-dried. Anything else — heat, gel, a day-three wash — will give you the wrong answer, and mistyping is the single most common reason a “correct” routine fails.

1. Wash and do not touch it. Shampoo, rinse, and let it air-dry without brushing, scrunching, plopping or applying any product. Brushing alone can pull a 3A into looking like a 2B.
2. Look at a single strand against a plain background. Straight from root to tip is type 1. An S shape is type 2. A loop or spiral is type 3. A tight coil or sharp Z is type 4.
3. Measure the width of the pattern. Compare one curl to an everyday object: wine cork (3A), marker pen (3B), pencil (3C), crochet needle (4A). This is the step that separates the letters.
4. Check more than one area. Most people are not one single type. The nape and the crown are very often a full step apart, and the hairline is usually looser than the rest.

Type 1 — straight hair (1A, 1B, 1C)

Round follicles, no natural bend. Because the strand is smooth and circular in cross-section, sebum travels from the scalp down the hair shaft with nothing to slow it. That is why type 1 hair looks glossy and feels soft but goes limp and greasy faster than any other type, and why heavy conditioner is usually the wrong answer for it.

Telling 1A, 1B and 1C apart

• 1A is the rarest type overall. Extremely fine, perfectly flat, no bend anywhere, and it resists curling even with heat. Scalp is visible at the parting.
• 1B has medium-thickness strands and a little natural body, particularly through the ends. It holds a blow-dry for a few hours.
• 1C has coarse, thick individual strands and a slight bend near the ends. It is the most likely of the three to frizz in humidity.

What actually works on type 1

• Volume comes from the cut and from lightweight product — a mousse or a root spray — never from heavy conditioner or oil, which flattens it within an hour.
• Condition mid-length to ends only. Conditioner at the root is the most common type 1 mistake.
• Blunt cuts read as fuller than heavy layering, which can make fine straight hair look thinner at the ends.
• Dry shampoo between washes works well here because the problem is oil, not moisture loss.

Type 2 — wavy hair (2A, 2B, 2C)

Oval follicles producing an S-shaped bend that lies closer to flat than to spiral. Type 2 sits on the border between straight and curly, which makes it the family most often mistyped in both directions — wavy hair brushed dry looks straight, and wavy hair scrunched with product looks curly.

Telling 2A, 2B and 2C apart

• 2A is a fine, barely-there wave that only begins below ear level. It straightens under its own weight and drops out quickly.
• 2B has a clearly defined S from mid-length down, with roots that stay noticeably flatter than the ends.
• 2C waves start at the root, the strands are thicker, and a few genuine spirals appear. This is where type 2 begins to behave like type 3.

What actually works on type 2

• The signature problem is a flat root with a frizzy mid-length. Root-lifting at the drying stage fixes more of it than any product applied later.
• Lightweight gels and sea-salt sprays hold the wave; creams and butters usually collapse it.
• Avoid brushing when dry. Detangle wet, with conditioner in, then leave it alone.
• Diffusing on low heat preserves the S pattern; rough towel drying destroys it.

Type 3 — curly hair (3A, 3B, 3C)

Flattened, curved follicles producing true loops and spirals. Because the strand is elliptical rather than round, scalp oils cannot travel down it easily. The result is the defining type 3 contradiction: an oily scalp and dry ends on the same head of hair.

Telling 3A, 3B and 3C apart

• 3A forms large, loose, springy loops with plenty of shine and noticeable movement.
• 3B forms tighter ringlets with more volume and visibly less shine, because the surface reflects light in more directions.
• 3C forms dense corkscrews packed closely together. Shrinkage becomes significant here — hair can look much shorter dry than it measures wet.

What actually works on type 3

• Definition and moisture are the whole game. Layer water-based leave-in first, then cream, then gel, on soaking-wet hair.
• Squish the product in rather than raking it through, and do not touch the hair again until it is fully dry.
• Co-washing or a sulphate-free shampoo protects the natural oil the ends need.
• Sleep on satin or silk. Cotton pillowcases lift the cuticle and turn defined curls into frizz overnight.

Type 4 — coily hair (4A, 4B, 4C)

The flattest follicles and the tightest patterns. Every bend in the strand is a point where the cuticle lifts slightly, and every lifted point is a potential break. This makes type 4 hair structurally the most fragile of all types despite frequently looking and feeling the most robust — a mismatch that leads a lot of people to handle it far more roughly than it can take.

Telling 4A, 4B and 4C apart

• 4A forms defined, visible S-shaped coils roughly the width of a crochet needle. The pattern is clear even when dry.
• 4B bends at sharp angles rather than curving, producing a Z shape. Strands are densely packed and the pattern is less visible.
• 4C has the tightest pattern with almost no definition visible until the hair is wet or product is applied.

What actually works on type 4

• Shrinkage of half the actual length or more is normal and is not hair loss. Measure a stretched strand before assuming anything has been lost.
• Moisture then seal: water-based product first, then an oil or butter on top to hold the water in. Oil alone on dry hair seals dryness in.
• Detangle only when wet and saturated with conditioner, working from the ends upward in small sections.
• Protective styles help — but tension is the danger. A style that pulls at the hairline is the mechanism behind traction alopecia, which is one of the few genuinely preventable forms of hair loss.

What the chart does not tell you

Curl pattern is only one of four properties that decide how your hair behaves. Two people can both be genuine 3Bs and need completely different routines because the other three differ. This is the reason curl-type advice so often fails: it is a quarter of the picture presented as the whole of it.

Porosity — how the strand handles water

Porosity describes how readily the cuticle lets moisture in and how well it holds it. It matters more than curl type for product selection.

• Low porosity: the cuticle lies flat and resists water. Product sits on the surface and builds up; hair takes a long time to get wet and a long time to dry. Lightweight products and gentle heat during conditioning help.
• Medium porosity: absorbs and holds moisture readily. The least demanding to care for.
• High porosity: the cuticle is raised, often through damage, colour or heat. Water goes in fast and leaves just as fast, so hair feels dry within hours of conditioning. Heavier sealants and protein help.

The float test — dropping a clean strand into a glass of water — is widely repeated but unreliable, because surface tension and residual product both distort the result. How your hair behaves in the shower is a better indicator: hair that takes minutes to wet through is low porosity.

Density, strand width and elasticity

• Density is how many strands grow per square centimetre of scalp. This is what people usually mean when they say “thick hair”. Low density with a tight curl pattern still looks full; high density with a straight pattern can still look flat.
• Strand width is how thick one individual hair is — fine, medium or coarse. It is independent of type. A 1A can be coarse and a 4C can be fine.
• Elasticity is how far a wet strand stretches before it snaps. Low elasticity is the clearest early warning of damage, and it usually means the hair needs protein rather than more moisture.

Where the system came from — and its limits

The 1–4 numbering was popularised by stylist Andre Walker in the 1990s and the A/B/C sub-divisions were added later by the natural hair community rather than by the original system. It is a styling shorthand, not a clinical classification, and it has real weaknesses: it treats coily hair as a single number when the range within type 4 is wider than the range between types 1 and 2, and it says nothing about the scalp. Use it as a starting point for product choice, not as a medical description of your hair.

Care routine by hair type

Most routine advice fails because it is written for one type and read by another. The table below sets the four families side by side on the decisions that actually differ. Where two types share a row, the difference genuinely is small.

The mistake each type makes most often

• Type 1: applying conditioner or oil at the root, then blaming the hair for going flat and greasy. Condition the ends only.
• Type 2: brushing when dry. It breaks the S pattern into frizz, and no product applied afterwards will put it back.
• Type 3: touching the hair while it dries. Every touch before it has set disrupts the cast the gel is forming and releases frizz.
• Type 4: applying oil to dry hair. Oil does not add moisture — it seals in whatever is already there, so oiling dry hair locks the dryness in.

Scalp care applies to every type

Hair typing describes the strand, but the follicle is in the scalp, and every type shares the same scalp requirements. Persistent flaking, itching, soreness or visible inflammation are not styling problems and do not respond to styling solutions. Scalp conditions such as seborrhoeic dermatitis and folliculitis can contribute to shedding if they are left untreated, and they are treated medically rather than cosmetically. Our guide to scalp infections and hair loss covers the ones most often mistaken for dandruff.

Why hair type matters in hair restoration

Curl pattern is not a cosmetic footnote in a hair transplant — it changes the surgery itself. In curly and coily hair the follicle is curved beneath the skin, so the visible angle of the strand on the surface does not reveal the angle of the root below it. That has four practical consequences.

• Extraction is technically harder in type 3 and type 4 hair. The curved follicle has to be extracted along its curve; a punch driven straight down risks transecting it.
• Coverage per graft differs by pattern. A coil covers more visible scalp area than a straight strand of the same length, which is why coverage planning is not a single graft-count formula applied across all types.
• Hairline design changes with pattern. A hairline that reads as natural on 1A hair will not read the same way on 4B, because the way the pattern falls, clusters and casts shadow is different.
• Donor assessment changes. Density counts and the way the donor area will look after harvesting both depend on how much scalp each strand visually covers.

This is why an experienced clinic asks about your curl pattern during assessment rather than treating every scalp identically. If your hair is Afro-textured, the specialist considerations are set out in our Afro hair transplant guide, and the differences for East and South Asian hair are covered in our guide to hair transplant considerations for Asian hair types.

Does hair type ever change?

Yes — and more often than people expect. Curl pattern is genetically set, but the follicle producing it can be altered, and when the follicle changes shape the hair growing from it changes with it.

• Puberty and pregnancy commonly shift a pattern by a full step in either direction through hormonal change. Post-partum shedding can also make a pattern look looser temporarily.
• Chemotherapy frequently causes hair to regrow with a different texture — often curlier — and the change is sometimes permanent.
• Ageing tends to reduce strand width, so hair often reads as looser, finer and less defined over time.
• Thyroid disorders and significant nutritional deficiency can change texture alongside density.
• Heat and chemical damage can permanently relax a pattern by breaking the disulphide bonds that hold it. This is damage, not a genuine type change, and it does not reverse.

A sudden texture change with no obvious cause, particularly when it arrives alongside increased shedding, is worth investigating rather than styling around. Our guide to blood tests in hair loss diagnosis explains which markers are usually checked and why.