BETTER THAN LOIS HAIR TYPING! Hair Typing Revised
Defining hair types and textures are a great way to help us determine which products and styling techniques work best for our hair.  Traditionally there have been four main types of hair: Straight, Wavy, Curly and Kinky.  This article will add a fifth category but before we proceed, I want to acknowledge that there are some who take offense to the words "Kinky" and "Nappy."  And there are still others who simply don't understand the meaning behind these terms.

Years ago an Afri-Indie friend in England asked me what "nappy" meant because to her, "nappy" refers to a baby's diaper.  So yeah folk, "nappy" can mean a "catcher of baby poo and wee" in addition to its negative associations with African/natural Black hair.  You have to wonder, does this word ever get a break? 


Where I could opt to use alternate words in this typology, I don't wanna.  "Kinky" and "Nappy" can be what you make them and until I happen to think of better words to describe what this typing system is all about (degree of curl), I leave it to you to keep your outrage and offense in check.

Within each general hair type category, we have a whole bunch of ways to classify our hair Texture and thickness.  What has always bothered me is that despite the fact that there are varying systems, each presuming to improve upon the other, they are all subjective and some of them make absolutely no sense.  It's been 10 years and I still don't know what LOIS daughter I am.

Aside from the confusion, many of the revised systems are inherently biased.  Why is it that virtually all biracial people are regarded as Type 3 (Curly), but individuals of African descent, whose hair may mimic that of Curly hair, are automatically designated as type 4 (Kinky)?

Take CaribMix's above photo as the primary example.  According to the LOIS/Walker System, she has been classified as 4a-s.  Her typing makes sense

except, what happens when someone of Caucasian descent, with no clear African ancestry, has a similar hair texture?  Would that person by default be Type 3?  Why?  Is it because White folks by default can't have "Kinky" hair?

Well consider this photo of Bob Ross (may he rest in piece) above right.  You may remember Mr. Ross from PBS.  He had a painting show on there for years, an amazingly cool voice and hippy spirit.  He succumbed to cancer in the mid-90s and we use him to demonstrate that hair typing can transcend racial lines. 

Granted, his hair may have been processed in some way but assuming it was not, I ask you, would Mr. Ross, who is White, be a 3a or 4a?

Or what about individuals who have wavy hair?  Can an African-American woman be classified as a 2a or 3a?  In the LOIS article reprinted with permission on this site, Wavezncurlz is a 4a-i or something like that.  But why is she a 4-anything?  Her hair is clearly curly or at the very least wavy.  Who would say that she has "kinky" hair?

So I couldn't wrap my mind around the LOIS system.  Maybe it was because the photos were so confusing.  Maybe it's because for the life of me I couldn't figure out where I fit in.  Or maybe it was in researching other articles regarding hair typing, the authors of these articles would most often cite photos of celebrities like Beyonce or Erykah Badu as having "curly/kinky" hair types.  Since when does a weave or lace wig, no matter how well crafted, serve as an example of someone's natural hair?

In this article, I hope to eliminate the fluff, the racial bias and non-sensicalness of the hair typing system.   I will attempt to refine some existing hair systems by improving and expanding upon them.  I will use real examples of real people and to the best of my ability, assign them a category (based on a photo...again, subjective).

I will use Fia's Hair Typing System and LOIS as a foundation which is funny because they're actually an expansion/revision of the "original" hair typing system developed years earlier by Andre Walker (Oprah's Hair Stylist) in Andre Talks Hair. 

Yeah I know, why would you need my system if I've already given you three existing ones?  Reason being, mine is better :-P

It focuses on How much curl you got, The texture of your curls and How those curls behave, not what color you just happen to be.