We All Have Good Hair: A Breakdown of Curl Patterns

April 18th, 2012 - By Alissa Henry

"Celebrities with straight hair"

1. Straight

This hair type has no natural curl. Though it’s often lauded as the most manageable, studies have shown that straight hair actually tangles easier than other types and is more prone to split ends. Straight hair is, however, the most resilient hair type and resists damage. Straight hair types should use a flat paddle brush with wide bristles that separates the hair without damage.

Straight hair tends to be oilier than curly hair because the oil comes from the follicle and runs down the length. To combat this, straight hair types should wash their hair every day with a gentle shampoo and avoid products with alcohol high on the ingredients list.

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  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Niecey-Gee/100000544177989 Niecey Gee

    Rather than hair “type”, you should have told us the manafacturer, and “kind” of hair that was. UGH!

  • Dee

    We all have good hair however out of 4 pictures of women of African history not even one shows “kinky hair”! Any wonder why people talk about “good hair”?

  • Pingback: African-American Hair: Is the Hair Type Chart Useful? | Kate Beauty Tips

  • Teresa Vasquez78

    As a reader AND a hairdresser, I am absolutely DISGUSTED with this article. 1st of all, good hair is HEALTHY hair, regardless of texture. And you were perpetuating the stereotype instead of dispelling it when you can’t even show us examples of these hair types in true form. Black people do not have straight hair and NO one with coarse hair should be washing any more than once a week. You used a Mowry sister, of all people, to demonstrate what STRAIGHT hair looks like? Are you serious?! They have one of the best examples of curls out! Obviously ANYbody can write an uninformed, ignorant article, but my intelligence level will not allow me to read this fuckry. i stopped after the first two hair types… Ya’ll have seriously dropped the ball. I’m so good on MadamNoire. wasnt a regular reader anyway, but I DEFINITELY won’t be now.

  • TheRealTPayne

    Why in the world would you publish photos of women who are all wearing a weave? 

    • KickWhitesOutAfrica

      LOL ~ Brilliant question :-)

    • LELE COOP

      WOW……I was thinking the same thing….most of the pictures were weaves or wigs!!!  Just no common sense!!!

  • LovelyGal

    umm why did this article have to be of celeberities??? to make this post more helpful-pictures of ladies w/ the acutall textures wouldn’t hurt. but thats what sites like curlynikki and curlmart are for

  • Mls2698

    I only comb my curly/kinky hair once a week when I wash it; otherwise I just scrunch and go. No thanks

  • Mls2698

    Curse word! Unbeweavable.

  • Courtneyhilton52

    come on madame noire….really this article is not a good or concise depiction of hair types…i could have all these hair types all i gotta do is go to the bss

  • Wow

    Really? You mean you couldn’t find a single picture of a woman who wasn’t wearing a wig or a weave (save 1 or 2) to illustrate NATURAL curl patterns.

  • Business406

    LMAO at a weave with pin curls that the article claimed was “curly” hair. WTF? LOL!!

  • Phoenix

    Thank you for this article. I found it very helpful. :)

  • Nesandiego

    I love Ya Ya DaCosta’s hair. (4a)

  • Poetsgroove

    Ok all of the type 4 are real!

    • Mimi

      no, solonge is wearing a wig or weave. that’s not her real hair

      • NubianPrize

        Actually that just might be Solange’s real hair.She’s been featured in several articles I’ve seen saying she’s now rocking her natural hair. A while back she had a twa & apparently it’s grown out. Here’s an article from Essence:
        http://www.essence.com/2011/09/07/hairstyle-file-solange-knowles/However, I  do agree with the other posters that this article features too many weaves & wigs. BTW, I’ve seen other hair type analyses that say Solange & Esperanza have types anywhere from 3c to 4c. All this picky hair typing really doesn’t mean much because many times the products you use might depend more on the hair’s porosity, overall condition,moisture holding ability, & density as well as curl pattern. And some folks use hair typing as an updated form of the old good vs bad hair  wars.You can go crazy trying to type your hair only to find out that a product recommended for your type doesn’t work as well as one for another type.There are also waaaayyyy too many hair variations to classify in the black community . Don’t forget, Aussie Moist, Giovanni ,Herbal Essence,regular Pantene, VO5 & other products basically aimed at white girls’ hair often works very well on our hair & some of them with frizzy hair use OUR products. You can go crazy with hair typing if you have badly damaged or unhealthy hair & then find you have to change hair type products once your hair is healthy again.  Then there’s the fact that different products produce different  hair type looks.I just say I have type 4 hair & call it a day !!

  • Poetsgroove

    The Mowry sisters are naturally curly head girls!

  • http://www.facebook.com/Mss.Ty Tiffany Alexander

    ALL OF THESE FEMALES HAVE WEAVES OR WIGS EXCEPT FOR THE LAST 3 PICS SO THIS WAS NOT HELPFUL AT ALL I HAVE NATURAL HAIR AND STUDIED COSMETOLOGY I KNOW ABOUT  OUR NATURAL HAIR PATTERNS AND NONE OF THEM ARE BONE STRAIGHT SORRY 

  • Mrsadkiah

    There are no Black women with naturally straight hair….why did they show these women with their weaves? SMH.

  • http://twitter.com/AlissaInPink Alissa

    (From Alissa Henry) – The pictures featuring women with obvious weave may have been a bad judgment call on my part. The intention is not to deceive. (We all know that’s not Tyra’s hair lol.) I just wanted to post a picture of a black woman – even if the black woman has weave – because mostly black women read this site. Don’t we all see enough pictures of non-black women in other magazines and websites? I meticulously chose each picture to illustrate the descriptions. In hindsight, I could have used different illustrations, but I hope you can at least appreciate the content of the article. Thanks for reading :-) .  

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