At Flora & Curl, we’re proud to celebrate textured hair in all its shapes and forms. Learning to take care of your naturally textured hair begins with a simple knowledge about your curl type.

The beauty is, that your natural hair is versatile in all its glory - it changes when wet, when dry, when damp and when styled.

It’s truly wondrous, our natural hair.

So, we often get asked "how do I find out what my natural hair’s curl type is"?

let us explain

How is my hair texture determined?

Your hair pattern is determined by the shape of your hair follicle.

Straight hair typically grows vertically out of a ‘l-shaped’ follicle whereas textured hair grows out of a ‘c-shaped’ follicle at an angle. The more angled your hair follicle is, the more textured your hair pattern will be. Hair pattern is determined by genetics but can in some cases be altered with severe heat or chemicals.

What curl types are there?

The curl spectrum is vast, and curl patterns differ from person to person.

Here at Flora & Curl we like to use Andre Walker’s Hair Type Classification System (AWHS), as this is one of the most simplistic approaches to categorising different hair types. It’s a helpful guide.

Andre Walker’s system classifies hair types according to four main categories. This includes 3 curl types:

type 1 - straight

type 2 - wavy

type 3 - curly

type 4 - coily

The curl hair types or curl types are further divided into 3 sub-categories of curl patterns:

"a" being loose

"b" being medium;

and "c" being the tightest curl pattern