What is a Hair Profile?

Knowing your hair profile is one of the essential steps when starting your hair care journey and implementing an effective daily hair care routine that will help you achieve your hair goals. Many of the commonly used hair typing systems tend to focus on curl patterns and hair texture alone, which although they are important, they shouldn’t be the start and end point of your hair knowledge. That’s why at The Good Hair Co we aim to normalise and educate you on the variety of factors that make up your hair profile, in order to identify the best products and figure out the best hair care routine for you at every stage of your life.

Let’s talk about hair profiling!

WHAT IS A HAIR PROFILE?

A hair profile is the term we at The Good Hair Co. use to describe the propeties of your hair which contribute to the effectivness of hair care products and routines. It consists of your hair’s porosity, density, elasticity, texture and curl pattern which are all determined by your genetics as well as your lifestyle choices, life changes and hair care practices. Keep reading to learn about each of these elements and why knowing your hair profile is important for your hair care.

ELASTICITY

One essential indicator of a healthy head of hair is its elasticity. Elasticity is the measure of how much your hair will stretch and return to a normal state without losing it’s natural definition or breaking off. Having high levels of elasticity means your hair is healthy, has body, bounce and will retain styles easily. Low levels of elasticity means your hair is prone to damage and requires specific products and routines to repair itself. Read our detailed post on hair elasticity and how to find your hair’s elasticity level.

DENSITY

Hair density is the number of individual hair strands that are present on your scalp per square inch of your head. High density means you have many follicles closely packed together which grow1-3 hair strands per follicle. Low density means your follicles are very few and spaced apart, growing 0-1 hair strand per follicle. For curly and coily hair, it can often seem that visually the hair is dense and thick but closer inspection will often confirm otherwise. Stress, hormones, nutrition, medication, tension and product misuse can all affect the density of your hair. A change in hair density could be a sign of a hair issues that need to be addressed before it’s too late. One of the hair issues you could face is hair loss which is the biggest contributor to hair density reduction. Read our detailed post on hair density and how to find your hair’s density.

TEXTURE

Hair texture refers to the width or diameter of each of your strands as they grow from your scalp and is classified into 3 categories; fine, medium and coarse. Hair texture often gets confused with hair density but simply put, your hair texture is how thick each strand. You can have thats full in density but also fine in texture or hair thats thin in density but coarse in texture. Your hair’s texture is determined by the shape of your follicles which are based on your genetics, however, your age, lifestyle choices and life changes can affect the texture of your hair as your hair grows. ‘Dry, oily, frizzy, relaxed and damaged are terms that describe the condition of your hair, not your hair’s natural texture. Sometimes, we get these terms confused with texture because we often base texture solely on what we feel but there’s more to texture than we can feel or see. Read our detailed post on hair texture and how to find your hair’s texture.

PATTERN

Your curl pattern or hair type can be identified by the shape of your strands as they grow out of your scalp. The most commonly known classification system of curl patterns or hair types is the Andre Walker Hair Typing System, created by Andew Walker, Oprah Winfrey’s stylist. His system classifies hair into 4 hair types; straight is 1, wavy is 2, curly is 3 and coily is 4. These patterns are then divided into subcategories based on the looseness or tightness of the waves, curls and coils - “A” being loose, “C” being tight and “B” being somewhere in the middle. Many people have more than one curl pattern which can make it very difficult to find products and styles that work for you based on this generic hair typing system alone. Read our detailed post on curl patterns and how to find your hair’s pattern. 

POROSITY

When talking about porosity, we are talking about your hair’s ability to absorb and retain moisture and product. High levels of porosity means although your hair absorbs moisture easily, it loses moisture just as quickly. Low levels of porosity means your hair struggles to absorb moisture quickly but once absorbed, the moisture will take a while to leave. Knowing how porous your hair is can help guide you to what kind of products you should be using and how to apply them. Your hair's porosity may be due to genetics or have been altered by chemicals and heat processing, making it more porous than it normally would be but it should not be used as the main indicator of healthy hair. Read our detailed post on hair porosity and how to find your hair’s porosity. 

All of the above factors are important when establishing appropriate hair care routines and practices which can all be affected by a number of other factors such as genetics, scalp conditions, medical conditions, the environment, age, hormonal imbalance and poor diet, just to name a few. At the TGHC we take all of this into account to help you find what works for you.

WHAT DO I DO NOW?

Now that you have an idea of what your hair profile consists of, book your consultation with one of our certified hair experts. Get a personalised regimen consisting of highly effective product recommendations to solve your hair and scalp concerns. Let us help you discover the expert hair care advice you need to get the healthy hair you want.