How To Determine Your Hair Type And Style It Accordingly

What’s your hair type? If you already know, clever you! If not, you’ve come to the right place. Just as it’s important to know our blood type, skin type and sex language (in that order, of course), knowing our hair type can determine how we manage our daily styling and the products that will best suit our strands.

So, whether your mane falls flat at the slightest increase in humidity, or your curls continuously refuse to behave, we’re here to help.

From super-fine to coarse to frizzy and everything in between, it’s time to determine your hair type and how best to style it, once and for all.

What are the three hair types?

#1 Straight

Greasy, oily, limp, lifeless – are these the words you associate with your ‘do? Fret not, fellow flathead, for there is beauty in straight hair, too!

The way to approach it is this: know what styles are going to work – and what won’t – in your favour, because the sooner you do, the sooner you’ll stop those dead-straight strands from raining on your parade.

So if you can’t get more than one-and-a-half days between washes and you’ve got an unnerving addiction to dry shampoo, then stick around, because we’re about to get real.

#2 Wavy

Those with straight strands might look at this category of locks with envy, but it can be tough getting those waves to behave. Without the right haircare goods on your side, wavy locks can mean risky business.

#3 Curly

Whether you’re working with tight corkscrew curls to ones you can poke a finger through, curls are typically much coarser than other hair types. Because of the many twists and turns of this texture type, it’s hard to get moisture to the scalp and maintain shine.

How to style your hair type

Styling straight hair…

Featuring baby-fine strands with no real oomph, straight hair can often refuse to hold a curl, no matter how hard you try. For an instant lift, keep a dry shampoo or texturising spray like the Batiste Original Dry Shampoo ($9.99, Chemist Warehouse) on hand.

Remember to avert your eyes from heavy shampoos and conditioners – they’ll only weigh your ‘do down and turn up the grease factor twofold.

If your roots are lacking any real oomph and body, try sprinkling a weightless volumising powder – like the got2b Powder’ful Volumizing Styling Powder ($8.39, Chemist Warehouse) – through your roots.

Styling wavy hair…

Wavy hair will often toe the line between intentional bed head and needs a brush. Funnily enough, nailing this effortless texture actually requires some effort.

Take small sections of hair and loosely curl them with a curling iron. Follow up with a light spritz of a sea salt spray like the JUSTICE Professional Sea Salt Spray ($19.95, Justice Professional), and scrunch.

If your waves are on the thicker and coarser side, however, they’ll typically require a little more maintenance. In this case we we recommend a mousse like the De Lorenzo Elements Motion Styling Mousse ($23, Hair House) to help create control without interfering with your natural movement.

If your hair is frizz-prone with little relief, we recommend ditching your usual shampoo in place of smoothing and humidity-repellent formulation like Redken’s Frizz Dismiss Shampoo ($36, Adore Beauty).

Styling curly hair…

When your hair is bigger than your body it can take a full 24 hours to dry. Throw heat styling into the equation and you might be there all night.

Instead of trying to tame and control your curls, why not just embrace them? After all, you’re the hair type with natural body – consider yourself blessed. Finger-styling and deep conditioning treatments are a must to keep curls looking bouncy, beautiful and tangle-free.

And when things start looking a little dry, boost your hair’s hydration by adding a nourishing hair oil like the Kérastase Paris Elixir Ultime ($72, Adore Beauty).

Which of these hair types is best suited to you?