I was wondering, does everyone here use a typing system on their hair?  Like Fia's system or the Curly Girl Book system.

It seems hard for me to try to assign a mathematical value to qualities that are aesthetic.  I'm  beginning to think more along the lines of being a point on a continuum rather than a narrowly defined, by necessity, category.

It's like placing straight on one end and very curly on the other.  Then you would seem to need a string with fine on one end and coarse on the other.  And a color line as well from white, to light, through reds, dark, black hair.

It is kind of like symbolic logic.  It is difficult to work through a mathematical equation where the numbers have been replaced by words.  It's hard to define the words narrowly enough to make the categorization meaningful.

I feel like my hair shape-shifts or morphs.  Sometimes the color looks different.  Sometime the texture looks different.

I've noticed a lot of people do not list a hair type on their posts.  Others, like myself have a hard time choosing just one category 1C-2a Fi-ii.

So for the next six months, I am going to abandon hairtyping and only describe my hair in words and see if I feel any differently about it at that time.  That will be next June 4th, 2005.

I do ramble on...

I did type my hair. At first I thought it was 1a, because from the description, 1b would show up as "body wave". My hair has no body, being fine. Later I noticed I had a flip on the last few inches, and my hair shows some wave when wet. Now I realize that the hair typing system doesn't describe fine hair as well as it does coarser hair, which holds its wave when dry rather than straightening out by gravity.

I also typed my thickness as ii, as my ponytail measures 3-1/4" around. I have noticed, though, that many women who also type their hair as ii have much less hair than I do. Also on the LHC board, a thread a while back discussed how tightly women pull their ponytails when measuring around. I was surprised to find that many wavy or curly-haired women do not pull tight at all. So a thickness measurement for a woman with straight hair may mean something very different than the same measurement for a woman with hair that has natural volume.

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EXACTLY!!! and what is worse: i noticed strange differences in measurements on myself ... like sometimes it's as much as 4", but usually less (especially if i pull the string as tight as i can). i wonder if the coating by conditioner or oil or purely the moisture level doesn't influence the whole thing either. if moisture could make hair swell, of course it can count since there are tons of them! i am quie sure if you squeeze hard you could measure a difference if you have recently washed them.

I think Fia's and Curly Girl's hair typing systems allow people to make general comparisons regarding their hair.  This then allows us to "qualify" the comments and recommendations someone makes and consider if they might apply to our own hair or not.

Everyone's hair is different.  Combine the hair with the climate, living conditions, water conditions, and genetics, and it would be next to impossible to for anyone to have exactly the same hair. 

I've never been totally sold on the hair typing, but I have "typed" my hair only so others here might know how my hair would compaire to theirs.  Using the typing can be a "shorthand" method of describing your hair, but it only works if everyone knows the "key".

Wow! what Bikerbraid said so makes sense to me now!

But Kate, I hear ya, Sister!lol
And I can sooo relate.

I guess if used as general descriptive classifications they have value, but I was tending to get obsessive about what 'type' I was.

So I guess I'm in the neighborhood of 2aFii but I'm not certain of my exact "address".

These replies were awesome!

strawberryfine
neighborhood of 2aFii-"ish";
straightish, reddish, fine, thinnish, etceteraish, etc

Find it here:

http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/showthread.php?t=357

I type myself as a 1c-2aFi.  Looks like I'm very close to
you, Strawberryfine! (Fia's System)  However, I can't
really decide how straight or wavy my hair is.  It's not
curly, but it's not straight.  It gets straighter in arid climes and if I put some products in it (silicone).  In the
humid summer it gets wavier and frizzier.  One side of
my hair (left) has more waves than the right.  Wierd, huh?
I have trouble measuring my pony tail, but I know it's
thin.  I have very heavy bangs, which I'm growing out.
Maybe they'll contribute to the volume of my pony tail
when they get long enough and bump me up to a Fii?
I can only hope.

Yay Babyfine!

I think it was one of your posts that made me first post on this board, about "too fine to be long"- it really helped me decide to grow it out; thanks!

Since you have thick bangs, can you make a ponytail high up on your head, almost to your forehead to get the bangs included?

Or

You could gather your bangs up and measure the circumference and add that to the circumference of your ponytail to get a more true picture of what you've really got growing there.

My hair does a lot of shape-shifting in the curl department, too.  Sometimes it travels, sometimes it hangs.  But that's okay.  I have my mood swings too.  Shouldn't my hair be entitiled to a little moodiness now and then?
Okay, maybe I don't exactly have wavy hair, maybe I have moody hair!lol

strawberryfine