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What hair texture actually means
Most people use texture to mean curl pattern, because that is what the charts show. It is really four separate properties, and only one of them is what the 1A–4C system measures. Knowing the other three is what stops you buying hair that looks right in the photo and refuses to blend on your head.
Curl pattern is the shape a strand takes when it dries with nothing in it. Straight, wavy, curly, coily. This is the only property the type chart describes, and it is the one that matters most when you are matching an extension texture to a leave-out.
Strand width is how thick one individual hair is — fine, medium or coarse. Fine hair is thinner than a sewing thread; coarse is noticeably thicker. Width has nothing to do with pattern: 4C hair can be fine, and 1A hair can be coarse. Width decides how much weight your hair can carry, which is why a fine-haired person should be careful with heavy long installs.
Density is how many strands you have per square inch. It is what people usually mean when they say thick or thin hair, and it is the property that decides how many bundles an install needs to look natural against your own hair.
Porosity is how readily the cuticle lets water and product in and out. Low porosity resists moisture and sits with product on top; high porosity drinks it and loses it fast. Porosity drives your care routine more than pattern does — for you and for your extensions.
Where extensions come in. You are matching pattern for looks and everything else for behaviour. A 3C leave-out with a 3C-adjacent extension texture blends. The same 3C leave-out over hair that is fine and low porosity when yours is coarse and high porosity will still blend visually but will not behave the same in humidity — which is the real reason installs stop looking blended after a week.
The chart
Hair type chart: 1A to 4C
The system in general use comes from Andre Walker and sorts hair into four families by curl pattern, each split into A, B and C by how tight that pattern is. A is the loosest in its family, C the tightest. Most heads carry two or three types at once — looser at the nape, tighter at the crown — so read this as a range rather than a single answer.
| Type | What it looks like | How you would know | Closest extension texture |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1A | Perfectly straight, fine, no bend at all | Shows oil fast, will not hold a curl without heat and product | Straight |
| 1B | Straight with more body, medium width | Holds a curl for a few hours; has visible volume at the root | Straight |
| 1C | Straight but coarse, with a slight bend near the ends | Frizzes in humidity despite being straight; feels thick between fingers | Straight or Yaki Straight |
| 2A | Loose, wide S-waves close to the head | Dries into a soft tousle; weighed down by heavy products | Body Wave |
| 2B | Defined S-waves starting around mid-length | Roots stay flatter than the lengths; frizzes at the crown | Body Wave |
| 2C | Strong waves with a few loose curls mixed in | Waves start at the root; thick and prone to frizz | Loose Wave |
| 3A | Loose, springy curls about the width of a wine cork | Big shiny loops that lose definition when brushed | Loose Wave |
| 3B | Springy ringlets about the width of a marker pen | Voluminous, dense, dries slower than it looks | Deep Wave |
| 3C | Tight corkscrews about the width of a pencil | Packed densely together; noticeable shrinkage when it dries | Deep Wave or Curly |
| 4A | Tight coils about the width of a crochet needle | Visible S-shaped coil pattern; shrinks to around half its length | Curly |
| 4B | Sharp Z-shaped bends rather than round coils | Bends at angles instead of curling; shrinks to roughly a quarter | Curly or Kinky Straight when stretched |
| 4C | Very tight zig-zag with little visible pattern | Densest shrinkage of any type; pattern only shows when stretched | Kinky Straight when stretched, Curly when out |
How to use the last column. It names the extension texture that blends closest when you are wearing a leave-out and want your own hair to disappear into the install. If you are wearing a closure, frontal or wig, none of your hair is exposed — you can pick any texture you like on looks alone. What this chart leaves out is the next section, and it is worth reading before you commit to a letter.
Honest caveat
What the hair type chart leaves out
We publish the chart because it is genuinely useful shorthand and because it is what people search for. It is also the single most criticised tool in natural hair care, and pretending otherwise would not help anyone shop.
1 of 4
It only measures curl pattern
The letter and number describe the shape of a dry strand and nothing else. Two people can both be 4B and need completely different products, because one is fine and low porosity and the other is coarse and high porosity. If a routine is not working, pattern is usually not the variable to change.
1997
It was not designed for coily hair
The system was built around straight and wavy hair first, with type 4 added as a single broad family afterwards. That is why type 4 covers an enormous range in three letters while type 2 gets three letters for a much narrower band. It is a real, widely discussed criticism in Black hair communities, and it is fair.
Most
Most heads are more than one type
Different patterns at the nape, crown, hairline and edges are normal, not a flaw. Pick the type that describes the section you will actually be blending — usually the leave-out at the crown or the front — rather than trying to find one letter for your whole head.
The short version: use the letter to pick a texture that looks like yours, then use porosity and density to decide how to care for it. If you never work out your letter, you have lost very little. If you never work out your porosity, your wash day will keep going wrong.
Do it yourself
How to find your hair type in five steps
You need a wash day, no product and a bit of patience. Every shortcut — judging it wet, judging it with gel in, judging it from a photo — gives the wrong answer, which is why so many people get two different results from two different charts.
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Wash it and use nothing afterwards
Shampoo, condition, rinse. No leave-in, no gel, no cream, no brush. Product and manipulation both flatten or exaggerate the pattern, and either one will send you to the wrong letter.
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Let it air dry with no manipulation
Do not diffuse, do not scrunch, do not touch it while it dries. Heat and handling both change the shape a strand settles into. This is the step people skip, and it is the one that decides the answer.
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Look at one single strand, not the whole head
Pull out one dry strand and look at the smallest repeating shape in it. A gentle wide S is type 2. A round loop is type 3. A tight coil or a sharp zig-zag is type 4. No repeating shape at all is type 1. Judging the whole head at once gives you the volume, not the pattern.
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Size the pattern against something you own
Within type 3 and 4, the letter is set by width. A curl the width of a wine cork is 3A, a marker pen 3B, a pencil 3C, a crochet needle 4A. Sharp angular bends instead of round coils put you at 4B; a zig-zag so tight the pattern barely shows is 4C.
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Check strand width and porosity while you are there
Roll a single strand between your fingers: barely detectable is fine, clearly felt is coarse, in between is medium. For porosity, drop a clean shed strand in a glass of water — floating suggests low porosity, sinking slowly medium, sinking fast high. These two tell you more about your routine than the letter does.
If you would rather not do any of this, the hair quiz gets to a texture recommendation in about a minute from questions you can answer without a mirror. It is built on what is actually in stock, so it will never point you at hair we cannot ship.
Extension textures
Which extension texture blends with which hair type
These are the eight textures we actually stock, in order from straightest to tightest. Match column two to the section of your own hair that will be left out. If nothing is left out, ignore column two entirely and buy on looks.
| Texture | What it looks like | Blends with | Length it wears |
|---|---|---|---|
| Straight | Flat, glossy, no movement | Type 1 hair, and any type worn pressed or silk-pressed | Wears the full length; no shrinkage |
| Yaki Straight | Straight with a slightly textured, blow-dried finish | Relaxed hair and type 1C to 2A; the most forgiving straight leave-out | Wears about 5% shorter |
| Kinky Straight | Straight with a coarse, freshly pressed texture | Blown-out or stretched type 4 hair — the closest match for a 4B or 4C leave-out | Wears about 8% shorter |
| Body Wave | Loose, wide S-waves with a lot of movement | Type 2A to 2B, and anyone wanting soft volume rather than curl | Wears about 14% shorter |
| Loose Wave | Deeper waves edging into loose curls | Type 2C to 3A | Wears about 16% shorter |
| Deep Wave | Tight, uniform S-pattern with high definition | Type 3B to 3C | Wears about 26% shorter |
| Curly | Defined springy curls and coils | Type 3C to 4A, and 4B or 4C worn out rather than stretched | Wears about 32% shorter |
| Water Wave | Looser, less uniform wave with a wet-look finish | Type 2C to 3B | Behaves like deep wave; stock is limited |
Water wave stock is thin right now — check availability before planning an install around it, and treat deep wave as the reliable substitute. Raw versions of straight, body wave, Burmese curly and Indian wavy and curly sit in raw bundles. Column three is the shrinkage figure; the full breakdown with worn lengths is in the hair length guide.
The properties that matter more
Porosity and density, and why they beat the letter
If you only ever learn two things about your hair, learn these two. They explain more failed wash days than curl pattern ever will, and they apply to your extensions as much as to your own hair.
Porosity is how open the cuticle sits. Low porosity hair has a tightly packed cuticle: water beads on it, it takes a long time to get properly wet, products sit on the surface and it feels coated. It wants light products, warm water and heat to help things in. High porosity hair has a raised or damaged cuticle: it soaks water up immediately and loses it just as fast, which reads as permanently dry and frizzy. It wants heavier creams and oils sealed on top, and cool rinses.
The float test takes a glass of water. Drop one clean, product-free shed strand into a glass. Floating after a few minutes suggests low porosity. Sinking slowly is medium. Sinking straight to the bottom is high. It is not laboratory science, but it is directionally right and it costs nothing.
Virgin extension hair starts low to medium porosity. It has an intact cuticle, which is the whole point of virgin hair, and that means it behaves like low porosity hair when new: heavy butters sit on top and make it look greasy rather than moisturised. Every time you colour, bleach or heat-style it, porosity goes up and the routine has to change with it. The hair care guide has the routine for each.
Density decides how many bundles you buy. Density is strands per square inch, and it is what makes one person's three-bundle install look full and another's look thin. If your own hair is dense, a lighter install blends against it; if it is sparse, the same install can look obviously heavier than what it is sitting next to. The bundle calculator works from install type and length, so add a bundle if your own density is on the high side and you want the two to match.
Strand width is the third one. Fine strands break under weight. If your hair is fine, a 24″ install with four bundles is a lot of tension on a small amount of hair, and a closure or a wig is genuinely a safer choice than a leave-out sew-in.
Read the label carefully
Why texture names are not standardised
Nobody regulates these words. One brand's loose wave is another's body wave, and a third company's natural wave is both. The names describe a look the factory is aiming at, not a specification anyone audits. That is why hair that looked identical in two listings can arrive with two different patterns, and why buying the same texture name from a new vendor is a gamble in a way that buying the same length is not.
Origin names describe a texture family, not a country. Brazilian, Peruvian, Malaysian and Indian have been trade shorthand for texture profiles for decades — Brazilian for thicker and wavier, Malaysian for softer and silkier — and the hair is not necessarily sourced from those countries. A seller who talks about country of origin as proof of quality is selling you a story. The grades section of the bundles guide covers the same problem with raw, virgin and Remy.
What to do about it. Buy from photographs and video of the actual hair rather than the texture name, read the return policy before you open the packet, and when a texture works for you, stay with the vendor that sold it to you. Ours come back within 30 days — unopened for a refund, opened for store credit.
Questions
Hair texture questions, answered
What are the four types of hair texture?
Type 1 is straight, type 2 wavy, type 3 curly and type 4 coily. Each family is split into A, B and C by how tight the pattern is, giving twelve sub-types from 1A to 4C. The system describes curl pattern only — not thickness, density or porosity.
How can I tell what texture my hair is?
Wash it, put nothing in it, let it air dry untouched, then look at one single strand. A wide S is type 2, a round loop is type 3, a tight coil or zig-zag is type 4, and no repeating shape is type 1. Within types 3 and 4 the letter is set by how wide the curl is — cork, marker, pencil, crochet needle.
Is my hair 2A, 2B or 2C?
2A is a loose wide wave that sits close to the head and is easily weighed down. 2B has defined S-waves starting around mid-length with flatter roots. 2C has strong waves beginning at the root, some loose curls mixed in, and noticeable frizz. If your waves start at the root, you are 2B or 2C rather than 2A.
What is the difference between 4B and 4C hair?
4B bends at sharp Z-shaped angles rather than curling into round coils, and the pattern is visible when dry. 4C has a zig-zag so tight that little pattern shows at all until the hair is stretched, and it shrinks the most of any type — often to a quarter of its true length. Both are dense and both need moisture sealed in.
What is the rarest hair type?
1A — completely straight, fine hair with no bend anywhere — is the least common, and it is most often seen in people of East Asian descent. Within the curly families, true 3A with no other pattern mixed in is also uncommon, because most heads carry two or three types at once.
Can my hair texture change?
Yes. Hormonal change, pregnancy, medication, chemical treatment and heat damage can all change the pattern that grows out of the follicle or the pattern the existing hair holds. Chemical and heat changes affect only the hair already grown; hormonal change affects what grows next.
Does hair texture change with age?
Often. Many people find their hair becomes finer, drier or looser with age as follicles narrow and oil production drops, and grey strands frequently come in coarser and wirier than the pigmented hair around them. It is gradual, and it usually changes what your routine needs before it changes your type letter.
What hair texture should I buy for a leave-out?
Match the extension texture to the section you are leaving out, not to your whole head. Pressed or blown-out type 4 hair matches kinky straight; relaxed hair matches yaki straight; 2A to 2B matches body wave; 3B to 3C matches deep wave; 3C to 4A matches curly. If nothing is left out, texture is a pure style choice.
What is the difference between body wave and loose wave?
Body wave is a wider, looser S with more movement and less definition — it reads as volume. Loose wave is a deeper wave edging toward a curl, with more visible pattern. Body wave takes back about 14% of its length when worn; loose wave about 16%.
What is the difference between deep wave and curly?
Deep wave is a tight, uniform S-pattern that runs consistently down the strand. Curly is a springy, less uniform coil with more volume and more variation. Curly shrinks more — about 32% versus 26% — so a curly install has to be ordered longer to land in the same place.
What is yaki hair?
Yaki is hair textured to imitate relaxed or freshly pressed African-American hair rather than glass-straight hair. It is slightly coarser and less glossy than straight, which is exactly what makes it blend with a relaxed leave-out where straight hair would look obviously added. Kinky straight is the coarser version, matching a blow-out on natural hair.
Do I have to match my natural texture exactly?
Only if you are leaving your own hair out. With a closure, frontal or wig, none of your hair is exposed, so any texture works. With a leave-out, being one step off is usually fine — being two steps off is where the install starts looking like extensions.
Is hair texture the same as hair type?
People use the terms interchangeably and both usually mean the 1A to 4C curl pattern system. Strictly, texture in a salon sense means strand width — fine, medium or coarse — while type means curl pattern. Worth knowing when a stylist says you have coarse texture and means thickness, not curl.
What does hair porosity mean?
Porosity is how easily the cuticle lets water in and out. Low porosity resists moisture and holds product on the surface; high porosity absorbs quickly and loses it fast. Test it by dropping a clean shed strand in water — floating suggests low, sinking fast suggests high. It affects your routine more than curl pattern does.
Can I mix two textures in one install?
Yes, and it is common — a straighter texture at the crown for a leave-out with a curlier texture underneath, for example. Work out each texture's worn length separately first, because 20 inches of curly hangs six inches higher than 20 inches of straight. The hair length guide has the numbers.
Does Brazilian hair mean the hair came from Brazil?
Usually not. Brazilian, Peruvian, Malaysian and Indian are long-standing trade names for texture profiles rather than statements of origin. They tell you roughly what the hair looks and feels like, not where a donor lives. Judge hair by photographs, video and the return policy instead.
Which texture is easiest to look after?
Straight and body wave. They detangle fastest, need the least product, and hold their look with the least daily work. Deep wave and curly need more moisture, more careful detangling and more patience, and they are the textures most likely to be abandoned by a first-time buyer.
Which hair texture sells the most?
At Mayvenn, straight is about a quarter of units sold, body wave a fifth and loose wave just under a fifth — those three are roughly 62% of everything. Deep wave, yaki straight, kinky straight and curly make up most of the rest. It is a reasonable proxy for which textures most people find livable.
Keep reading
The rest of the Mayvenn guides
This page is about pattern. These cover the length that pattern changes, the hair itself, and the routine that keeps it looking like the day it went in.
Hair length guide
Texture decides how much of the length you keep. Every inch from 10″ to 32″, and where each one lands. Read the length guide.
Hair bundles guide
How many bundles, which grade, what they cost, and how to spot hair that is not what the label says. Read the bundles guide.
Hair care guide
The routine that changes with porosity, not with curl pattern. Washing, sealing, heat limits and nightly wrapping. Read the care guide.
Closures and frontals guide
No leave-out means no texture matching. Every lace size drawn to scale and how to blend the piece. Read the lace guide.
Wigs 101
The other way to wear any texture you like without matching your own. Every cap construction explained. Read Wigs 101.
Find your texture in a minute
A short quiz that matches you to a texture, a length and a bundle count, from what is in stock today. Take the hair quiz.
Ready to shop by texture? Straight, body wave, loose wave, deep wave, curly, yaki straight and kinky straight are all in stock, and three-bundle sets are in bundle deals. Every order is covered by our 30-day guarantee.
Not sure which one is yours?
The quiz answers it in about a minute
Eight questions, no mirror needed, and it only ever recommends hair that is in stock today. It returns a texture, a length and a bundle count.