HAIR KNOWLEDGE / CURL TYPES
2C. 3B. 4A. The curl chart feels so official that you’d be forgiven for thinking it came from a lab. It didn’t.
Ask someone with curly hair what their hair type is and there’s a good chance you’ll get a number and a letter.
2C. 3B. 4A. Maybe several answers from the same head.
We use those labels to search for tutorials, compare products and find people whose curls look like ours.
But the familiar hair-typing chart is not a scientific diagnosis of your hair.
It started as a consumer classification system created by a hairstylist.
So, who created the hair-typing system?
The familiar 1-to-4 system is widely credited to celebrity hairstylist André Walker, who worked with Oprah Winfrey for decades.
Walker developed his hair-typing system in the 1990s. It organized hair according to the shape of the strand:
Type 1: straight
Type 2: wavy
Type 3: curly
Type 4: tightly curled or coiled
Letters were then used to describe variations within those groups.
A 2026 systematic review of curly-hair classification describes Walker’s system as probably the best-known consumer hair classification system today.
The Walker chart was created as a way to categorize visible hair patterns.
It was not designed as a complete scientific description of everything that determines how your hair behaves.
Wait—was 4C always part of it?
Apparently not.
This is one of the more interesting details buried underneath the modern curl chart.
The 2026 systematic review compared four major classification systems and found that 4C was not included in the André Walker system it reviewed.
Today, of course, 4C is one of the most commonly used terms in natural-hair culture.
That tells us something important: the chart people use now has evolved beyond one person’s original system.
Categories have been added, adapted and interpreted by hair communities over time.
So when you see a beautifully designed graphic online running from 1A all the way to 4C, it should not be mistaken for an unchanged scientific chart that has always existed in exactly that form.
Is hair typing scientifically accurate?
It can describe something real: the visible shape of your hair.
That part is useful.
The limitation is everything it does not tell you.
Two people can both have what they call 3C curls and still have hair that behaves completely differently.
One might have fine strands and extremely dense hair.
Another might have thicker strands and lower density.
One person’s hair may be highly damaged from bleaching. The other’s may be untreated.
Those differences can matter enormously when you are choosing a routine.
Your density.
Your strand diameter.
Your hair’s condition or level of damage.
How oily or dry your scalp is.
Whether you have multiple curl patterns on the same head.
Can you have more than one curl type?
Absolutely.
And this is one of the biggest reasons people drive themselves slightly crazy trying to type their hair.
Your crown might form tighter curls than the hair near your neck. One side might make perfect spirals while another creates looser waves. Your front pieces may behave differently from everything behind them.
The scientific review specifically identifies this as one limitation of the Walker system: one person can have multiple hair patterns on the same head.
You do not need to average them into one official answer.
Your hair is allowed to be 3A over here and doing something completely different over there.
A curl chart can describe what your hair looks like. It cannot explain everything your hair needs.
Does knowing your curl type help you choose products?
A little. Just not as much as beauty marketing sometimes suggests.
Curl pattern can give you clues about how your hair naturally sits, how much it may shrink and what styling techniques might create the look you want.
It can also make tutorials much easier to search.
If you have very tight coils, watching someone style pin-straight hair probably isn’t going to answer all of your questions.
But seeing “FOR 3C HAIR” on a jar does not guarantee that product will work for every person who identifies as 3C.
For product choice, things like strand thickness, density, dryness, damage, buildup and the result you want can be just as important—or more useful.
What about porosity?
Porosity gets talked about constantly in curly-hair spaces because it describes how readily hair takes up and loses water.
But here again, it is useful to avoid turning one characteristic into your entire hair identity.
The Walker chart does not account for porosity at all. Other classification systems developed later tried to incorporate additional characteristics, including porosity, strand thickness and overall volume.
That is a clue that curl pattern alone was never enough to describe every head of textured hair.
The most useful routine usually comes from paying attention to several things at once.
Why does the chart get controversial?
Partly because a classification system can very easily start looking like a ranking system.
Straight hair appears first. Tight coils appear last.
That does not automatically mean everyone using the chart believes Type 1 hair is “better” than Type 4 hair.
But hair does not exist outside culture.
Black communities have a long history of tighter textures being described as less manageable, less desirable or less professional than straighter and looser hair.
So when curl typing moves from “this describes my pattern” to “this pattern is better than that one,” it starts reinforcing the same texture hierarchy the natural-hair movement has spent years challenging.
The chart is a description.
It does not need to become a beauty score.
Are there other hair-typing systems?
Yes.
Researchers reviewing hair classification have identified several widely used systems, including the André Walker, LOIS, FIA and L’Oréal systems.
They do not all measure hair in exactly the same way.
Some attempt to account for characteristics the Walker system leaves out. The L’Oréal system, for example, was developed using measurable characteristics of curl shape rather than the familiar A-B-C categories.
And scientists studying hair have increasingly argued for classification systems based on physical characteristics rather than race or ethnicity.
Which makes sense.
People from the same racial or ethnic group can have very different hair, and similar curl patterns can exist across different populations.
Should we stop using 2C, 3B and 4C?
Not necessarily.
The curl chart became popular because it solves a real problem: it gives people an easy vocabulary for talking about what their hair looks like.
That can be genuinely helpful.
If saying “I have 4A-ish hair” helps you find a stylist, a haircut reference or someone demonstrating a style on curls that resemble yours, use it.
Just don’t expect those two characters to tell you everything else.
Instead of stopping at “I’m 3C,” you might notice:
My curls are tight.
My strands are fine.
My hair is very dense.
My ends get dry easily.
My crown shrinks more than the rest.
Now you actually know something useful about how your hair behaves.
The bottom line
André Walker gave curl culture a vocabulary that became much bigger than the original chart.
It is useful shorthand. It can help us compare patterns and find hair that looks similar to our own.
But your curl type is only one characteristic of your hair.
Use the chart as a description—not an instruction manual.
Disclaimer: This article provides general hair-care information and is not a substitute for advice from a dermatologist or other qualified healthcare professional. Persistent breakage, scalp changes or sudden hair loss should be evaluated by a healthcare professional.