The Curl Pattern Chart Is Long Overdue for an Upgrade

23.12.2025, 20:29 allure.com

For as long as I can remember, my hair has been part of my identity and the way I show up in the world. My older sister placed plaits and barrettes in my hair when I was a child, and getting my hair hot-combed at the salon became a weekly ritual by the time I got to elementary school. I eventually permed it, then cut the perm off, then transitioned to fully natural hair almost a decade ago. Every stage of my life has come with a hair transformation to match.

When I got serious about taking care of my natural hair as a young adult, I, like many, turned to online tutorials to figure out what my wash days should look like and how I could or should style my hair. In this landscape I quickly learned that not all natural hair is the same and that there are a multitude of different “hair types” and “curl patterns.”

You’ve probably heard of hair typing or the hair chart: a classification system that sorts hair by texture and pattern using combinations of letters and numbers; from 1A, signifying completely straight hair, to 4C, meaning thick, coarse coils. The online natural hair community put such an emphasis on these classifications that it caused me to see my hair in a whole new light. The practice of hair typing didn't just categorize my texture; it started to define my and others’ expectations of what hair was capable of.

The hair type chart has become a global language for identifying the texture of hair. Over time it has become one of the most widely adopted tools in conversations about hair, including product marketing, social media discourse, and texture education. And although it has been in use for more than 30 years, there are several reasons it just isn’t cutting it in today’s hair landscape. To assess the hair type chart’s present-day usefulness, or lack thereof, I spoke with experts who work with various hair textures every single day.

The earliest version of hair typing dates back to 1905, when German anthropologist Eugen Fischer developed a measurement tool used to categorize hair texture as part of racial-classification systems. His work, conducted in what is now Namibia, focused on identifying hair texture, color, and physical traits in relation to whiteness—with the aim of identifying people with so-called racial purity. These early classification methods were rooted in racist pseudoscience and would later become foundational to Nazi racial ideology (aka eugenics).

Despite those dark origins, the concept of hair classification persisted and evolved. During South African apartheid between 1948-1994, “pencil tests” were used as a method of racial categorization, in which a pencil was placed into a person’s hair and they were asked to shake their head. If the pencil fell out, the individual was more likely to be classified as white or of mixed race; if the pencil remained, they were categorized as Black. This practice reinforced the use of hair texture as a tool for determining racial identity and social status.

Fast forward to the 1990s, when American hairstylist Andre Walker (best known as Oprah’s personal hairstylist from 1985-2015) created a new hair-typing system intended to help consumers match products and techniques to their texture, which became the base model for the hair-typing chart people widely use today. He first introduced his chart, called the Andre Walker Hair Typing System, in his 1997 book Andre Talks Hair! and subsequently discussed it on The Oprah Winfrey Show while promoting the book and his line of hair products.

Walker’s system grouped hair into four main categories and assigned each a number, 1 through 4: Straight hair fell into the category of type 1; type 2 encompassed a range of wavy textures; curls fell into type 3; and coily and kinky textures were classified as type 4. Within these numbered categories, patterns were further broken down by subtype A or B, based on the size or tightness of the wave, curl, or coil. Type A referred to looser curls and waves, whereas type B referred to tighter ones.

Later, as natural hair communities expanded the system to describe coily textures more precisely, the category sub-type C emerged. It's unclear exactly when and how the C category came into play, as Walker did not include it in his original chart; it's likely, though, to have been created by natural hair communities online as people sought more representation and accurate language to describe their hair.

Despite how widespread its use has become, Walker’s hair-typing system is not backed by science of any kind; additionally, it doesn’t account for how factors like hormones, pregnancy, medication, climate, stress, or the effects of aging can change hair texture.

Oyetewa Asempa, MD, a Houston-based board-certified dermatologist and the director of the Skin of Color Clinic at Baylor University’s Department of Dermatology, explains that Walker’s original hair-typing system was built on visual observation—as in, what hair looks like to the human eye, not on biology. “It has no biological or scientific basis,” she says.

That doesn’t mean the system lacks merit entirely, Dr. Asempa adds, and there have been attempts to create more science-based versions. For example, L'Oréal’s researchers released a study in 2007 that analyzed curl patterns using objective measures from hundreds of people across multiple continents, proposing an 8-type categorization system instead of 4.

But even in those cases, Dr. Asempa points out, the systems are limited in that they can tell you only how a curl looks, not how hair behaves. A chart can’t tell you how your hair will respond to a product, climate change, stress, or even shifts in your own biology. “In science, the coarser the hair is, the more fragile the hair type is,” Dr. Asempa says. “And that possible fragility—not the letter or number on a chart—often determines what our hair actually needs.”

In taking a critical look at the hair-typing chart now, I realize Dr. Asempa is right: All it tells you is what your hair pattern looks like—and there’s not really much you can do with that information.

Virginia-based cosmetologist, educator, and author Tishawna Pritchett says she’s never relied on hair typing for that reason. It wasn’t taught in cosmetology school when she studied over 30 years ago, and even after learning about the plethora of hair textures represented by the chart, she never adopted it. “It makes no sense to my clients when their focus is simply healthy hair,” she says.

Many of Pritchett’s clients come in convinced they have 4C hair because of something they saw on the chart, but when she examines their strands, what they’re identifying is often just damaged hair, or curls that haven’t been properly cared for, not their true texture.

When it comes to figuring out how to care for your hair day-to-day, Dr. Asempa says, a better starting point is hair condition, including the damage level, and its porosity—or, in other words, how absorptive it is. Porosity is determined by two things: the natural lipids and cuticle structure you’re born with, and the external choices you make.

Dyes, relaxers, perms, and heat styling all contribute to the breaking of chemical bonds in the hair, which permanently change the structure. Because of that, Dr. Asempa explains, product marketing based on curl patterns alone can be misleading. Someone who is Caucasian with straight, bleached hair, for example, may actually benefit from the same products as someone who is Black with high-porosity coils. What matters most is the hair’s structure and health.

The texture of hair is also tied to general health. When the body goes through shifts, whether from stress, hormonal changes, medication, or simply aging, hair follicles can weaken or shrink. That can cause curl patterns to loosen or lose density. The hair-typing system wasn’t designed to address these kinds of changes either.

Many people in the natural hair community have long pointed out that the modern curl-pattern chart indirectly favors looser, more Eurocentric textures, which can reinforce harmful and prejudiced ideas about beauty. By putting straight hair first, literally as type 1, and coily textures last at type 4, it subtly reinforces the idea that the tighter the texture, the further it is from what has been historically labeled as “ideal” or the “default.” That hierarchy didn’t begin with Walker—again, the very concept of creating hair classifications began with eugenics—but I believe his chart has unintentionally carried some of that thinking forward.

Still, despite all its shortcomings, I can appreciate the hair-typing system as a simple visual guide, which can be especially helpful for people who are just beginning to understand and embrace their curls. The hair system isn’t useless, but it took a long time for me to realize what it leaves out. Hair is personal, and so is the hair journey. It evolves with age, hormones, stress, weather, products, and just day-to-day life—yet my own relationship with my hair texture has primarily revolved around a number or a letter.

Now, instead of letting the chart define me, I’m learning to treat it as one reference point among many. My hair—and yours, and your friend’s, and your sister’s—deserves attention, care, and love not because of where it falls on a chart, but because it’s a unique part of who we are.

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