Strand

The pattern book of hair, drawn to measure

Type 3: Curly Hair

A curl is a loop that closes. Type 3 covers every head where the strand wraps fully around itself, from wide chalk-sized curls to tight corkscrews.

3a3b3c

Where a wave becomes a curl

The line between type 2 and type 3 is a full loop. A curly strand forms defined spirals or ringlets that wrap all the way around themselves, rather than simply bending back and forth.

Air-dried, this family springs into distinct curls that loop fully around, with noticeable lift, and with noticeably less length on show than the hair had when wet.

Sizing the subtypes

The most useful way to tell 3a, 3b and 3c apart is the width of the curl itself, measured against everyday objects:

  • 3a: large, loose, shiny curls with a wide loop; curls about the width of sidewalk chalk.
  • 3b: springy, well-defined ringlets of medium width; curls about the width of a permanent marker.
  • 3c: tight, densely packed corkscrew curls; curls about the width of a pencil or drinking straw.

Chalk, marker, pencil: the loop narrows step by step as the letters climb.

Why the care logic is moisture-first

Scalp oil struggles to travel down a curved strand, so this family runs dry as a matter of geometry. The convention that follows: condition generously, wash less often, and define curls while the hair is wet rather than brushing them out dry.

Shrinkage, honestly

Shrinkage is the gap between hair’s stretched or wet length and its apparent length once the dry curls contract. It is most pronounced in type 4, with type 3 next in line. A type 3 head can look shorter dry than it measures stretched out; that is the pattern doing what it does, not a styling problem.

A word on porosity

Porosity describes how readily the hair shaft absorbs and holds onto moisture, governed by how tightly the cuticle layer lies. You will meet the float test, which drops a clean strand into a glass of water and reads floating as low porosity and sinking as high. It is widely regarded as unreliable, because surface tension, product residue and natural oils all skew the result. Take its verdict lightly.

More than one pattern per head

Many heads carry a mix: one curl width at the surface, a tighter one underneath, sometimes a wave at the nape. The finder shows its point spread for exactly that reason. It describes a spread of patterns, not a single stamp.