At Aveda, we celebrate curls of all kinds and want to inspire you to embrace your natural hair. Whether you have wavy, curly or coily hair, we’ll help you discover your best curls ever by identifying your curl type and sharing expert styling tips from our Aveda Artists. You’ll find the right styling products for curly hair and how to achieve healthy-looking, defined curls at home.
What’s my curl type?
2C? 4B? Curious about these number-letter pairings and what they have to do with your curls? The number represents the classification of curl: 1=straight, i.e. no curl, 2=wavy, 3=curly, 4=coily. The letter represents the intensity of your curl, from A (low) to C (high). Together, the number-letter combination shows where you sit on the curl chart—anywhere from 1A-4C.
If you have naturally textured hair that’s wavy, curly or coily, your curl type should fall between 2A-4C. You can discover your curl type on our chart here. There are many different curly hair types, but once you determine yours, it’s easier to identify which styling routines are best for your hair.
When it comes to discovering which curly hair products are best for you, Aveda Global Educator Bea Carmichael uses a quick porosity test you can do at home. To start, take a few strands of hair from your hair brush, and place it in a glass of water. If your hair floats on top of the water, it is low porosity. If the hair sinks, then it’s high porosity.
Bea recommends our 94% naturally derived* nutriplenish™ collection, which delivers hyper hair hydration to all hair textures. Low porosity hair is best suited for our nutriplenish™ light moisture shampoo and conditioner. The light moisture products contain fast-absorbing oils, to intensely moisturize hair without weighing it down. Our nutriplenish™ deep moisture shampoo and conditioner are ideal for high porosity hair because they are formulated with 50% more nourishing butters, as compared to the nutriplenish™ light moisture shampoo and conditioner.