How do you define 4b curls?

[c0urtr0cbaby]

Hey ladies!

I have been receiving so much wonderful info on this forum. I recently made a thread about my lack of moisture and I will be hitting the BSS after class today. But I have another question: how do you define 4b hair? My hair just sits atop my head like a matted mess and I reeeeeally wanna have a cute TWA. Is this possible? I read somewhere that 4b hair doesn't 'curl' but it 'bends' and 'zig-zags.' Is this true? Thanks in advance!

-Courtney

 

[mscocoface]

See some of our fotkis. Our hair it what I call cottony mass of wonderfulness it sits it doesn't move we usually can get the best TWA's or BAA because they don't move. As for defining 4B hair depending on how many textures you have that may not be possible. But you won't know until you try products.

Find a product your hair likes and start experimenting. Work on it in the morning and see how it responds through out the day.

If you want it to be soft you may need to look at something that will hold moisture like glycerine, Scurl (yep that works for most of us ) Hawaiian Silky 14n1 or your own mixture.

 

[Carrie A]

Yeah. That's The Andre system, but I'd venture to say that most people who describe themselves as 4B have some coil pattern. The diameter may be very small but it's there. Just because the hair is very tight with mucho shrinkage doesn't mean the shape is automatically zig zag.

 

[anon123]

Well, I'm not sure to what extent 4b hair can be defined in curl clumps. This is the most clumping my 4b hair will do:
http://public.fotki.com/mwedzi/2008julythroughdecember/sept08washandgo.html

And even to get this, I have to be sure not to have combed for several days before! This is just a wash and go. Don't use shampoo, using only conditioner. All other "curl defining methods" have never produced anything more than this.

 

[JustKiya]

My curls don't define. More accurately, I got sick of trying to make them define themselves - too much work for not nearly enough reward.
My TWA's were never matted (braid hair, leave til mostly dry, take out braids, pick, leave be to shrink as it wills), but they were also never a collection of curls - more a collection of wildly darting and bending and twisting hair.

That's about the closest picture I have - do ignore the dreadful hair color - but, not matted, and not defined, either.

 

[Hairsofab]

I consider myself a 4b based on the typing system and I don't have curls or defined coils (and no I don't have small coils that I just can't see, I see a lot of people say that whenever you try to say you don't have a curl pattern). I've tried using KCCC and a few other curl defining stuff but gave up when I realize I don't have a curl patter. The KCCC didn't really do anything except make my hair sticky.

 

[Nonie]

Forget Andre's inaccurate system. No one's DNA sends out Z's from their scalps otherwise my brothers and other dudes with my type of hair would have spikes pointing every which way when they sport short hair. Instead we see tiny coils that form C's and O's. 4B hair becomes Z's because of the manipulation needed to keep it from tangling.

My naked 4B hair after braids forms zigzags:

My naked 4B hair washed and allowed to dry out of braids but finger combed:

BTW, the section you see finger-combed is so tiny that I was able to separate all the strands fully into single strands. That's usually not so easy to do when I have a bigger section. Believe it or not, the next pic shows my naked hair that has also been finger-combed and FULLY detangled but as you can see, there are still strands clumping. I usually further separate these when in the process of twisting. Trying to do it now on so much hair would be a waste of time as my loving coils are bound to cuddle again:

My naked 4B hair washed and allowed to dry undisturbed (something I'd never do on a large section because I'd have to cut my hair off. I can't imagine having to separate a whole head of this):

My 4B hair (S Curl applied) combed out with a comb (this is the way I wear my hair when out of twists/braids: combed out):

The way to get coils from 4B hair is to wash and condition it well and just let it be. Moisture returns 4B hair to its normal pattern, but usually those of us with 4B know that if we were to let our hair just chill, we'd have tangles that'd drive us to drink. Imagine pen springs pressed together and then compressed and allowed to freeze in that state, how long would it take to detangle 100's of thousands of such springs???!!!

A product like S Curl moisturizes and gives hair slip so that it is easy to comb and can be worn in its "resting" phase without risk of having knots/clumps, because a comb can glide easily through shrunken hair that would otherwise be impossible to work with. I already demonstrated the difference it made to my mom's hair. Her hair would look so purrty when wet but she would do things to it, from combing to plaiting to pressing to make it manageable. She also used a greasy product to moisturize. So she had what Andre saw and decided 4B had no definition. But when you shampoo and wet her hair, you'd see the coils pop. Only she couldn't allow it to dry in that shrunken state until she discovered S Curl. With that, she had no fear of shrunken hair. The moisture it gave and slip made it easy to comb her hair so that she didn't have to stretch it to keep it from tangling and to make it easy to comb. I believe you already saw the pics of the difference S Curl made. In case you missed the pics, here is my mom's hair:

- before (hard, dry, and "moisturized" with grease, previously pressed, plaited, you name it...I guess it looks like Andre's idea of 4B hair?)

- after (washed, conditioned and moisturized with S Curl, and simply combed out)

ETA: Now, if by "definition" you mean clumping, then you do that by doing a WNG and lawd help you when you have to deal with it later. That to me is just a recipe for knots, tangles and hair breakage. But I must also warn you that the defined clumps on 4B are usually so small that en massed it'll just look like a bush, which to me makes the attempt simply nothing but a headache: why go through all that for a look that won't even show and then have the feat of dealing with endless detangling? Seems rather silly if you ask me.

To me definition means making the coils pop. Hair out of braids has no defined pattern. Imagine if you had to stretch and plait metal springs, I doubt they'd have a uniform pattern later on. But unlike metal springs, once we wash our hair hair, moisturize, and let it be, 4B-ers hair gets a uniform pattern of beautiful tiny coils.

 

[angenoir]

I am not natural but this is great info. My sis is natural and 4b.
Nonie. Wow. Your posts are always ALWAYS so informative!