Long 4a coily naturals

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fyb87 said:
I am 4a with some 3c in the crown area. Some may say I'm 3c. But, I don't think so. As my hair gets longer the curls pull down more and more. You can see pics in my fotki, but I don't have a ton of close ups with wash-n-gos. I have mostly twist outs.

First two are from 2008. And last two are from this year. May and June. The last is with Cassia/Henna.

ETA: Last picture is from Cassia not Henna. First time I did Cassia then next two times Cassia/Henna (60%Cassia/40%Henna)

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My goodness!! Your hair is fabulous. I love the texture and length.
 
A lot of the ladies in here claiming 4a are what I would call 3c or even 3b. When I think 4a, I think kinky coils, not curls or flowey spirals. IDK, I'm confused.
 
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ajoyfuljoy said:
A lot of the ladies in here claiming 4a are what I would call 3c or even 3b. When I think 4a, I think kinky coils, not curls or flowey spirals. IDK, I'm confused.
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True. :yep: It gets confusing.

I'm sure that some of my coils are pretty much the same diameter of the 4a sections of some of the other ladies in this thread.

Some people have a less coarse/silkier texture and some have a more coarse/"nappy"(I say nappy with pride:)) texture.

Some people's hair stretches out some as it grows... making it look looser than what it is. While other people's hair shrinks down to a little fro even when it's bsl.

Plus, hair is very pliable. There is a definite curl pattern to work with, so the hair can be "worked" into looking a lot of different things. Like shingling for example. I'm sure that with the right set of products/tools/techniques I could make my hair look different.

All that leads to a wide variety of 4a - penspring sized coils to pencil sized curls!

I'm sure the same rules apply to other textures too :yep:
 
ajoyfuljoy said:
A lot of the ladies in here claiming 4a are what I would call 3c or even 3b. When I think 4a, I think kinky coils, not curls or flowey spirals. IDK, I'm confused.
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And again... it's so subjective. 3c was created after the fact, if you'll recall. The definition of 3c overlaps the definition of 4a so much, it's hard to determine.
 
ladylibra said:
And again... it's so subjective. 3c was created after the fact, if you'll recall. The definition of 3c overlaps the definition of 4a so much, it's hard to determine.
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I guess I see your point, but I feel that I do see a big difference still. It's all beautiful hair nonetheless...there just needs to be a better typing system b/c I consider myself to be 4a also but don't feel that too many of the heads in this thread are anywhere close to mine.

Oh well :-)
 
Very very inspirational thread, you ladies have some beautiful heads of hair! Thanks for showing.
 
I think another thing that may confuse people, is that some people have silky 4a, some people have cottony 4a (like myself). It may look like a silky 4a when wet, but poofs up when it's dry.
 
All you ladies have beautiful hair but I think most of the hair shown here are 3c. I have a mixture of 3c at my nape, 4a, and 4b mainly at my front and mixed up with my 4a sections. So I know what 4a looks like. This hair typing somtimes doesn't make sense.

I think we should say soft kinky afro textured hair, frizzy kinky..., dry kinky..., silky kinky..., cottony kinky..., dry kinky afro textured hair etc. Hope you get what I am trying to say:spinning::ohwell::perplexed.
 
brandy said:
All you ladies have beautiful hair but I think most of the hair shown here are 3c. I have a mixture of 3c at my nape, 4a, and 4b mainly at my front and mixed up with my 4a sections. So I know what 4a looks like. This hair typing somtimes doesn't make sense.

I think we should say soft kinky afro textured hair, frizzy kinky..., dry kinky..., silky kinky..., cottony kinky..., dry kinky afro textured hair etc. Hope you get what I am trying to say:spinning::ohwell::perplexed.
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i agree. i'm sitting here looking confused because i thought i was 4a.​
 
vainღ♥♡jane said:
i agree. i'm sitting here looking confused because i thought i was 4a.​
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I have to agree. I think all the women who have posted have absolutely beautiful hair. Although I've loved seeing the pics and I like this thread, it did kind of look like many women had mainly type 3 hair (even if they some did have some 4a in there). There may be a "cottony" 4a and a "silky" 4a like someone mentioned though. Plus, the ladies who have posted have long hair, so their curls could have become looser because of the weight of their hair now.

Despite that, I'm still a tad confused though because people like Naturaline, Velvet Halo, Yassylane and Dee Raven still have the kind of hair I've always associated with type 4a despite the long length. Maybe the definitions need to be updated or something.
 
Well, here we are again at the great typing debate... :lol:

I guess because Andre squished all Black people into the type 4 category, we associate that with kinky hair. And everything else is 3c. I started to buy that hype too, until I really paid attention and realized that the curls in the front look nothing like the coils in the back... the longer they get, the more noticeable the difference is (when I don't manipulate the front to look coilier).

I think most of the hair shown here is 3c and 4a on the same head. I can see tight coils and looser S-waves in almost every picture...

I swear, one day I am gonna kidnap Andre Walker, tie him to a chair, and do a live broadcast where I force him to type several different black people's heads... :look:
 
ladylibra said:
Well, here we are again at the great typing debate... :lol:

I guess because Andre squished all Black people into the type 4 category, we associate that with kinky hair. And everything else is 3c. I started to buy that hype too, until I really paid attention and realized that the curls in the front look nothing like the coils in the back... the longer they get, the more noticeable the difference is (when I don't manipulate the front to look coilier).

I think most of the hair shown here is 3c and 4a on the same head. I can see tight coils and looser S-waves in almost every picture...

I swear, one day I am gonna kidnap Andre Walker, tie him to a chair, and do a live broadcast where I force him to type several different black people's heads... :look:
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You hit the nail on the head with the statement in bold. It's just annoying, isn't it? We need a better and more famous hair stylist (who thoroughly understands black hair) to come up with an accurate typing system so we all won't be confused. You are right though. There needs to be more than Type 4 to describe highly textured hair.

I'm 4a and my head is mostly full of coils. But it doesn't look like the heads in this thread. My hair is kinky. But when I see ladies who claim 4b, my hair doesn't look so much like that either. It's easier to manipulate, comb and has definite coil pattern.

That is so much variety! People really sell us short by just thinking that all black hair is the same. There are several thousands species of birds (I've seen numbers counted around 10,000) and one way to describe black natural hair. Just doesn't make sense!

I'm about ready to throw the typing system out the window and come up with my own personal description.
 
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brandy said:
All you ladies have beautiful hair but I think most of the hair shown here are 3c. I have a mixture of 3c at my nape, 4a, and 4b mainly at my front and mixed up with my 4a sections. So I know what 4a looks like. This hair typing somtimes doesn't make sense.

I think we should say soft kinky afro textured hair, frizzy kinky..., dry kinky..., silky kinky..., cottony kinky..., dry kinky afro textured hair etc. Hope you get what I am trying to say:spinning::ohwell::perplexed.
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I like this description a ot. On the forum Ive seen maybe 1-2 heads that look somewhat similar to mine (in all the time ive been here). My hair doesn't take much to straighten-wtih a blow dryer, its fine, soft and thin, and frizzes easily and is def. kinky and afro textured-not a lot of definition or coarseness
 
ladylibra said:
Well, here we are again at the great typing debate... :lol:

I guess because Andre squished all Black people into the type 4 category, we associate that with kinky hair. And everything else is 3c. I started to buy that hype too, until I really paid attention and realized that the curls in the front look nothing like the coils in the back... the longer they get, the more noticeable the difference is (when I don't manipulate the front to look coilier).

I think most of the hair shown here is 3c and 4a on the same head. I can see tight coils and looser S-waves in almost every picture...

I swear, one day I am gonna kidnap Andre Walker, tie him to a chair, and do a live broadcast where I force him to type several different black people's heads... :look:
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:lol: I fully support you in your plan to kidnap Andre. I think this thead here is probably better than the Andre system. After this thread, I feel like boycotting the Andre system - just saying my hair is "coily kinky" and calling it a day.

I definitely know we've talked about the typing issue ad nauseum here. I do feel some kind of way about bring it up in this thread because I think some people may perceive it as negative (I'm not trying to tell people what to label their hair because I know the system is quite flawed). I don't feel it should be taken that way. I just think that like others here, I originally thought this thread was going to have pics mainly like Dee Raven's because her 4a looks more like ours. I think it's challenged (or confused) our perception of what 4a is.

I've been into this thread more than once to :love: :drool: over everyone's pics even though my hair is not the same. So the different texture clearly hasn't stopped me from enjoying the pics.
 
ladylibra said:
Well, here we are again at the great typing debate... :lol:

I guess because Andre squished all Black people into the type 4 category, we associate that with kinky hair. And everything else is 3c. I started to buy that hype too, until I really paid attention and realized that the curls in the front look nothing like the coils in the back... the longer they get, the more noticeable the difference is (when I don't manipulate the front to look coilier).

I think most of the hair shown here is 3c and 4a on the same head. I can see tight coils and looser S-waves in almost every picture...

I swear, one day I am gonna kidnap Andre Walker, tie him to a chair, and do a live broadcast where I force him to type several different black people's heads... :look:
Click to expand...

Thank you for that. I have been thinking the same thing. The hair typing by Andre ends with 4 but my hair resembles nothing close to what 4 would look like. I have no waves, curls, or coils, just course frizz (even when wet with product) that can be very dry. :perplexed
 
My intention in starting this thread was to see what long, coily 4a looks like. And it has become something different, If any one sees my avitar my head is full of coils, and its hard to take care of. I wanted ladies to show thier pics for inspriation. No one's hair in here looks like mine and its not going to but i do see some similarities.
 
La Colocha said:
My intention in starting this thread was to see what long, coily 4a looks like. And it has become something different, If any one sees my avitar my head is full of coils, and its hard to take care of. I wanted ladies to show thier pics for inspriation. No one's hair in here looks like mine and its not going to but i do see some similarities.
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Aww, don't worry. I've got a head full of coils, and I'm sure some would look at it and thinks it's 3c or even 3b. I'd laugh at them. There are a lot of similarities between my hair, and it can be very difficult to maintain and control. It's not the kinkiest or frizziest, but it's darn sure not 3b/c either. You have to know your own hair and what its possibilities are, and you can't let people's interpretations of what hair you have detract from what you know to be true. I'm still stalking fotki's from this thread. :yep:
 
Ronnieaj said:
Aww, don't worry. I've got a head full of coils, and I'm sure some would look at it and thinks it's 3c or even 3b. I'd laugh at them. There are a lot of similarities between my hair, and it can be very difficult to maintain and control. It's not the kinkiest or frizziest, but it's darn sure not 3b/c either. You have to know your own hair and what its possibilities are, and you can't let people's interpretations of what hair you have detract from what you know to be true. I'm still stalking fotki's from this thread. :yep:
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I do understand and can see where confusion might come in because some textures do look looser than mine. But i also take into account that some ladies flat iron, use henna and their hair is way longer which can strech out and weigh the hair down. Also the thickness and cottony or fine textures can make a difference . I don't use heat or anything from the above and also my hair is thin, we can all be the same hair type and our hair looks different, and its my fault also, maybe i should not have said 4a i probably should have just said long coily hair. But it is what it is. Im also stalking fotki's and reading.
 
La Colocha said:
I do understand and can see where confusion might come in because some textures do look looser than mine. But i also take into account that some ladies flat iron, use henna and their hair is way longer which can strech out and weigh the hair down. Also the thickness and cottony or fine textures can make a difference . I don't use heat or anything from the above and also my hair is thin, we can all be the same hair type and our hair looks different, and its my fault also, maybe i should not have said 4a i probably should have just said long coily hair. But it is what it is. Im also stalking fotki's and reading.
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Exactly! You've got thin hair, my hair is anything but. And also, most of these pics are styled, and product definitely makes a difference in how the hair looks. I'm really glad you started this thread though; it's been really great to see similar hair and know that there is hope for reaching my own hair goals.
 
ajoyfuljoy said:
A lot of the ladies in here claiming 4a are what I would call 3c or even 3b. When I think 4a, I think kinky coils, not curls or flowey spirals. IDK, I'm confused.
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You ain't the only one. I see more 3c too. I don't see the 4a. I was hoping to see more 4a chicks. :(
 
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msa said:
Your hair looks like a kinky version of hers, if that makes sense.

Anyway, I wonder who it was that posted that. Now I'm going to have to search for it and I know it was in a really random thread. I knew I should have bookmarked it.
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Maybe justkiya?
 
tocktick said:
:lol: I fully support you in your plan to kidnap Andre. I think this thead here is probably better than the Andre system. After this thread, I feel like boycotting the Andre system - just saying my hair is "coily kinky" and calling it a day.

I definitely know we've talked about the typing issue ad nauseum here. I do feel some kind of way about bring it up in this thread because I think some people may perceive it as negative (I'm not trying to tell people what to label their hair because I know the system is quite flawed). I don't feel it should be taken that way. I just think that like others here, I originally thought this thread was going to have pics mainly like Dee Raven's because her 4a looks more like ours. I think it's challenged (or confused) our perception of what 4a is.

I've been into this thread more than once to :love: :drool: over everyone's pics even though my hair is not the same. So the different texture clearly hasn't stopped me from enjoying the pics.
Click to expand...

Now this is going from one extreme to the other- from not enough types in Andre's to too many in this one. All this is just plain confusing to me:lachen: These are the reasons I do not even bother to type my hair
 
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