Hair Type Quiz
Ten questions about how your hair dries, shrinks and tangles, to tell straight from wavy, curly and coily.
A hair type quiz sorts your natural curl pattern into straight, wavy, curly or coily. The most reliable test is letting clean hair air dry with no product: flat strands are straight, loose S-bends are wavy, defined ringlets are curly, and tight coils or zigzags that shrink a lot are coily. This quiz asks ten questions like that one and shows every score.
This quiz is a general guide to choosing hair care. It is not professional advice and not a substitute for a dermatologist. It cannot identify hair loss, scalp conditions or the cause of a sudden change in your hair. If your hair is thinning, shedding heavily or changing texture quickly, please see a doctor or dermatologist.
What each result means
Straight
Your answers point to straight hair.
Your strands grow without a bend, so they lie flat against your head and sit close together. That shape is why straight hair shines: light bounces off a smooth, even surface. It is also why it gets greasy fastest. Scalp oil runs down a straight strand with nothing to stop it, so the roots look flat by day two while the ends stay fine.
- Air dries flat from root to tip.
- Looks about the same length wet and dry.
- Oily at the roots within a day or two of washing.
Wash as often as your scalp needs, which may be daily, and keep conditioner on the ends rather than the roots. Lightweight products hold up better than heavy creams, which flatten straight hair further.
Wavy
Your answers point to wavy hair.
Your hair forms loose S-shaped bends, usually strongest from the mid-lengths down, with flatter roots. Wavy hair is the type most often mistaken for something else. Brushed dry and weighed down with heavy products, it reads as frizzy straight hair; left alone after washing, the pattern shows. Many people with waves never see them until they stop brushing.
- Loose S-bends that start below the roots.
- Frizz and puff when brushed dry.
- Waves flatten under heavy products and come back without them.
Try one wash day with a light leave-in or gel, scrunched in while the hair is wet, and no brushing once it dries. If the waves come through, you have your routine; if not, you may sit closer to straight.
Curly
Your answers point to curly hair.
Your hair forms defined loops or ringlets with plenty of lift at the roots. Every bend in a curl is a place where scalp oil stalls on its way down, so the lengths tend to be drier than the scalp, and the ends drier still. Curls also clump: strands that dry together form a ringlet, and anything that splits them up while dry, a brush above all, turns them into frizz.
- Ringlets or loops you could count.
- Clearly shorter dry than stretched wet.
- Detangled wet with conditioner, never brushed dry.
Detangle only when wet and conditioned, put a leave-in or curl cream through damp hair, and let it dry without touching it. A curly-specific cut, done dry, makes more difference than most products.
Coily
Your answers point to coily hair.
Your hair forms tight coils or zigzags, packed close, with a lot of shrinkage: dry, it can look a fraction of its real length. Coily strands have the most bends of any type, which makes them the most fragile at those points and the slowest for oil to reach, so the lengths run dry even when the scalp is fine. Coily hair is not a harder type of hair. It needs a different routine, built around moisture and gentle handling.
- Tight coils or zigzags narrower than a pencil.
- Dramatic shrinkage between wet and dry.
- Detangled in sections, wet, with conditioner.
Build around moisture: a rich conditioner, a leave-in, and an oil or butter to seal it. Protective styles such as twists and braids cut down on daily handling, which is where most breakage comes from.
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About the Hair Type Quiz
Hair type usually means curl pattern: the shape a strand takes when it grows out and dries on its own. That shape comes mostly from the follicle. Round follicles tend to grow straight hair, and flatter, more oval ones grow hair that bends and coils. The number-and-letter chart popularized by stylist Andre Walker in the 1990s splits hair into straight, wavy, curly and coily, then sub-divides each with a letter. This quiz sorts your hair into one of the four curl families and skips the letters, because the difference between neighbouring letters is small enough that two stylists will often disagree on the same head. Every question has one answer for straight, one for wavy, one for curly and one for coily hair, each worth two points to that pattern, so all four patterns top out at twenty and the bars on your result compare directly. Two things this quiz does not measure, on purpose. Porosity, how readily your hair takes up and holds water, and density, how many strands you have, are separate from curl pattern and matter as much for choosing products. It is also normal to have more than one pattern on the same head, often tighter at the nape and looser at the crown.
Frequently asked questions
How do I find out my hair type at home?+
Wash your hair, skip every product, and let it air dry without touching it. Flat from root to tip is straight. Loose S-bends are wavy. Defined ringlets are curly. Tight coils or zigzags that shrink a lot are coily. Most of this quiz is built around that one test, asked from several angles.
What about 2A, 3B, 4C and the other letters?+
Those come from the numbered chart popularized by stylist Andre Walker, where 1 to 4 are straight, wavy, curly and coily and the letters mark finer steps inside each. This quiz tells you the number. The letter is a finer call that is hard to make from a quiz and that stylists often disagree on, so a photo of your air-dried hair next to a chart is a better guide for it.
Can I have more than one hair type?+
Yes, and it is common. Many people have tighter curls at the nape and looser waves on top, or a different pattern at the front. If two of your scores here are close, that is usually why. Pick your routine for the pattern covering most of your head.
Can my hair type change?+
It can. Hormonal shifts over a lifetime, puberty and menopause among them, can loosen or tighten a curl pattern, and some medicines can too. Heat damage and chemical straightening can also leave hair looking straighter than it grows, so if you have used either, answer about new growth near the roots.
How is the hair type quiz scored?+
Ten questions, one answer per type in each, two points per answer. Every type can reach twenty points, all four scores are shown, and if two tie the result says so instead of quietly picking one.
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