Type 4 Hair: How to Tell 4a, 4b and 4c Apart and What Actually Matters

Type 4 hair is the tightest group of natural hair textures: dense, coily or zig-zag strands that shrink to a fraction of their real length and dry out faster than any other type. It splits into 4a, 4b and 4c, and the letter tells you one useful thing: which styling method will actually hold on your head.

What the letter does not tell you is how to care for it. Two people with 4c hair can need opposite routines, because porosity, strand width and density matter more than the coil pattern. This guide is the map: how to tell type 3 from type 4, how to tell 4a, 4b and 4c apart, the three tests that decide your routine, a wash day that works on any type 4 head, type 4 hair on men, and fourteen ways it is worn.

What is type 4 hair?

Type 4 hair is the fourth and tightest group in the Andre Walker hair typing system, after straight (type 1), wavy (type 2) and curly (type 3). Each strand bends into tight coils or sharp zig-zags, often smaller than the width of a pen spring, packed close together across the scalp. It is sometimes called coily or kinky hair, and our coily hair guide covers the wider family.

Three things are true of every type 4 head, whatever the letter:

• Shrinkage hides most of the length. Dry type 4 hair can look 50 to 75 percent shorter than it is stretched, so shoulder-length hair often sits at the chin.
• It is the driest hair type. Scalp oil travels down a straight strand easily. On a strand that bends every millimetre, it barely reaches the ends.
• It is more fragile than it looks. Every bend is a weak point, and coils wrap around their neighbours, so rough detangling snaps strands that look thick and strong.

What type 4 is not: loose corkscrew ringlets that you could wrap around a pencil. Those are type 3.

Am I type 3 or type 4 hair?

Look at one clean, dry, product-free strand in daylight. If it forms a ringlet you could slide a pencil or a straw through, you are type 3. If the coil is tighter than that, or the strand zig-zags with sharp corners instead of curves, you are type 4. A second test: type 3 hair usually shows its curl pattern with no product at all, while type 4 hair often looks like a soft cloud until it is wet and styled.

If you land right on the line, read the 3c hair guide next to this one. 3c and 4a are neighbours, and many heads carry both.

4a vs 4b vs 4c hair: how to tell them apart

Take a dry strand from the crown, the part of the head that covers the most area, and match it to the table. Most heads mix two of these, often looser at the nape and tighter at the crown, so go by the majority.

The "Style that holds" row is the real reason to know your letter. 4a holds a wash-and-go, 4b holds a set, and 4c holds a stretch. If a routine keeps failing you, the most common cause is using the method built for the letter next to yours.

Fourteen ways type 4 hair is worn

Every photo below is type 4 hair in the same salon setting, so the setting stays constant and only the style changes. The set runs from a wash-and-go to braids and locs, in seven hair colors.

Gallery14 photos · tap to enlarge

Try this on me

Try this on me

Try this on me

Try this on me

Try this on me

Try this on me

Try this on me

Try this on me

Try this on me

Try this on me

Try this on me

Try this on me

Try this on me

Try this on me

To see one of these on your face before your next wash day, the curly and coily hair try-on renders a style onto your own photo.

What matters more than 4a, 4b or 4c

Here is the part most hair typing guides skip. The letter describes the shape of the coil. It says nothing about how your hair takes in water, how thick each strand is, or how many strands you have. Those three decide which products work, and they vary inside every letter. A fine-stranded, high-porosity 4c head and a coarse, low-porosity 4c head will fail on each other's routines.

Do the porosity test first. It is the one that changes your shopping list the most, and it is the reason a cream that your friend with "the same hair" swears by can leave yours sitting greasy on top.

Type 4 hair products: what you actually need

You do not need a shelf. Every working type 4 routine is built from five product types, and the tests above tell you how heavy each one should be.

Apply them to wet or damp hair, in that order, section by section. The order is often called LCO (liquid, cream, oil) or LOC (liquid, oil, cream). Low porosity hair usually does better with LCO, high porosity with LOC.

How to do a wash day on type 4 hair

This routine works on 4a, 4b and 4c. Only the styling step at the end changes with the letter.

Most type 4 hair does best with a full wash day every one to two weeks. Washing every day strips the little oil that reaches the ends.

Which type 4 hairstyle fits what you want?

Pick by the result you want and how much time you have, not just by your letter.

Try this on me

Protective styles like twists and braids keep the ends tucked away, which is why they are the fastest way to retain length on 4c hair. Keep them loose at the hairline and take them out within six to eight weeks. The twist hairstyles guide covers twist sizes and parting.

Type 4 hair on men

Type 4 hair on men is usually worn short, and short is where it is easiest: under two inches, 4a and 4b coils define with water and a light cream, and 4c hair forms an even, soft texture that holds a clean shape. The cuts that suit it most are a short afro with a low taper, 360 waves for 4a and loose 4b, and twists once the top passes about three inches.

Try this on me

The two mistakes that cost men the most: cutting wet hair, which shrinks into an uneven line by the next day, and brushing dry coils hard every morning, which snaps them at the crown. Ask for the cut on dry hair.

Mistakes that cost type 4 hair its length

• Using a type 3 routine. Light mousses and sprays made for curls leave type 4 ends dry, and dry ends snap. Type 4 needs a leave-in and a sealing step every time.
• Detangling dry or from the roots. Coils knot around each other. Detangle wet, with conditioner, ends first.
• Chasing a letter's look. Trying to force a 4a wash-and-go onto 4c hair means more product, more touching and more frizz. Pick the style your texture holds.
• Tight styles at the hairline. Snatched ponytails and tight braids pull on the edges and cause traction alopecia, which the American Academy of Dermatology says can become permanent.
• Heat as a weekly stretch. Repeated flat ironing loosens the coil for good, and heat damage does not grow back curly. Stretch with twists, threading or banding.
• Measuring dry. Check length stretched, in the same spot, once a month. Dry type 4 hair hides most of what you grew.

Can you try a type 4 hairstyle on for free?

Yes, for the first look. You get one hairstyle, plus one color on it, on your own photo in front view, with no card needed. After that, Plus is $9.99 a week for 150 credits a week, where a hairstyle costs 10 credits and a color on it costs 5. Pro is $21.99 a week for 480 credits a week and adds other angles of the head. Every plan has a seven-day refund with no conditions, and cancelling takes two clicks. Full details are on the pricing page.

The manual way to choose your next look is to save photos of other people's type 4 hair. That works until the question is how a big afro, a tapered cut or honey blonde looks around your face, at your shrinkage, and no photo of someone else can answer it. The free look is the fix for exactly that wall.

Where to start with type 4 hair

Find your letter once, then stop thinking about it, because its only job is to tell you which style holds: a wash-and-go for 4a, a set for 4b, a stretch for 4c. Spend your attention on the porosity test instead. It decides your products, and getting it right ends most of the dryness and breakage people blame on their hair type.

Then keep the ends moist, detangle only when wet, keep the hairline loose, and measure stretched. That is the whole routine, and it works on every type 4 head.