Natural Hair Types, Rejoice! These Products Are Exactly What Your Coils Have Been Begging For

Curly and coily natural hair is beautiful and offers you plenty of styling versatility, including low-maintenance wash-and-go's, kinky straight blowouts, and twists, to name a few. The only problem: Finding the right natural hair products and tools for your specific texture can be overwhelming. Luckily for you, I consulted a few Black female hairstylists to help you discover the exact products you need to help your natural hair retain length and enhance your gorgeous texture.

How do I know my natural hair texture?

So, where exactly do you start figuring out the best hair products and tools for your hair? It starts with your specific hair texture. Natural hair is considered anywhere between 3C to 4C hair. Here, hairstylists quickly break down the defining attributes of each curl type.

• 3C hair is tight, well-defined corkscrews or coils that are dense and packed together. The curls are usually a fine or medium texture, and have the circumference of a pencil, explains hairstylist Courtney Foster.
• 4A tends to have an 'S' shape, and like the rest of type 4 types, it has a thin cuticle layer, meaning it's more prone to dryness, says hairstylist Chrissy Zemura.
• 4B hair boasts a zig-zag pattern rather than the curly, spirally look of 4A and 4C hair, according to hairstylist Jiquea Evans. She adds that the biggest misconception about 4B hair is that people think it looks like stretched-out 4C hair, or that 4B is not ideal because it doesn't have a spiral.
• 4C hair has the tightest curl pattern, according to hairstylist Antonia Burress. She says each strand is formed in tight, coil ringlets.

Remember, 3C hair needs to be cared for just as much as 4C hair. So, the best thing to do is find and keep a healthy scalp and hair regime to have your curls and coils flowing, suggests Foster.

Hair Porosity

To gain the most benefits from your natural hair care products, you should also figure out your hair's porosity.

• High porosity has holes and gaps in the cuticle, which allows moisture to easily get in and get out, according to hairstylist Chrissy Zemura.
• Low porosity hair is the opposite. "It has a tightly bound cuticle, which makes it hard for moisture to penetrate into the hair, but it's also equally difficult for moisture to get out," she adds.
• There's also normal, aka medium porosity hair, which easily gets and retains moisture in your hair cuticle.

How to Test Hair Porosity

Drop a few of your hairs into a cup of water and see how they float or sink. If your strands float, you have low porosity hair. If your hair sinks slowly, you have normal porosity hair, and when it drops quickly, you can safely assume you have high porosity hair.

Now that you have a better understanding of the various natural hair textures and porosity types, it's time to start shopping! These expert-recommended natural hair products and tools are available at favorite reader shops like Amazon, Walmart, Sephora, and Ulta.