Curly hair
Springy curls and ringlets. 19 hairstyles on EveryHairstyle so far.
Curly hair forms spirals and ringlets. Typing charts call it type 3, from loose 3A loops to tight 3C corkscrews about the width of a pencil. Curls shrink as they dry, can be drier at the ends and frizz in damp air, but they hold volume and shape well. Many stylists cut curly hair dry, curl by curl, so they can see where each one falls.
Cutting curls
Curly hair needs room to sit. Rounded layers, as in the shag and the modern curly bob, keep curls from forming a triangle and give an even shape. Stylists leave extra length because curls shrink, often by a third or more. Thinning and razoring near the roots can cause frizz, so many curl specialists use only scissors. The broccoli haircut of the 2020s set curls on top over short sides.
Curls in style history
Ringlets, long spiral curls, were fashionable for women and children in 19th-century Europe and America, often set with rags overnight. The perm brought artificial curls to millions in the 20th century, and the Jheri curl of the 1980s gave a glossy, loose curl to coily hair. Since the 2000s many people have stopped straightening their curls, part of a wider move to wear hair in its natural texture.
Famous curly hair hairstyles
Further reading
Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Kiss curl: Unknown author, Public domain, source
- Broccoli haircut: Erik Drost, CC BY 2.0, source
- Perm: Louis Calvete, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Ringlet: Margaret Sarah Carpenter, Public domain, source
- Jheri curl: Olugold, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Fulani braids: François-Edmond Fortier (1862-1928), Public domain, source
- Shag: ABC Television Network ., Public domain, source