The perception of hair length differs from person to person. As we add to that subjectivity the objective complexity of different hair types, we can begin to understand why most people would be at a loss to estimate how long their hair actually is and which category it fits into.

Recommended Video If you find yourself looking in the mirror wondering if you’ve reached the point where you need to change your hairstyle and hair care routine, or just want to be better equipped to assess your hair length, then you’ve found the right place.

In this hair length guide, we’ll go into the details you need to know: how to assess different hair lengths, how to know how long you can grow your hair, and how to choose the perfect hair length for you.

Length of Hair and Hair Type

As you probably know, there are different types of hair. If you quickly thought of your friends, you would most probably be very apt in arranging them in a line, starting with the ones with the most straight hair and ending with the ones with coily hair. This is intuitive knowledge of something that has only recently been coined as the Andre Walker Hair Typing System. This classification system makes it a bit easier to understand the distinction between hair types and place yourself on the spectrum.

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How the hair types affect hair length is extremely easy to understand. Take, for example, a ribbon – if you curl it around itself in a spiral, the distance from its top to bottom will be much shorter than if you hadn’t curled it. Although curly mane looks shorter, in reality, it’s much longer when extended. So, from curly to straight, there are different degrees of distortion in terms of how long the hair appears.

Straight hair is pretty much as long as it looks, save for when it has a light wave – but even then, the difference will be minimal. When it comes to wavy hair, the distortion will be a bit more considerable, and for curly or kinky-coily hair, we’re getting the largest degree of distortion possible. It’ll seem short even if you minimize the shrinkage, when, in fact, it can be longer than straight hair!