She has just sat down. You part a section at the nape, take a strand between your thumb and forefinger, and watch what it does. Nothing is wet, and the core of your service has already been decided.
The assessment is not the first step of the Ritual Texture®. The six steps begin with detangling using the African threading method; the assessment precedes them and determines how each will be carried out on this particular head. It is a vocabulary distinction that has practical consequences: you do not bill for an observation as a treatment, and you do not skip it either just because the chair is already booked for a service. This article describes what we read before touching, and how each observation changes the session.
What the assessment decides
Your client may have already read our public article on the assessment of coily hair: it teaches her how to observe her texture, porosity, elasticity, and shrinkage at home. Yours begins exactly where hers ends. She describes what she sees; you check with your fingers, and you draw session decisions she has no way of making herself.
These decisions number four, and they apply to every appointment. How many sections. Whether the comb can pass through or detangling will remain by hand. Whether the session is carried out as standard or with an adaptation. And whether there is a sign that requires stopping and referring the client elsewhere. Everything else—the products, the styling, the cut—follows from these four answers.
Allow about twenty minutes for a first visit, then a few minutes to review what has changed. This time is blocked out in the schedule like any other part of the service. See the duration of in-salon services.
The story, before the hands
Before touching, we listen. This is not a polite greeting: it is half the assessment, and it is the half your hands will never give you. A client often arrives tense because her hair has already been pulled, because she has been made to understand somewhere that her texture was a problem, or because she still has memories of painful styling. The question that opens everything is simple: can you tell me your hair story?
This story reveals what the examination does not show. A relaxer stopped three years ago, bleaching, long-term weaves, pregnancy, a change of region and therefore of water. Above all, it reveals the habits that have become invisible, those the client does not think to mention because they seem too ordinary to her: re-wetting her hair every day, an oil bath every week, a mask left on overnight. Yet these are what most often explain what you feel under your fingers, and that is where your aftercare advice comes into play. See welcoming clients with coily hair.
Reading the hair, dry
The observation is done on dry hair without unnecessary manipulation. This is not a comfort precaution: wet hair no longer shows its real volume, its shrinkage, or the way it holds. Look at several areas—the nape, temples, and crown—because they almost always differ on the same head, and the tightest area will determine your sectioning.
I see very dry and depleted hair arrive every week, which barely moves anymore and has no elasticity left. This can be read even before placing your hands, by the way the hair holds or does not hold. Knowing how to read this is what separates a service that is carried out from a service that is endured.
Ghana Elin, founderThree observations are enough. Diameter and density, which determine the number of sections: six at minimum, eight in cases of high density, very dense short hair, or very tangled hair, and never more than eight. Elasticity, tested on a fallen strand rather than a strand in place: a fiber that stretches a lot before giving way limply lacks structure; a fiber that breaks cleanly lacks water. And shrinkage, by comparing a stretched strand to the same strand released, which tells you the real length you will have to work with and how long it will take.
Porosity is read with water, on a clean strand: how the water enters, and how long the strand takes to dry. It guides your session settings, but it does not change the order of the six steps, nor the processing time you will announce to the client. Fine-tuning by porosity is worked on in training, on real heads, not in a chart.
The scalp, a separate examination
This is the most frequent oversight, even among hairdressers who are comfortable with the fiber. We examine what we are going to style, and we overlook the skin that carries it, even though it has its own condition and determines what you are allowed to do. Part several sections, including where the client does not complain of anything, and look for redness, scales, sensitivity to the touch, pimples at the base of the braids, or receding temples. On coily hair, density hides the skin: the examination is therefore done by eye and by finger, section by section, not with a single glance.
Two questions complete the observation, and they are worth a full interrogation. How long has the discomfort lasted, and at what point in the week does it manifest? What you are looking for is not a medical diagnosis, but a management guideline: discomfort that follows washing does not call for the same actions as discomfort that builds up over the days. Simple flaking, however, is not an alert and forbids nothing; it only requires working with smaller strands during detangling.
What requires stopping and referring
- Patches, scabs, oozing lesions, pain, or bleeding of the scalp.
- Hair loss significantly greater than usual, or widening bald patches.
- Scalp that swells or burns after a recent color treatment or product.
- In a child, patches without hair or hair broken off at the root.
In these cases, neither color, tight braids, nor chemical techniques are undertaken, and the client is referred to a doctor or dermatologist. A hair assessment never replaces medical advice.
The history
Coloring, relaxers, straightening, irons, recent protective styles: the question is asked again at every visit, because the client does not always think to mention what she has done between appointments. A fiber sensitized by a chemical treatment is not worked like a virgin fiber, and a demarcation line left by an old relaxer is a break zone to be identified before detangling, not during.
Also note what she has stopped doing, and since when. A client who stopped using a relaxer six months ago does not have the same needs as a client who stopped three years ago, even if both describe themselves as "natural." See supporting a hair transition.
From assessment to conducting the Ritual Texture®
An assessment that does not translate into actions is useless. Classify each observation into one of the four categories, and the session plan writes itself.
Standard. Nothing is out of the ordinary: the six steps take place in order, from detangling using the African threading method to sealing in moisture, six sections, The Repair Mask left on for ten minutes under a cap, followed by protective drying after The Styling Cream.
Adaptation. One parameter changes a setting, not the method. High density or very tangled hair: eight sections. Significant product buildup: let the clarifying treatment work a little longer before The Repair Shampoo. A stretched goal or defined styling: adjust the drying, not the steps.
Exception. A specific situation changes an action. Client arrives with wet roots: dry all the hair before detangling, without exception. Recent swimming or beach visits: they do not automatically change the following Ritual Texture® contrary to what we often think.
Alert. Very significant breakage: no comb, detangle by hand only, and the session is referred back to a trained hairdresser. Scalp lesion: stop and refer.
Explain each of these decisions out loud while you work. This is what transforms a service into support, what makes the client capable of repeating the right actions at home every seven to ten days, and what makes her come back to you rather than elsewhere.
The client file
Hair profile, number of sections chosen, session plan, products used, home care advice, actual duration. A well-maintained file saves you from repeating the full assessment every time and gives you an objective point of comparison: it is what transforms a series of appointments into follow-up, and what allows you to show the client the progress made when she doubts.
Do a more in-depth review after a real change: coloring, stopping a relaxer, a short cut, pregnancy, moving to a region whose water is completely different from the previous one. Between these times, a few minutes of checking are enough. An assessment is never final, but it does not need to be completely redone at every visit.
