On your shelf: seven opened bottles, three never finished, and two bought on the advice of a friend whose hair looks nothing like yours. None of them really worked, and nobody could tell you why.
A hair diagnosis is where that question finally gets asked. It isn't one more appointment at the hairdresser's: it's a time to observe and to tell your story, so that you finally know what you're dealing with before you buy or change anything. This article explains what it looks at, how to run your first one at home, what it won't tell you, and what an outside eye adds to what you already see. To know what to do with these observations, our step-by-step tutorial walks you through the six steps of the Rituel Texture®.
What a diagnosis sets out to learn
A hair diagnosis answers five questions, always the same ones. What is the texture, and how dense is it. What state are the lengths in: dry, brittle, tired from colour, from an old relaxer, from styles that pull too hard. How does the scalp behave, bearing in mind that it is skin and should be treated as such. What your week really allows, because a routine that doesn't fit your schedule won't last three months. And finally, what you want, which is almost never what you were sold.
Those last two questions are the most underestimated, and they are the ones that separate advice you actually follow from advice that stays on paper. A woman who wants length, one who wants volume and one who wants to spend less of her Sunday on her hair don't need the same thing, even with identical texture. A well-run diagnosis keeps these goals apart instead of blending them into a generic routine.
What it changes in practice: you stop buying at random. You know which steps to take, in what order, how often, and which of your current habits are working against you. That last list is often the biggest surprise.
Your hair history
Before observation comes the story, and it isn't a polite way of saying hello. What your hair has been through explains a good part of what it does today. A relaxer you stopped three years ago, a bleach, weaves worn for a long time, a pregnancy, a move and a change of water: each of these leaves a mark you can't guess just by looking at a strand.
In the salon, I always start with the same question: can you tell me your hair story? Before I touch a single hair, I want to know where the woman in my chair is coming from. What was done to her hair, what she has tried, what went wrong and left its mark. Half of what I need to understand is already in that answer.
Ghana Elin, founderThe story also brings to light habits that have become invisible. Many women don't mention that they rewet their hair every day, do an oil bath every week or leave a mask on overnight: these habits are so ingrained they don't seem worth mentioning, yet they are often what explains the result. Once we hear them, we can correct the cause rather than the symptom.
If you're taking stock on your own, start there. Write down what your hair has been through over the last five years, then what you do to it every week, including anything that seems trivial. That list is half the diagnosis.
At homeThe four observations to make
The four observations below need no equipment and are done on clean, dry hair. They don't replace a professional eye, but they teach you to look at your hair instead of putting up with it. Keep something to write with: it's the difference between two observations, six months apart, that ends up telling you the most.
Texture and density, section by section
Take a clean, dry strand and look at the shape it takes on its own, with no product and no stretching: very tight Z-shaped coils, fine spirals, wide waves. Do this in four or five places on your head. Several textures almost always live on the same head of hair, often tighter at the nape, and that's normal: the shape of the coily fibre is set in the follicle and varies from one area of the scalp to another.
Then look at density, which is a separate matter: make a parting and see whether your scalp shows easily or stays covered. Fine, dense hair and thick, sparse hair need opposite amounts of product, and that is often where the feeling of a “product that does nothing”, or on the contrary of smothered hair, comes from.
Porosity, with water
Wet a strand and watch two things: how the water goes in, and how long the hair takes to dry. A low-porosity fibre repels water for a few moments, products sit on the surface and drying takes a long time. A high-porosity fibre drinks everything in at once and dries quickly: it absorbs a lot but holds on to little. Porosity is the most common reason hair stays dry despite regular care, and we've given it a whole article: coily hair porosity.
Elasticity, with a gentle pull
Take a shed hair, wet it and stretch it very gently between two fingers. If it stretches a long way before giving way limply, the fibre lacks structure. If it snaps cleanly without stretching at all, it lacks water. Do the test on several hairs, never just one: it shows a tendency, not a verdict. It's the most useful observation when the question is breakage.
Shrinkage, so you don't misread the problem
Measure a strand stretched between two fingers, then look at the length it shows once you let go. The gap is often dramatic, and it explains much of the discouragement of women who believe they simply can't grow their hair. The difference in visible length comes mostly from breakage and shrinkage. We explain this in our article on shrinkage after washing.
The scalp is read separately
This is the most common mistake when you diagnose your hair on your own: you examine the lengths and forget the skin they grow from. Yet the scalp has its own condition, often unrelated to that of the ends. Very dry lengths and skin that gets oily quickly go together perfectly well, and call for opposite care.
Look at it by making partings in several places, a few days after washing rather than on the day itself. Look for redness, tight areas, flakes, tenderness to the touch, spots at the base of braids. Also note when in the week the discomfort starts: an itch that's there the day after washing and an itch that sets in on day five don't tell the same story. Our article on an itchy scalp goes through the causes to rule out, one by one.
When to see a doctor, not do a hair diagnosis
- Hair loss clearly heavier than usual, or thinning patches that keep spreading.
- Patches, scabs, spots with pus or weeping areas.
- Itching that lasts several weeks despite a suitable routine.
- A scalp that swells or burns after colouring or a new product.
- In a child, bald patches or hair broken off at the root.
No hair diagnosis, whether at home, online or in the salon, replaces medical advice.
What a diagnosis won't tell you
You can also tell a good diagnosis by what it refuses to promise. It won't give you a fixed label, such as 4a, 4b or 4c, supposed to sum up your hair and dictate what you buy. These classifications are useful for describing a strand, not for choosing a routine: they ignore porosity, density, the state of your lengths and your lifestyle, in other words most of what shapes the result. If you want to place your texture, do it with your eyes open, with our article on coily hair types.
Nor will it promise you a growth rate. What matters with coily hair is first and foremost the length you keep: whatever doesn't break eventually shows. That's the subject of our article on length retention.
Finally, it won't turn your plate into a cause or a cure. Beautiful hair comes from the inside as well as the outside, and a balanced diet is part of the picture, but no single food makes hair grow. As for supplements, only take them on a pharmacist's advice, who will check what else you're taking.
What you want from your hair
The last part of the diagnosis no longer looks at the fibre: it looks at you. It's the part most often skipped, and yet it decides whether the routine will last. How much time are you ready to spend on your hair, and on which day? Do you wear it loose, or almost always tied up, braided, in a protective style? A method that assumes two hours on Sunday won't suit someone who only has one on Saturday evening.
Then comes the question of your look. In our partner salons, a cut isn't chosen from a chart of face shapes: it's built from your silhouette, the way you hold your head, your gaze and the woman you want to be. That changes the conversation, and it avoids cuts that look great in the photo but that you can't carry off on Monday morning. One simple rule frames this moment: if you're not sure you want a cut, we don't cut, and we never cut hair you almost never wear out.
Getting support
A diagnosis at home gives you a solid direction. An outside eye sees what you can't see on your own: localised breakage you mistake for regrowth, tension that has settled along the hairline, a texture your usual styles have hidden from you for years.
Our consultations take place entirely online. Our experts don't handle your hair: they help you interpret what you observe at home, go back over your hair history with you and build the routine that suits your texture and your daily life. It's the right option when there's no trained salon near you, or before booking an appointment so you arrive with the right questions. The consultations page sets out the conditions, the length and how it works.
In the salon, the conversation comes with touch, and that's another thing altogether. A hairdresser trained in the Rituel Texture® feels under their fingers what no photo shows: the elasticity of the fibre, the way a section detangles, the areas that resist, the exact point where breakage begins. It's also where any cut is decided, after protective drying, on stretched hair. See how to find a good hairdresser for coily hair.
You've taken stock, and you don't know what to make of it?
Our experts go over your observations with you online, piece together your hair history and set the order of the steps to work on first.
Book a consultationWhat you do with it
A diagnosis that leads nowhere is pointless. At the end, you should be able to say three things: how often you wash, in what order you apply, and what you stop doing. The Rituel Texture® gives you the framework, every seven to ten days, from Chadian finger detangling through to locking in moisture; the diagnosis tells you where to adjust within that framework.
If your lengths are dry and lack suppleness, what counts is the regularity of the Rituel Texture® and the ten minutes the Repairing Mask stays on, not one more product. If breakage dominates, it's your detangling technique and the tension of your styles that need looking at first. If it's your scalp that bothers you, lighten what you put on it and go back to cleansing in two stages, a gentle clarifier and then The Repairing Shampoo. In all three cases, The Styling Cream helps hold on to the moisture brought by washing, and a drop of light oil on the ends can top things up between two routines.
Change only one thing at a time, and give it two or three routines to show. Correcting four habits in the same month might bring a result, but you'll never know which one did it, and you'll be back where you started the following winter. Then take stock again once a year, sooner if something really changes.
