9. June 2026

Your Hair Has Been Mislabelled. Here's Why That Matters.

Somewhere along the way, hair got sorted into a numbered system. 1a, 2b, 3c, 4a, 4b, 4c. It sounds scientific. It isn't.

The system was created in the 1990s to sell products for a single brand. That brand's line no longer exists. The scale it invented, however, refuses to die — and for one group of people in particular, it has quietly done real damage.

The category known as "4c" was never part of the original system. It was added later by influencers who felt left out — left out of a scale that had itself only ever existed to move product. The addition was well-intentioned. The outcome was not. It created a label that sits at the furthest end of a hierarchy that never should have existed, and attached it almost exclusively to Black hair.

Here is what the science actually says: hair, across all human beings regardless of ethnicity, varies along three properties — strand thickness (fine, medium, or coarse), moisture behaviour, and elasticity. Most people have a mix. None of these properties align neatly with ethnicity. None of them require a number and a letter to understand.

When we chase a label instead of understanding those properties, we buy the wrong products, use the wrong techniques, and then wonder why our hair won't cooperate. The ACCOD programme starts here — not with a category, but with a conversation between you and your hair.

Are you ready to meet your hair, for real for real? Our next post will go into that. See you then!