Three readings. One code.

Ten levels. 1 is tightest, 10 is straight.

Not four types — ten levels. The number climbs as the hair straightens, exactly like a colour level. The letter only names the band; the number decides it. So there is no c3 and no w5. c5 is level five.

The last column is the type 1–4 everybody knows from the internet. It counts the other way — 1 straight, 4 tightest — so it is here only to translate. Nobody has to give up the number they arrived with.

Read the pattern dry, no product, before you comb it.

Frizz level. f0 to f3.

Frizz is its own reading, separate from the pattern. A soft wave can frizz and a tight curl can be perfectly calm.

Humidity does not create frizz. It shows you what was already there.

Three letters. Roots, mid-lengths, ends.

Always three letters, always in the same order — roots, mid-lengths, ends. One letter for each. The hair is not in the same state all the way down, so one letter was never going to do it.

Calculating hair history

You cannot see inside the hair, so you ask. Go through her history and add the numbers together — not this year, the whole life of the hair. Eight-year-old hair means eight years of questions.

Every application counts. Not "does she colour her hair" — how many times. Ten full-head permanent colours is ten.

And count it where it landed. A root retouch only touched the roots. A full head touched all three. That is how one history gives you three letters — the ends carry everything that has ever been done, the roots only what has happened since they grew.

Full bleach all over comes out of the sum. It stops the conversation: repair first.

The total is not a measurement — you cannot measure damage in a chair. And the asking does something the number does not: halfway through, she remembers the perm before the baby, or the box colour she did herself.

Three numbers. Then a second code.

Pattern level, frizz level, condition. Write the code down. Do it on ten heads and it stops being a checklist — you will look at someone and the code will just be there.

Then write a second code: where she wants to go. The difference between the two is the level of change, and that is the job. It works the same in both directions — taking curl out or putting it in, you are moving the same number, just the other way.

Now you know the job, and you understand the hair. You know how far she is asking you to move it, and you know what the hair has left. That is when you decide whether it is achievable, and whether it is worth doing — and it is a decision you can explain to her, because you can show her the two codes.

Here the ends are damaged and the frizz is root to end. Four levels is a real move. So the honest answer might be all of it, or it might be less than she asked for, or it might be not yet.

There is much more to it than this: how far each treatment can actually move the pattern, what the frizz level does to that, and how the condition decides what you are allowed to do at all. That is the next page. Learn these three readings first — nothing else works without them.

Read the hair before you pick the bottle.

We write the length down too.

Not yet, though. Learn the three readings first. When they are automatic, there is a fourth thing worth writing down: curl hides length, so we keep two numbers — T for true length, stretched out, and W for worn length, where it sits when you let go.

A tight z3 can carry T58 and wear it at 24. That is what stops two clients who both say "shoulder-length" being an hour apart in the chair.