Your curls don't need more trial and error. They need a plan.
Calculators, charts, and printables for curly hair - waves, curls, coils, and kinks. All free, no account required.
Hair Shrinkage Calculator
Your hair is longer than it looks. Enter your shrunken and stretched length to get your exact shrinkage percentage - and what that number means for your curl pattern, where tight coils can hide more than 70% of your length.
Know Your Hair
1 tool, 2 printablesIf you've tried the float test and got a different answer every time, start here. These two tell you what your hair is actually doing.
Hair Porosity Quiz
Find out where your hair sits in 90 seconds. It weighs your hair's history above how your hair feels, because that's the half with research behind it.
Find Your Porosity Without the Float Test
What to check instead of the float test, plus the routine for your result, on one page you can keep with your products.
Reverting or Heat-Damaged?
A wet strand test that tells you whether your curls are coming back or the heat took them, plus what to do about either answer.
Length & Growth
2 toolsIf your hair feels like it stays the same length no matter what, start here. These two separate what your hair is actually doing from what it looks like it's doing.
Hair Shrinkage Calculator
Measure your hair shrunken, then stretched, and you'll see exactly how much length you actually have. Waves hide a little, and tight coils can hide more than 70%.
Hair Growth Calculator
Find out how long it takes to reach your goal length at your own growth rate - not the half-inch-a-month average someone quoted you.
Protective Styles & Locs
3 tools, 8 printablesReference sheets you can keep open on your phone or print and set beside you while you install, retighten, or take a style down.
Protective Style Planner
Which style fits your hair, how long to keep it in, and how to tell if it went in too tight. Braids, twists, and locs compared.
Loc Method Matcher
Eight questions, and you get the one of seven ways to start locs that actually fits your hair, your budget, and your patience.
Bantu Knots Quick Reference
Section sizes, knot tension, and dry times on one page you can follow while you style.
Passion Twists Quick Reference
Hair amounts, install time, and takedown timing for passion twists, all at a glance.
Sisterlocks Cost Breakdown
What sisterlocks actually cost - establishment, retightening, and the ongoing upkeep most quotes leave out.
Sisterlocks vs. Dreadlocks
Side by side on size, install method, maintenance, and cost - so you can tell which one you actually want.
Sisterlocks vs. Microlocs
These two get confused constantly. Here's what separates them on technique, cost, and upkeep.
What to Ask Before You Start Locs
Nine questions for your loctician consultation, and the answers about tension that should make you keep looking.
Before You Leave the Chair
The words to say before she starts, four things to check before you get out of the chair, and what to watch for over the next three days.
Braiding Hair Calculator
How many packs you need for twelve styles, answered in the pack format you’re actually buying.
Braiding Hair Packs by Style
Nine styles, with what you’ll need in single bundles and in 3X bags side by side.
Products & Ingredients
1 tool, 3 printablesBefore you spend money on another product, check what the research actually says about it.
Rice Water: Benefits & Side Effects
What rice water can do for your hair, what it can't, and the protein-overload signs to watch for.
Biotin Daily Intake Levels
Established adequate intake by age and life stage, with the research behind each number.
Deep Conditioning Troubleshooting Log
Change one thing at a time and write down what your hair did. Five variables, a blank log, and how to read the result.
Hair Product Price Checker
What each type of product costs per ounce, and whether the bottle in your hand is a fair price.
In development
Here's what we're building next. These are the questions readers ask us most, and none of them have a good answer anywhere else yet.
Curl Profile Quiz
The hair porosity quiz covers one piece. This adds your density and texture, for a routine built around all three.
Breakage vs. Growth
"Why does my hair stay the same length?" Usually it's breakage, not growth. This tells you which one you're dealing with.
Length Retention Tracker
Log your length month over month and see whether you're actually keeping the length you grow.
Can't find what you need?
Tell us which tool would help you most. We build these based on what readers ask for, and we read every reply. Looking for a definition or a straight answer instead? Try the natural hair dictionary or the curly hair FAQ.