7 Types Of Frizzy Hair And How To Fix Your Frizz

Frizzy hair affects nearly every curly girl at some point, but did you know that there are different types of frizz?

Your first step toward taming frizz is identifying the type and its causes so you can restore your curls to their glorious best.

In this guide, I’ve rounded up 7 of the most common types of frizzy hair. I’ll also share tips on how to pick the best frizzy hair products and which techniques will help you achieve your hair goals.

What Is Frizzy Hair?

Frizz can affect every type of hair including straight hair and wavy hair. However, you’re more likely to experience the problem if you have a curly or coily hair type.

Frizzy hair has an uneven texture and the hair fibers can appear dry, brittle, or fuzzy. The frizzy hairs stand out at irregular angles, turning your mane into a messy tangle of strands instead of a regular curl pattern.

Styling frizzy hair can be difficult. If you blow dry frizzy hair straight, it will quickly revert to its previous texture when exposed to moisture or humid air. 

Some of the most common symptoms of frizzy hair include:

• Irregular hair texture
• Lack of curl definition
• Loss of elasticity
• Dry, dull strands
• Voluminous, puffy hair

What Causes Frizzy Hair?

There are many different types of frizzy hair and many potential causes. Identifying the cause of your frizz will help you work out how to fix it. 

Dry Hair: Lack of moisture can easily make your curls frizz. Hair can become dehydrated for many reasons, including high porosity, damage from harsh shampoos, or under-conditioning. 

Heat Damage: Frequent exposure to high heat from a blow dryer, flat iron, or other hot styling tools can damage the keratin that makes up most of your hair structure.

Humidity: Humid weather makes the hair shaft swell and the scales of the cuticle layer rise. When the hair fibers rub together, it creates friction that leads to frizz. 

Product Build-up: Non-water soluble ingredients like silicones and heavy hair oil can build up on your strands, making it hard for them to absorb moisture. 

There are 7 major frizzy types of hair, each caused by one or more of these factors. 

Let’s take a look at each one in turn:

Classic Curly Frizz

Curly and coily hair is always prone to frizz, and most curly girls will experience frizz at some point.

The twists and turns in your strands make it harder for the hair’s natural oils to travel down the hair shaft and also cause the hair cuticles to lift up. This can leave natural curls looking dehydrated and lacking definition.

How To Fix Curly Frizz

Luckily, there are several steps you can take to solve your classic curly hair frizz.

The best way to fix classic curl frizz is by boosting the hydration in your curls and coils, using a deep conditioner, leave-in conditioner, and hair masks to infuse the strands with moisture. Avoiding harsh ingredients such as sulfates, phthalates, and drying alcohols is essential.

It can help to use a clarifying shampoo regularly to remove any product buildup on your tresses. However, these will also strip your hair of its natural oils, so always follow up with conditioning treatments.

You can help tame frizz by patting or scrunching your damp hair with a cotton t-shirt or microfiber towel to remove excess moisture instead of rubbing it with a regular towel. 

Try not to touch your hair too often as it dries, as this can also turn your hair to frizz. 

Surface Frizz

Surface frizz is just what the name sounds like – frizz on the top layer of your hair while the healthy hair underneath stays smooth. It’s also sometimes known as topical frizz, and the fine hairs sticking out can look like static electricity or flyaways. 

This type of frizz is often caused by external elements like humid weather, the sun’s UV rays, or damage to your hair’s cuticle layer. 

How To Fix Surface Frizz

Solving surface frizz requires hydration, but you need to be careful not to over-moisturize the healthy underlayers. 

Creating a moisture barrier with anti-frizz products will help your hair repel humidity and lock in hydration.  Along with frizz control shampoos and conditioners, using a lightweight serum or styling cream on the top layers of your hair will help tame those fine flyaway hairs. 

Avoid washing your hair too often and only use your hair dryer and heated styling tools occasionally, setting them to the lowest temperatures possible. 

Halo Frizz 

Halo frizz is similar to surface frizz, but your hair will look fluffy or fuzzy, creating a frizzy halo around the crown of your head.

There are several causes for this frizz type, including exposure to pollution, mechanical damage from harsh brushing or combing wet hair, and heat damage from hot styling tools or hot water. 

How To Fix Halo Frizz

It’s difficult to repair halo frizz, so try to avoid exposing your hair to the stressors mentioned above. Strengthening hair treatments like Olaplex Hair Perfector No.3 could help repair damage and protect your strands against further damage and breakage. 

Always wash your hair using cool or warm water, and apply a good detangler to give more hair slip before you brush or comb your hair. You can also protect your strands with a heat protection spray before you blow dry your hair or use heated styling tools. 

Poufy Frizz

Poofy frizz or poof ball frizz – whatever you call it, this frizzy hair type is unmistakable. If you’ve experienced this type of frizz, you’ll surely remember the fluffy volume and the hours you spent trying to tame it. 

Like halo frizz, poof ball frizz is linked to stressors like over-brushing or heat styling that cause your hair to become dehydrated and lift up the hair cuticle layer. However, this kind of frizz affects every strand, not just the top layer, so it creates a massive ball of frizz around your head.  

How To Fix Poufy Frizz

Good hydration is the key to solving this type of hair frizz. Avoid washing your hair too often, as this can dry out your strands, and finish your wash day routine with plenty of moisture from conditioners and hydrating hair treatments. 

You can prevent poof ball frizz by not using hot water to wash your hair and applying leave-in treatments and heat protectants before styling your hair. Avoid combing or touching your hair too often, as this can also dehydrate your strands. 

Frizzy Ends

Frizz on the last couple of inches of your hair is usually caused by damage from heated styling tools or chemical treatments like perms or color treatments. This sort of frizz can occur on any hair type and usually affects hair with split ends.

The ends of your hair strands are often naturally drier than your roots. They’ve been exposed to excessive heat, chemicals, and other stressors for much longer than the part of the strand closer to the hair follicle. Over time, this leads to dryness, split ends, and frizz. 

How To Fix Frizzy Ends

Visiting the salon for regular trims every 4-6 weeks is an easy way to keep your ends frizz-free. You can minimize the risk of split ends by keeping your hair well-moisturized and using heat protectant sprays before you reach for the hot styling tools. 

A protein-enriched hair mask like Arvazallia Fortifying Protein Hair Mask will help strengthen your strands. It’s also enriched with argan oil and macadamia oil to keep your hair feeling soft and supple. 

Product Frizz

Product frizz is caused by using products that are too harsh for your hair. This could include shampoos and styling products containing ingredients like sulfates and drying alcohols that dry out your strands and damage your cuticles. 

If you have this type of damage, your curls could lack definition and look flat, especially around the crown area. 

How To Fix Product Frizz

You can avoid product frizz by choosing the right products for your curly hair type. 

If your hair develops product frizz, you’ll need to stop using the products that have caused the damage to your hair. Replace them with products free from harsh ingredients, like sulfate-free shampoo and silicone-free styling products. 

Moisturizing your strands with deep conditioners or a hair mask can help replenish the lost hydration from your tresses. 

Wet Frizz

Wet frizz is different from other types of frizz. This condition makes wet hair feel stringy and unmanageable when you wring out excess water after washing. It can also occur after applying styling products to wet hair.

Most types of frizz are caused by environmental factors like humidity or damage to the strands from stressors like heat and chemicals. Wet frizz has a range of potential causes, including high or very low hair porosity, poor protein/moisture balance in your strands, and flash drying. 

How To Fix Wet Frizz

Each cause of wet frizz has its own remedy, so you’ll need to identify what’s causing your problem before you can work out how to fix it. 

For example, if your hair has high porosity, you can use the LCO method to boost hydration. On the other hand, hair that has too much protein will get the best results from switching to protein-free products.

You can learn more about this condition in our guide to wet frizz. 

FAQs

If you’re still wondering about frizzy hair types, these frequently asked questions will help clear things up.

Is Straight Hair Or Curly Hair Frizzy?

Frizz affects all different hair types, but curly hair tends to be more prone to frizz because the scalp’s natural oils can’t travel down the shaft as easily.

However, straight hair types like coarse type 1 C hair can still get frizzy, especially  in a humid climate.

Which Curly Hair Types Are The Most Frizzy?

Any curl type can develop frizz, but type 3 c curly hair and type 4 coily or kinky hair are most prone to it. 

What’s The Difference Between Frizz And Flyaways?

Frizz and flyaways look similar, but they have different causes. Frizzy hair is generally the result of dry hair or raised hair cuticles, while flyaways are usually caused by breakage or new growth. 

The Bottom Line

Frizz is a problem nearly everyone experiences at some point, no matter what hair type they have. 

There are many different types of frizzy hair, each with a specific set of factors that cause the problem. So, when frizz strikes, the first thing you need to do is identify the type of frizz affecting your hair.

Once you know what you’re dealing with, it’s much easier to make the changes your hair needs to be restored to full health. 

Following the tips in this guide and using the best products for your frizz type will soon return your mane from frizzy strands to beautifully smooth, defined curls.