Which Hair Type Has a Hard, Glassy Finish?

The answer is wiry hair. Milady describes wiry hair — whether it happens to also be coarse, medium, or fine in texture — as having a hard, glassy finish because its cuticle scales lie unusually flat against the hair shaft.

That distinction matters because wiry is a separate property from texture (coarse/medium/fine), which measures strand diameter. A hair strand can be fine in diameter and still be wiry in finish — the glassy look comes from how flat the cuticle lies, not from how thick the strand is, which is why the exam tests them as different concepts.

Source

Milady Standard Barbering, 6th ed., Ch. 10 (Properties and Disorders of the Hair and Scalp), p. 267: "Wiry hair, whether coarse, medium, or fine, has a hard, glassy finish because the cuticle scales lie flat against the hair shaft."

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More real Hair Science questions with sourced answers: What Is Hair Texture, Which Conditioner Can Weigh Down Fine Hair, What Causes an Oily Scalp and Hair, How Often Are Eyebrows and Eyelashes Replaced, and 28 more on the Hair Science practice questions page.

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