Here's my suggestion. It would take us from 31 to 18 hair forums.

General Discussion (would absorb Hall of Shame, Shampoo Free, Growing Out, Celebs). I feel that most of the absorbed forums are already discussed in Gen Hair, and none of them are so high traffic as to not be handled by Gen Hair.

Salon/Stylist Chatter

Transitioning

Readers Product Reviews

Coloring

Health Related (would absorb Thin/Thinning as there is a fair amount of overlap).

Straightening/Relaxing (would absorb Keratin Services). My personal preference is to get rid of straightening altogether. I feel it has no function on a site for supporting curly hair. But, I don't think that will fly, so we could at least combine the two straightening forums.

All Natural (would absorb Recipes for Hair and Body due to overlap).

Parents of Curlies

Curly Men

Curly Teens

Over 40

Locs

2

3 (combine a,b, and c).

4 (combine a and b).

Porosity (combine porosity types)

Texture

The protein forums would be handled in texture and porosity. They wouldn't need their own forums.

Having separate forums for each porosity and texture type would be cumbersome, IMO. At some point the poster has to do some reading and searching on her own.