Are you struggling to find the right hair regimen and products that work for you? Do you tend to get product build up on your hair or have your perfectly laid hair frizz up in the slightest bit of humidity? You may need to tweak your hair habits a bit to cater to your porosity. Here’s everything you need to know about porosity to help make keeping your curls or blowout popping.
What Is Hair Porosity?
Porosity is how porous the strands of your hair and has to do with how much your cuticles are lifted. Depending on the position in of the cuticles your hair may allow more or less water to enter and exit your strands. Think of your individual strands as a door, water–which is the moisture your hair needs to stay healthy–as a wonderful guest who just wants to cook and clean for you and cuticles as the door. If your cuticles lay flat they won’t let water in, or if it’s already in they won’t let water out. If your cuticles are open water will come and go whenever.
Porosity Test
First, you’ll need to do a cup test if you don’t already know your porosity. Don’t worry this will be quick, easy and FREE. The first step is just filling up a cup with water. Next, find a strand, any strand, as long as it’s your strand, but of course, don’t rip it out of your head if you don’t have to, cause that could be painful.You can use a strand from a brush or just search for a strand that has shedded but is still lingering in your head. Okay, now that you have your strand just place it on the water. Wait about four minutes. If the strand sinks you have high hair porosity, if it floats your porosity is low, if it’s in between your porosity is normal or medium. But what does this mean?
Normal Porosity
If you have normal porosity this may be the end of this article for you. Your hair takes in and releases water at a normal rate, so it is able to stay moisturized without too many complications.
Low Porosity
Low porosity hair has flat cuticles that are sealed tightly. With low porosity hair, there tends to be a lot of product build up, making the hair feel greasy because the products cannot enter the strand. This hair also does not take color well, takes a long time to get completely wet and to completely dry.
Low Porosity Do’s
In order to lift the strand and get moisture into your hair, you can use a bit of heat. For example when deep conditioning (something both natural and relaxed girls should be doing at least once a week) you should use a heat cap. You can buy a durable,multi-fabric one online or from target for about twenty dollars or if you’re balling on a budget you can get a cheap one that resembles a gold plastic shower cap for about two dollars. You can also lift your cuticles by using steam if you don’t have one of those fancy steamers you can boil a pot of water or just let your hair down in a warm shower. Other ways to lift your strands are to heat up the product before putting it in your hair or to sit under the dryer with the product in your hair.
Low Porosity No No’s
Low Porosity hair is sensitive to protein, if you have low porosity hair you may only need to use protein products if it is becoming damaged. Protein is like bricks and cement for your hair. It helps fill in and overly porous areas but when your strands have a low porosity the protein will do nothing but sit on top of the strand. When this happens your hair becomes straw-like, even less accepting of moisture and more susceptible to breakage.
High Porosity
High porosity hair has opened cuticles that easily let moisture in and out. This hair tends to tangle easily, dry quickly, frizz and resist all hair holy grails. Hair that is bleached damaged, heat damaged and chemically damaged tends to have a high porosity because the hair is torn.
High Porosity Do’s
If your hair has high porosity you may want to switch over to shampoos (sulfate-free of course) for damaged hair and deep conditioners with restorative ingredients or protein. You can also incorporate protein treatments into your regimen. Because high porosity hair has cuticles that are wide open you need to take extra steps to seal them when they have moisture in them so always rinse your hair with cold water when you’re rinsing out products.
High Porosity No No’s
Try to refrain from using too much heat, bleach or chemicals on your hair. These things rip apart the strand and damage the cuticle. High porosity hair needs to be gently cared for and when put under too much stress, split ends, knots and feathers will begin to appear.
What Products Work Best
For low porosity girls, you should use light products like Mint Almond Oil by Mielle Organics, Shea Moisture’s Low Porosity Protein Free line, Curl Junkie Curl Assurance Smoothing Conditioner, Kinky-Curly Knot Today, Trader Joe’s Tea Tree Tingle Conditioner, grapeseed oil, olive oil and apple cider vinegar to clean product build up.
High porosity girls should opt for thick, creamy products or use layers of different products. Some good products to try out are Eden Bodyworks Peppermint Tea Tree Hair Milk, Camille Rose Naturals Curl Love Moisture Milk, Curls Lavish Curls Moisturizer, Carol’s Daughter Hair Milk Nourishing & Conditioning Styling Pudding, TGIN Butter Cream Daily Moisturizer, Shea Moisture’s Frizz Defense line and aloe vera gel.
Now that you know your porosity, some do’s and don’t’s, and great products you can keep your strands moisturized, sealed and popping.