Understanding hair porosity – What you need for healthy natural hair

One of the most important things to know to be able to take care of your hair optimally is your hair porosity. Understanding hair porosity is the key to soft, moisturized hair which is easier to handle, style and grow.

What is hair porosity?

Hair porosity is the ability of hair to absorb and retain water (moisture).

Types of hair porosity

Hair porosity has been classified into three types in accordance to how your hair reacts to moisture and they are;

• Low porosity hair

Low porosity hair has tightly closed (compact) cuticles which gives it its smooth, hard feel.
Its closed cuticles also make it hard for moisture or products to penetrate into the shaft or move out the shaft.

• Normal porosity hair

Normal porosity hair feels smooth to the feel but isn’t hard, its cuticles are slightly open so that they can absorb water and lose water at reasonable intervals,

• High porosity hair

High porosity hair has well open cuticles that allow free inflow and outflow of moisture making it dry quickly looking and feeling dull, dry, and frizzy.

How to figure out your hair porosity

There are three tests to figure out your hair porosity but I would talk aboit the most popular one, the other two can be found in my book Hair moisture 101.
Hair in water test
This involves getting shed hair (while combing your hair and placing a few strands in a transparent glass containing water. You will watch it for 2-4 minutes and at the end of the time depending on whether your hair floated or not, you will know your hair porosity.
Results

• Low porosity hair will still be floating on the surface at the end of the four minutes.
• Normal porosity hair will be half way down, it would have sunk but it won’t be at the bottom of the glass.
• Low porosity hair will be lying at the bottom of the glass.

NOTE: Do not push the hair into the water, drop it on the water
and let it migrate by itself or you may be altering your result.

Hair porosity is a lot more important than hair type when it comes to hair care and even if you don’t know your hair type knowing your hair porosity will make you good to go.

The next step after understanding your hair porosity is to know how to care specifically for your hair porosity. Learn more about that in these blog posts;

The secret to natural hair moisture

How to combat dry hair

Achieve soft moisturized hair in 5 days

How to keep low porosity hair moisturized

What is your hair porosity? Leave it in the comments!

Stay glam, Stay you.

-Drop of black.

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