If you are worried about not getting enough moisture in your hair, it is time for you to work on its porosity.
When hair porosity drops down, your hair will lose the ability to absorb oil or any other product. Porosity might seem like a minor aspect but it either keeps your hair healthy with sufficient moisture or makes it dry.
You can imagine how frizzy and bad extremely dry hair looks. That being said, you can always take care of the porosity in your hair.
In this article, you will be enlightened on how to take care of the porosity in your hair. Right from recognizing low porosity hair to dealing with it, you will get a solution.
What is Low Porosity Hair
Washing and oiling the hair is a part of the hair care regimen and when your hair porosity is low, it lacks the ability to absorb moisture, oil and any other product into the hair.
Moisture in the hair is necessary not just to keep it away from dryness, but, to maintain its elasticity as well.
What are the Characteristics of Low Porosity Hair
The moisture doesn’t seem to get absorbed into your hair because when the porosity is low, your cuticles are constricted and they don’t get enough breathing space.
All the hair products will stay on your hair but they won’t go deep and get absorbed. This is not a healthy sign because your hair will miss out on getting the moisturizing nutrients that keep it away from breakage, split ends and bad texture.
When you wash your hair, how much ever water you pour, your hair will fail to get wet. On the other hand, when your hair gets wet, it doesn’t dry up easily.
We listed Best Products for Low Porosity that everyone should have.
How to Know If You Have Low Porosity Hair?
First, you need to know three levels of porosity. Here they are!
- High porosity: High porosity means your hair is healthy and has an amazing ability to absorb moisture.
- Medium porosity: Medium porosity is when your hair doesn’t face much of a difficulty in absorbing moisture.
- Low Porosity: Low porosity is when your hair is incapable of absorbing moisture.
Signs of Low Porosity Hair
When your hair fails to absorb enough moisture, there are a few things that your hair goes through. Read through the signs of low porosity hair!
- The hair weighs down and this makes your hair dull and dry.
- For moisture to get into your hair is always a struggle.
- Conditioners don’t seem to effectively work on your hair unless you regularly keep conditioning it with super-effective ingredients.
- Dirt in your hair easily gets accumulated.
- Your hair goes overboard, it is either to dry or gets too oily.
- Drying the hair becomes a big task to accomplish.
How to Test Your Hair to Know Hair Porosity
To assess if the hair porosity is the root cause of dry and frizzy hair, you will need to test the level of porosity in your hair to get your facts right. You will have to do a strand test.
Testing Method #1
What You Need
- Clarifying shampoo
- Distilled water
- Scissors
- 1 glass
What To Do
Follow these steps!
- Get rid of all the dirt by washing your hair with a clarifying shampoo.
- Fill 3/4th glass with distilled water.
- Take one of your hair strands and partially cut it.
- Drop the cut hair strand in water.
Conclusion
You will notice either of three things that will happen to the hair strand in your glass. Your hair will float, slowly sink or completely sink.
- Low Porosity – Your hair strand will float.
- Medium Porosity – Your hair strand will gradually sink.
- High Porosity – Your hair strand will completely sink.
Testing Method #2
You don’t need anything to go about testing the porosity in your hair. In this test, you will just need one of your hair strands.
What To Do
- From the end of your hair to the root you will need to drag your hair.
Conclusion
You have to notice what happened to your hair while dragging. Through the drag, if your hair fails to remain smooth, it means your hair porosity is high. Through the drag, if your hair remains smooth, it means your hair porosity is low.
Testing Method #3
What You Need
- Spray bottle
What To Do
- You just need to spray a little water on your hair.
Conclusion
You will notice three things after spraying water on your hair and based on what happens you will know your hair porosity.
- High Porosity – Your hair will absorb water quickly.
- Medium Porosity – Your hair will absorb water after a few minutes.
- Low Porosity – You will still see water droplets on your hair.
How To Take Care Of Low Porosity Hair?
Irrespective of your hair being high, medium or low porosity, your main task is to take care of it regularly and when it comes to low porosity you will need to be a step more alert about caring for your hair.
Read through what you need to do to take care of low porosity hair!
No 1 – Never Skip Shampooing Your Hair
If your hair porosity is low you need to wash it with an effective clarifying shampoo. Since your hair easily doesn’t absorb the ingredients of a product, it needs to be washed regularly and thoroughly.
No 2 – Conditioning And Heat Must Go Hand In Hand
The problem with low porosity hair is that moisture doesn’t get into your hair, it just settles on your hair.
Adding heat while conditioning your hair enables moisture to get in and your hair absorbs it all. Use heat caps to push moisture into your hair and make it healthy.
No 3 – Limit Your Usage On Leave-In Conditioners
Low porosity hair needs to be conditioned well. However, using more leave-in-conditioners might end up making your hair even more stiff instead of softening it.
The excessive protein in leave-in conditioners burdens low porosity hair and makes it even stiffer. Therefore, look for lightweight and moisturizing ingredients when you pick a leave-in conditioner for yourself.
No 4 – Use Products Having Light Weight Ingredients
Since you want moisture to seep into your hair, it is natural for you to think heavy products having oil and butter will be suitable with filling your hair with sufficient moisture.
But, these ingredients are proven heavy and they spoil your hair texture. Lightweight ingredients refresh your hair and at the same time, they don’t have too many harmful chemicals in them.
So, always use a shampoo or conditioner that is not having heavy ingredients or damaging chemicals.
No 5 – Avoid Overusing Products
When your hair porosity is low, you might want to clean up all the dirt by using enough shampoo and conditioner.
However, the rule is you shouldn’t overuse a product on your hair. Dilute a shampoo before using it. Stay sober with the amount of shampoo and conditioner you use.
No 6 – Apply A Product At The Right Time
For low porosity hair, it is good to apply a product after you have let in some steam or warmth in your hair. The purpose of doing this is to let the product get into your hair efficiently.
It is a tough task to deal with low porosity hair, your hair is a big time deprived of moisture. In situations when moisture levels are imbalanced, no matter how much oil or shampoo you use, it all goes waste.
Testing hair porosity and taking care of low porosity by using correct shampoo’s and conditioners helps improve the porosity levels in your hair. It isn’t impossible for low porosity hair to become medium porosity, take the necessary care and you will see the difference.
