Have you ever wondered how your hair is built, or how to take care of it the right way? Well, the proper hair care is determined by porosity. What’s that? It’s the angle at which hair cuticles are raised; how far are they outlying the hair cortex. The cuticles themselves compose hair external sheath, which is the first, the very outer part of strands. The roles of cuticles are to: protect against external aggressive factors, maintain hair moisture at right level along with providing smoothness and gloss.

Find out which porosity level your hair is and which cosmetics should you use to take care of the strands.

Your Hair Porosity Is… Find It Out!

All hair-maniacs and hairdressers distinguish three basic types of hair porosity: low, medium and high. This can be defined just by looking at the cuticles or by conducting a test (the issue will be developed later). Let’s start from the low porosity type. Cuticles of such hair are bound together tightly. Therefore, strands are sleek, reflect light well. What’s more, it’s hard to tie them and curl. Moreover, delivering of nourishing substances to such hair is time-consuming, strands are damage-resistant and it’s easy to make them flat at roots. High porosity hair is the total contrariety to low porosity hair. What are its characteristic features? First of all, washing and drying is way easier. Furthermore, it’s easy to dehydrate it and as a consequence make it frizzy. Hair dyes and cosmetics have easy access to get inside the hair shaft due to raised cuticles. And what about medium porosity? It’s hair hard to define precisely. It has got characteristics of high porosity hair (hair ends) and low porosity (roots).

How To Treat Hair Of Various Porosity?

High porosity hair

The best option is to treat it with emollients, humectants, conditioners and vinegar hair washes. Apply poly-saturated oils, the big molecules of which penetrates through widely-open cuticles. The oils include: raspberry seed oil, safflower oil, strawberry seed oil, linseed oil, watermelon seed oil, apple seed oil and musk rose oil. During the treatment, make use of aloe and glycerine, too. However, use the substances scarcely since the side effect of overdose is frizz and static of hair. Another great solution is applying various conditioners, both leave-in and those which have to be rinsed off. Once in a while, use vinegar hair washes since they’re good at closing hair cuticles.

Low porosity hair

It’s the easiest to take care of. What’s highly important, remember not to use products that contain proteins. The very substances can weight hair down and make it greasy. Instead, give a try to herbal conditioners; most preferably if the products include emollients in their composition. Moreover, apply saturated oil and cosmetic butters. You’ll be surprised how coconut oil, palm oil, babssu oil as well as Shea, mango and cocoa butter can transform your hair.

Medium porosity hair

Protein conditioners are a good solution in this case. Every few weeks, apply hair rub or hair wash with milk and egg yolk. Moreover, use mono-saturated oils like hazelnut oil, papaya seed oil, plum seed oil, cherry seed oil, apricot seed oil, peach seed oil, sweet almond oil, avocado oil, arachnid oil, macadamia oil or olive oil. Avoid using products that can increase the angle at which your hair cuticles are already open. On the other hand, there isn’t any contraindication to apply products of cuticle-closing features.

Do The Hair Porosity Test

Don’t worry, this is the only test that won’t be evaluated by anyone. Just try to answer the questions below. Thanks to this, you’re going to define porosity level of your hair as you’ll be able to choose the best caring methods for your strands. Ready? Steady? Go!

HAIR WASHING
  1. Does your hair dry long or short?
  2. Is it hard to make your hair damp?
  3. When does your hair look best: right after washing, a few hours after washing or right before the next washing?
  4. Have you got problem with washing hair precisely? If yes, what products do you use in order to do it?
HAIR STYLING
  1. Does your hair need much time to get to its previous form if you brush it to the other side of your head?
  2. Is your hair malleable and get deformed easily after taking off a hair band or undoing plait?
  3. Does your hair increase volume after combing? Maybe it loses the volume?
LOOK OF YOUR HAIR
  1. Does your hair have natural and healthy shine?
  2. What do you prefer better, having your hair tied up or wearing it loose?
  3. How does it feel when you touch the hair ends?
  4. How often do you dye, straighten and blow-dry your hair?
  5. What cosmetics didn’t help your hair/worsen the condition of your hair?
  6. Is your hair care intensive or rather moderate?

As you can see, The Hair Porosity Test is divided into three parts so as to make the task easier for you. The sections HAIR WASHING, HAIR STYLING and LOOK OF YOUR HAIR include questions which enable you to quickly and with high precision define whether your hair is low, medium or high porosity.

Providing you don’t find this test efficient enough, you can find other ideas how to define hair porosity on the Internet. You’ll come across Touch And See Method as well as Flour And Coconut Oil Method. The first method depends on observing how your hair behave on daily basis. To clarify, check how your strands look right after washing them, define whether they are manageable or not, and how they react to various weather conditions. And what about the Flour And Coconut Oil Method? Sprinkle your hair with flour or apply coconut oil. If your hair becomes dry and frizzy, you can consider it as high porosity.

Do you already know, what’s the porosity of your hair?