Understanding Hair Porosity and a Guide to Manage It

Your hair's needs don't just depend on its type and texture - hair porosity can highly affect your hair health, manageability, and nutrient absorption.

While choosing hair products, we often consider factors like hair type, texture, and scalp condition, but often we overlook an aspect that affects your hair's ability to retain and absorb moisture and hydration, which is hair porosity. You can significantly change and ace your hair game if you can understand hair porosity. It can help you pick the right products that enhance your hair's natural characteristics.

This blog is an elaborate guide to understanding your hair porosity and how you can manage it for better hair health and manageability.

What is Hair Porosity?

Technically, hair porosity is your hair's ability to absorb and hold onto moisture and hydration. It is highly influenced by how well water and oil penetrate the outermost layer of your hair called the cuticle.

Your hair is ideally made up of 3 layers:

• The Cuticle: It is the outermost protective layer of your hair which is made up of smaller cuticles overlapping each other.
• The Cortex: Cortex is the second layer of your hair which is dense and has fibers and pigments that are responsible for your hair's color.
• The Medulla: It is a soft and centermost part of your hair shaft.

However, your hair cuticle structure varies depending on your genetics, hair type, and hair care routine, which affects your hair porosity.

Different Types of Hair Porosity

There are 3 hair porosity types which are categorized as low, medium, and high. Understanding your hair porosity is the first step towards customizing your hair care routine to improve your hair condition and enhance its ability to absorb and retain moisture.

Low Hair Porosity

• Structure: In low porosity hair, the cuticles are flat and tightly woven together which prevents any moisture from seeping in, almost like a watertight barrier.
• Challenges: Feels dry or greasy as the products build up on the hair surface. It's easily prone to tangling and looking dull.
• Signs: Takes longer to dry and appears rough.

Medium Hair Porosity

• Structure: In medium hair porosity, the cuticles are open and closed in an appropriate balance, allowing moisture to pass through easily.
• Advantages: Medium porosity hair is ideally low maintenance and responds well to products.
• Signs: Easy to dry, looks smooth and silky and has a natural shine.

High Hair Porosity

• Structure: The cuticle layer in high porosity hair type is widely spaced and damaged, allowing the moisture to enter quickly and escape easily as well.
• Challenges: Easily dry out, unmanageable, and prone to breakage. Environmental factors like humidity can worsen frizz.
• Signs: Dries out quickly, feels rough, and frizzy.

How Do You Determine Your Hair Porosity Type?

You can test your hair porosity at home with a few easy steps:

• The Float Test: Put your clean hair strand in a glass of water. 2 minutes later check if it:  
• Floats: It means you have low porosity hair.
• Suspends in the middle: You have medium porosity hair.
• Sinks or sits at the bottle of the glass: You have high porosity hair.

• The Slip-and-Slide Test: Move your finger up a strand from tip to the root and see if it:  
• Feels smooth: Low Porosity
• Slightly Bumpy: Medium to High Porosity

Observational Test: This test is about observing how well your hair responds to water and products. Low-porosity hair holds off water and takes longer to dry, while high-porosity hair quickly absorbs water and loses its moisture easily.

Can You Improve Your Hair Porosity?

You cannot change your hair's natural porosity caused by genetics, but you can definitely improve your hair condition and its manageability with a few changes in your hair care routine.

Low Porosity Hair: As the cuticles in low porosity hair are tightly knitted with each other, heat can help open up the layers. Steam treatments or warm water rinses can absorb moisture to an extent.

High Porosity Hair: High porosity hair has gaps between the cuticles which make them porous and prone to losing moisture quickly. This hair type can benefit from protein treatments to strengthen and fill in the cuticle gaps, as well as hydrating oils and butter can help lock in the moisture.

Care Tips for Different Porosity Hair Types:

Low Porosity Hair

Low porosity hair can benefit from light natural oils which have tiny saturated fatty acid molecules. You can use the following products:

• Oils:
• Argan Oil
• Almond Oil
• Jojoba Oil
• Herbs that you can infuse your oils with:
• Brahmi
• Ashwagandha
• Bakuchi
• Gunja

You can also treat your hair with natural clay hair masks. To make it, mix 1 cup of bentonite clay with 1/2 cup of aloe vera water, and 1/4 cup of apple cider vinegar. Apply this hair mask and wash it off after 30 minutes.  

Medium Porosity Hair

Medium porosity hair is considered normal yet it is advisable to carefully choose your haircare products. This porosity type of hair can benefit from light products.

• Oils:
• Almond Oil
• Jojoba Oil
• Coconut Oil
• Avocado Oil
• Herbs that you can infuse your oils with:
• Amla
• Bhringraj
• Rosemary
• Fenugreek
• Brahmi

For medium porosity hair, you can use a fenugreek hair mask. Mix 3 tablespoons of fenugreek powder with curd and aloe vera water. Apply the hair mask to your scalp and hair. Wash it off after 30 minutes.

High Porosity Hair

• Oils:
• Argan oil
• Coconut oil
• Minimize heat and chemical treatments for high-porosity hair.
• Regularly trim your hair to prevent dry, damaged, and split-end hair as these can contribute to increased hair porosity.

Conclusion

You may loosely hear the word and not understand it much, but this blog is a small guide to understanding your hair porosity to help you tailor-make your hair care routine. Each hair porosity type has its share of challenges, but with the right hair care routine, you can achieve beautiful and balanced hair.

FAQs

• Can I change my hair porosity?

If your hair porosity is due to genetics, you can improve your hair quality and make it manageable with the right products. If your hair porosity is caused due to factors like chemical treatments, excessive styling and heat treatments, you can change your hair care routine to reverse it to an extent.

• Is high porosity hair damaged?

Not always. Some people naturally have porous hair due to genetics. However, using heat styling, chemical exposure, and environmental factors can increase the porosity and cause damage.

• Can I use Oil if I have low-porosity hair?

Yes, you can use lighter oils that can penetrate the hair easily, heavy oils can sit on the surface and cause buildup. You can try using argan oil, jojoba oil, or almond oil.

• If medium hair porosity is considered normal, does that mean it is low-maintenance?

Yes, medium porosity hair requires less care and responds well to most products, but little care is required so that your hair does not turn highly porous.

• How often should I deep condition my high porosity hair?

You can deep condition your hair once a week with moisture-rich or protein-infused treatments like hair masks.