What’s This Mysterious Hair Porosity All About?

Probably, you’ve heard something about that. Surely you also remember that the outer layer of hair isn’t smooth, like for example glass, but is composed of the overlapping cuticles. In big short, the hair cuticles are either tightly bonded together or risen up. The degree at which the cuticles are risen up determines the hair porosity type.

The more hair cuticles are risen, the higher porosity hair is.

There are three types of hair porosity. You have to remember though that hair looks different as it has different porosity type. Therefore, it needs a different kind of care. To make a long story short, the hair porosity determines hair needs.

Hair Porosity Types

1. Low Hair Porosity Type / Low Porosity Hair

Low porosity hair is rather hard to find. It’s thick and heavy, hard to dry and super hard to style. It happens that no hair dyes can colour low porosity hair. Moreover, this type of strands doesn’t deteriorate as fast as the hair of the other porosities, yet it has to struggle with its own problems – it’s heavy, which makes the hair constantly flat, deprived of volume. Moroever low porosity hair tends to get greasy frequently, which can significantly contribute to hair bulbs weakening. Excessive sebum production combined with thick hair, block the oxygen which, as a consequence, disturbs the circulation. The result is skin becoming ill, and with it, hair starts being ill, too.

Proper nourishment, protection and scalp care is the must for low porosity hair care.

2. Medium Hair Porosity Type / Medium Porosity Hair

Medium porosity hair type is the most common kind of hair. It can be described as ‘hair in between’ because its condition is situated somewhere between heavy hair of low porosity and super damaged and dry hair of high porosity. It’s prone to styling and relatively sleek but frequently dull. Medium porosity hair can surprise negatively since it may get frizzy easily, be dehydrated at the ends, often affected with dandruff. Furthermore, if treated with mismatching hair products, medium porosity hair may become greasy or dehydrated excessively. This type of hair is easy to weaken. Once its condition deteriorates, the hair starts falling out as its growth might be stopped.

Nourishment, protection against damages, scalp care and condition improvement, is the core of medium hair porosity care.

3. High Hair Porosity Type / High Porosity Hair

High porosity hair is extremely damaged. It’s dehydrated, matte and brittle. The hair’s looks leaves much to be desired. The hair ends are split and are affected by frizz. The hair loses its volume and becomes rough. Such strands are hard to tame and fall out in great amounts. For that reason, hair has to be protected, replenished with water and strengthened since it’s completely defenceless. In other words, such hair doesn’t have any protection and is exposed to the upcoming damages.

Protection, hydration and nourishing substances supply is what high porosity hair needs.

Hair Oils and Hair Porosity Types

We’ve said before that hair cuticles are angled at various degrees (which determines the porosity type). Therefore, extremely crucial is matching the ‘gaps’ with fitting molecules that a particular oil is made of.

It’d be better if explained in a more figurative way. Namely, have you ever tried to open doors with the key that doesn’t fit the lock? And this how oils work, or rather won’t work if they mismatch hair porosity. In other words, a small oil molecule has to fit the gap created between the hair and the risen up cuticles. For that very reason, it’s highly important to be aware of one’s own hair porosity type and know which fatty acids serve which hair porosity type.

How To Define Hair Porosity?

First and foremost, you have to pay close attention to your hair. Defining hair porosity to your eyes isn’t that difficult. Each hair porosity type has its own characteristic features, as it looks differently. Once got acquainted with the features of the hair porosity types, most women are able to match one of them with their hair correctly.

However, if you need to run a test, drop a clean hair (free from conditioners, balms and styling cosmetics) into a bowl with water. Let it ‘swim’ in this kind of a bath for more or less 10 minutes to check later whether it has reached the bottom or not. The lower the hair is, the higher it’s porosity. In other words, high porosity hair absorbs water fast while low porosity hair is rather reluctant to absorb water. Naturally, medium porosity hair is expected to ‘swim’ somewhere in the middle of the bowl.

Hair Porosity – Which Hair Oils To Choose?

LOW POROSITY – choose Coconut Oil, Babassu Oil, Palm Oil, and other oils or butters of small molecules and with the dominance of saturated fatty acids.

MEDIUM POROSITY – choose Macadamia Oil, Argan Oil, Jojoba Oil, Sesame Oil, Avocado Oil, Camellia Oil, Moringa Oil, Apricot Seed Oil, Sweet Almond Oil as well as all the other oils with the dominance of fatty acids from the Omega-7 and Omega-9 group.

HIGH POROSITY – choose Cedar Oil, Castor Oil, Evening Primrose Oil, Safflower Oil, Black Seed Oil, Grape Seed Oil, Linseed Oil, Corn Oil, Sunflower Seed Oil as well as any other oil with the dominance of fatty acids from the Omega-3 and Omega-6 group.

How To Apply Oil To Hair?

Application of a particular hair oil or a special blend of natural oil is simple. You have to put the oil onto scalp and the entire length of hair. This kind of procedure is called Oil Hair Treatment.

You are in a very convenient situation while performing oil hair treatment because it’s you who chooses when to perform the procedure, its frequency, and how long you let the oil sit in. You can leave it on hair for the night and wash it in the morning with shampoo. Also, you can apply an oil to hair to leave it there for 15 minutes (or an hour, two or five).

Moreover, you decide whether you apply the oil to dry hair before shampooing, or to damp hair right after shampooing. However, when you choose to apply the oil to hair right after shampooing, you have to be sure not to put the natural product to the scalp since you aren’t going to wash the hair soon.

Natural hair oils are great hair stylists and pose natural heat protection, therefore it’s advised to apply them to dry hair before setting a hairdo, or to damp hair before you start using a blow-dryer. Natural hair oil will also work as a serum for damaged hair.

Natural hair oil – versatile, brilliant and ideally matching your hair type. What more could you possibly need?