How much do you know about your hair? Are you ready to take this quick test?
Is your hair oily, dry, or a combination of both?
Does your hair take too much time to dry?
Does your hair need too much oiling or moisturizing to stay hydrated?
Does your hair have high porosity or low porosity?
Chances are you will get stuck on the last question. Not many know that hair porosity is an important deciding factor in knowing if your hair needs extra attention or a tweaked hair care routine. There are three types of porosity- low, normal, and high.
This article talks about signs of high porosity hair and tips for taking care of it to enjoy healthy and faster-growing locks.
What is High Porosity in Hair?
Porosity means the ability to absorb. High porosity hair can easily and quickly absorb water and products because of huge gaps in the surface layer of the pores. This lifts the layer of cuticles, allowing the moisture to pass through the cortex easily. But this doesn’t mean that the hair will retain the sucked-up hydration for long. Large pores lose hydration as quickly as they absorb them. This is what makes high porosity hair a challenge to maintain in good health.
Signs of High Porosity Hair
Have a look at these signs of high porosity hair to know whether your hair falls in this category.
1. Hair Feels Constantly Dry
High porosity hair is like a sponge. When you keep it in a container filled with water, you see the container emptying, and the sponge has sucked most of it. But when you lift the sponge, you can see the water dripping out of it quickly, too.
This is the reason that your hair feels constantly dry because it loses moisture as quickly as it takes it in. If you find yourself applying too many oils and conditioners to your hair to keep it feeling smooth and silky, then this is the biggest sign that your hair has high porosity.
2. Hard to Manage Frizz
This is a very irritating sign of high porosity hair. Frizziness is something we all wish to stay away from our hair. But this is one of the prominent features of hair with high porosity. Frizz is the untamed look of hair with strands all over the place and too many flyaways that refuse to sit down in a neat line. Dryness leads to this kind of unmanageable frizz in high-porosity hair.
3. Hair Breaks Easily
Whether it is combing, styling, or simply moving your fingers over your strands, there is always a bunch of hair that you see parting ways with your head. Hair with high porosity tends to break easily, which can be a warning sign if not taken care of immediately.
You need to use deep conditioners and moisturizers for your hair and always keep it protected from being exposed to weather conditions. Doing scalp massages regularly is good, too, as they help to strengthen the roots and give birth to more hair. This can be a great way to combat hair fall.
4. Hair Lacks Lustre
If you find your hair rarely gives that soft shine even after lathering it up with shampoos, conditioners, and creams that promise just that, this is a sign of high porosity hair. The reason high porosity hair lacks luster is because of its inability to stay hydrated for long. This makes it appear dull and lusterless.
5. Hair Gets Tangled Easily
Your hair gets tangled easily. When you wake up in the morning, after you wash your hair, after you untie your hair….the list goes on.
Mostly, you try to detangle the hair roughly and quickly because you are in a hurry, resulting in breakage. Easily breakable is one of the signs of high porosity hair, which only aggravates the problem. The reason high porosity hair gets tangled so easily is because the cuticles are lifted, and they make the hair shafts rough. These rough shafts get knotted when they come together.
6. Absorbs Moisture Quickly
If you do a simple test of spraying water on your strands, you will see the droplets either sinking inside or dropping down without getting absorbed. If your hair takes the water in as soon as you spray it with it, then you have high porosity.
This is one of the positive signs of high porosity hair that any product you apply to it gets absorbed by the hair pretty quickly. But there’s a catch here; you must put more of the product because the hair loses the applied moisture quickly, too.
7. Hair is Not Elastic
Elasticity is the hair’s ability to stretch and shrink back to its normal length. You can test this by dampening a strand and stretching it as much as possible. If it stretches a good length and bounces back to its normal length then you have normal porosity hair, but if it stretches with difficulty and shrinks too much, then this is the sign of high porosity hair. This affects the structure of the hair, making it more brittle.
8. Hair Gets Wet Easily
One sign of high porosity hair is that it gets wet quite easily. Observe how long your hair takes to get wet under running water or when applied with little water. If it takes absolutely no time to get wet, then you have high-porosity hair. This is because of the hair’s large open pores, which can drink up moisture very fast, thus leading to your hair getting wet as soon as it comes in contact with water.
9. Light Moisturizers Don’t Work
If you often find yourself complaining about how light products don’t work on your hair, there is a high chance of you having high porosity hair. This sign of high porosity hair means any hair care product that is light in consistency will need to be applied in more quantities and still not show the results as it does on low or normal porosity hair. Since high-porosity hair loses moisture rapidly, light creams and conditioners don’t get a chance to hydrate or nourish the hair well. For high-porosity hair, use only heavy moisturizers with a deep conditioning effect.
10. Hair Gets Stained Even by Semi-Permanent Colors Easily
Like other products, high porosity hair absorbs hair dyes as easily and quickly. If your hair takes colors very easily and loses them as quickly, then it is a sign of high porosity. On high-porosity hair, semi-permanent dyes also leave a stain, which is difficult in other types of hair porosity. But holding the color is also a challenge for high-porosity hair, so you cannot expect to keep it longer. Also, some parts of the hair may absorb too much color than others, leaving you with uneven-colored hair.
11. Hair Has a Rough Texture
The lifted cuticles of high porosity hair give it a rough exterior. You can check the smoothness of your hair by touching a few strands. For more clarity, you can try feeling a single strand from multiple parts. If you feel they are hard and bumpy, then it is a sign of high porosity hair.
7 Tips to Tackle the Signs of High Porosity Hair
Now that you have successfully determined your hair to have high porosity, it is time to tackle these signs. Here are 7 tips to reverse the signs of high porosity hair and the damage caused by them to make your hair healthy.
1. Do Pre-Poo
This is a pre-shampoo treatment that you will greatly benefit from. In this treatment, you apply oil to your hair before shampooing. You have to apply the oil a few hours before washing your hair. It is advisable to apply it at night and wash your hair in the morning. If that is not possible, you can leave the oil for 1 hour before washing.
This treatment ensures your hair gets loads of moisture before shampooing, which will suck up all the moisture. So after washing, your hair will not feel as dry as when you wash it without applying oil before.
You can use any heavy oil for this, like castor and coconut, as they penetrate your cuticles more and stay there longer than lightweight oils.
2. Pick Chemical Free Shampoos
After the pre-poo treatment, wash your hair with a shampoo. But make sure you are using a mild, chemical-free shampoo. Many commercial shampoos come laden with harsh chemicals which do more damage than good. Be wary of chemicals like sulfate, which are known to strip your hair of moisture and also create a barrier stopping other moisturizing products from penetrating the hair by adding a layer to your strands.
3. Do DIY Home Protein Treatments
Treatments with onion juice or rice waterfill the hair with added protein strength. Your hair needs protein to build strength and retain a lot of moisture from products. The expensive salon protein treatments are not for everyone and every budget. The DIY home treatments are safe as they use no chemicals and are pocket-friendly, too. And they are tried and tested formulas that have roots in traditional hair science, which makes them fool-proof, showing a success rate of 90-100%.
4. Moisturize using the LOC Method
To handle the dryness of your high-porosity hair, the LOC method is very beneficial. In the LOC method, L stands for leave-in conditioner or liquid, O stands for oil, and C stands for cream.
This method provides you 3 times the moisture and protection that your strands need to thrive.
First, apply a leave-in conditioner to start the moisturization process. Use a water-based conditioner to soften the hair. You can also use water to moisturize and soften the hair.
Then, apply a heavy oil to seal in the moisture from the conditioner or water.
Then, use a cream or butter to hydrate and double seal the moisture in the hair further and also make it easier for you to style your hair as you like.
5. Condition Well
One way to tackle rough and dry high-porosity hair is to condition it well. After washing your hair with a shampoo, you must ensure you are conditioning your hair well. This is an important step after hair washing, which you shouldn’t miss. A conditioner nourishes your hair enriches it with moisture, and locks it in so your hair can stay smooth and lustrous for a long.
Moisturize your hair with a conditioner once a week. You can use deep washable conditioners, leave-in conditioners, non-greasy oils, butter, creams, etc.
6. Avoid Handling Your Hair Harshly
Aggressive combing or excessive washing can cause great damage to your high-porosity hair. That is because the outer layer of high porosity hair is very brittle and breaks if put to too much harsh handling.
Whatever you do, make sure you do it gently- whether it is brushing, washing, rubbing with a towel, or even massaging. It is also advisable to stay away from tightly wrapping your hair in a hairstyle. Hairstyles that require tight tying and pulling weaken your hair from the roots, leading to more hair fall.
7. Minimize the Use of Heat Styling Tools
High porosity hair has large pores, which suck up moisture quickly. Subjecting them to heat-based styling tools can make them more porous and thus cause more damage. If you must use heat styling tools, keep them to the lowest heat settings and use them as little as possible.
Final Word
These were the signs of high porosity hair that you can easily spot. It is good to have knowledge about the level of porosity of your hair to know how to best take care of it. Armed with this information, you can know which products and treatments to apply and which to stay away from.
Taking care of your hair becomes easier when you know about it and understand its natural structure fully. Follow the above tips to care for your high-porosity hair and see them work wonders for you.
