Porosity is your hair's ability to absorb and retain moisture or water.
As curl patterns vary so much it is important to know and understand what level of porosity your hair is in order to create the correct curl care routine.
THE TYPES
There are three levels of porosity
- LOW porosity curl hair. This curl type can be slow to absorb products so heat, steam or warm towel or showercap used with treatments are ideally applied to damp to wet hair.
- MEDIUM porosity curly. This curl type required regual deep teatments to maintain.
- HIGH porosity curly hair. Thil curl type requires cool water rinse to smoothen and close cuticle preventing thirsty, frizzy prone hair. Use a treatment to lock in moisture such as Boucleme Intensive Moisture Treatment. Dry naturally or low to no heat.
Which one are you?
Here's a quick and easy guide to help you figure out what the porosity of your curl is.
Easy! There are a number of straight forward ways of testing your hair to establish this.
SHEDDING
Watch: Simply put a shreded hair into a glass of water.
Does it float? You've got low porosity.
Does it sink slowy? You've got normal porosity.
Does it sink quickly? You've got hig porosity.
STRAND
Feel: How does your hair feel when you slide a curl between your thumb and fingers in the direction upwards from the tip to the root, in other words, the opposite direction of growth.
Here's the quick and easy guide:
Does it feel rough and dry or does it snap? You've got high porosity.
Does it feel silky and smooth? You've got normal porosity.
Does it feel hard and hard and dense? You've got low porosity.
WATER REACTION
Observe: Light spray a cul with water. Give it a couple of seconds and observe if your curl
Absorbs the water easitly? You've got high porosity.
Resists water, as it sits on the top? You've got low porosity.
Low Porosity curls tend to resist water so may:
Take a long time to fully saturated with water.
Products and may not melt into your hair and instead sit of the surface
resulting in build up.
Curls take a long time to dry.
Normal porosity
Curls tend to absorb and retain moisture easily.
Holds curl definition well.
Requires minumum maintenance
High porosity
Curls easily absorb water
Require a lot of product
Prone to frizz and may look and feel dry.
These are quick guidelines that help you get to know what your curl porosity type is and will enable you to make better curl care decisions.