If you want your hair to be perfectly taken care of, strong and beautiful, you have to try hair oils. However, before you do, determine your hair porosity. This will help you with hair and scalp care. What is hair porosity? This is a level at which hair cuticles are raised towards hair shaft.
There are low porosity, medium porosity and high porosity hair.
The healthiest and the most beautiful low porosity hair
Hair with low porosity are smooth, glossy and healthy. Hair cuticles are sealed and tightly adhere to the hair shaft. For this reason water, dye and substances contained in cosmetics barely get to the inner hair structures. Low porosity hair are difficult to style, dye, wet or dry. This hair are less susceptible to damages and usually has natural colour. It does not frizz or has fly-away hair; while brushing hair, strands are not tangling. This hair should be treated with hair oiling for a long time; however, you must be careful not to weight hair down or cause greasy scalp. Best for low porosity hair care are saturated oils, that create protective layer on the surface. These products are made of really small particles, which easily penetrate tightly adhering hair cuticles. Try hair oils like: palm oil, coconut oil, babassu oil, Shea butter, coca butter, aloe or vegetable extracts.
Afro, curls and coils, i.e high porosity hair
High porosity hair is known to frizz a lot and suffer from fly-aways, is also dry and rough, but quickly absorbs water. Here hair cuticles are wide open, so colourisation and stylisation are no problem. However, remember that frequent drying, curling, straightening and other treatments with use of high temperature can additionally damage your hair. High porosity hair should undergo hair oiling briefly, because it can absorb water and other substances fast. These strands require emollients, proteins and humectants during hair care treatments. This hair can benefit also from oils with polyunsaturated fatty acids, made with large particles, which can easily penetrate highly raised hair cuticles. To these products belong: avocado oil, jojoba oil, macadamia oil, olive oil, sweet almond oil, linseed oil, sesame oil, evening primrose oil or pumpkin seed oil.
Hotch-potch hair, i.e. medium porosity hair
Medium porosity hair is similar to both low porosity and high porosity hair. Hair is healthy, easy to style. Its cuticles are slightly raised. Perfect hair care for this hair are monounsaturated fatty acids. These are made with medium size particles, that sustain hair in good condition, improve stylisation and prevent damages. Try one of these oils: argan oil, crambe oil, wheat germ oil, papaya seed oil or castor oil. For the treatment use also: humectants and proteins contained in hair conditioners.
How to verify which porosity type has your hair?
You can perform simple test. Apparently the best is water test. What is it based on? To a glass or a bowl with water through in few hairs. Remember that these have to be clean, free of any silicones. If within two minutes hair sunk to the bottom, it means your hair has high porosity. The hairs that stay on the surface or sunk later on has low porosity.
Do you know any other methods that can help you determine your hair porosity? There are plenty of these. Sight method is based on observing how hair looks like in various weather conditions, right after washing or drying hair, after applying various sort of cosmetics and during stylisation. However, touch method allows you to determine whether your hair is rough and curly (high porosity) or smooth and soft (low porosity). There are two more tests that require use of food products. First of them is coconut oil test. You apply cosmetic on hair and rinse it after about an hour. High porosity hair will still be dry and matte, while low porosity hair – glossy and smooth. Flour test provides similar results. On low porosity hair, flour will not stay as long, nor in such amount as on high porosity hair.
What else on hair porosity should you know?
Before you proceed with determining your hair porosity, you have to know few more, very important information. Remember that hair can have various porosity types. On the top of your head hair can have low porosity – sebum smoothers and provides streaks with gloss. While ends have high porosity – due to incorrect brushing, colourisation, lack of proper care or even placing strands under the scarf or jacket, which can cause split ends, dryness and frizz.
Hair porosity can be increased or decreased with use of right cosmetics or by limiting hair care treatments. Hair porosity can be increased by: lightening, colourisation, hot stylisation, sun radiation, free radicals, use of some cosmetics. And how to decrease hair porosity? By using cosmetic oils in everyday hair care. These products match scalp and hair, its porosity, damage level and deliver all the essential substances.