Take a look at Instagram or any celebrity on the red carpet and you’ll instantly notice they have perfect hair. Sure, celebrities have a variety of technicians and specialists surrounding them to ensure they look perfect. But, the reality is they might not be DIY’ing their own hair but they at least know how to take care of their hair, or they hire people that do!
That starts with understanding porosity.
What Is Porosity?
Porosity refers to your hair’s ability to retain moisture. To understand the importance of this you need to realize that your hair is predominantly protein and water. Hair that retains water well will look voluminous, shiny, and healthy. If it doesn’t retain or have enough water it will look flat, dry, and dull. It will also be brittle and more likely to break. There are three types of hair porosity:
Low
When you have low porosity hair it means that water can’t get into your hair easily. This means you will struggle to get hair products to absorb into your hair and your hair is more likely to feel greasy as everything sits on the hair and not in it.
Medium
Medium porosity is generally referred to as normal. This is when you have a good balance between high and low porosities and your hair is capable of retaining enough water to stay healthy. Products are relatively easily absorbed, helping your hair to shine.
It’s not just about moisture getting into your hair, normal porosity hair is also very good at holding onto the moisture.
High
Hair that is high porosity will absorb water easily. Unfortunately, this also means that the moisture can escape easily. It makes it easy to add products but the added nutrients can just as easily escape.
The good news is that all these hair types can still be healthy and look fantastic. A big part of this is choosing the right haircare products. That means products that are natural and designed with different hair types and porosities in mind.
Why It Matters
If your hair looks good then you feel more confident. You already know this and there are plenty of studies that confirm this result. Having confidence in yourself and the way you look means that you are capable of doing anything, it’s essential to achieve any sort of success in life.
In addition, high and low porosity means that you are more likely to suffer from hair breakages and other hair-related issues. Fortunately, the right product will help you resolve this.
Checking Your Porosity
Understanding porosity and the importance of using the right products is a great start. But, you also need to know the porosity of your hair. This is easy to check.
You can simply run your fingers through your hair, the rougher it feels the higher the likelihood that you have highly porous hair. You can also remove a strand and place it in a glass of water. If it sinks quickly then it is highly porous, slowly or just floats on the surface means low porosity, and sinking steadily equates to normal porosity. That’s what everyone wants.