To know hair porosity, you need to know a bit in regards to the hair construction—particularly the outermost layer. “The outer layer of the hair strand is named the cuticle layer. It’s known as this as a result of it’s product of little tiny cuticles that lay barely over each other,” says hairstylist Danielle Malary of Lumiere Vive Salon. The commonest analogy to make use of is like shingles on a roof: The shingles barely overlap one another, so there are not any gaps for water to seep by. Porosity is available in, perhaps you’ve guessed by now, as a result of when one thing is porous is extra capable of soak up moisture. Thus hair that’s “extra porous” has extra pores between the cuticles for water to get by.
“Hair porosity describes how the hair’s cuticle absorbs and holds on to moisture in its pores—therefore, the time period porosity,” says hairstylist Miko Department, co-founder of hair care model Miss Jessie’s.
Now, hair porosity is a spectrum, starting from excessive to low. It is good to know roughly the place you fall on it, as it may well decide how you take care of and magnificence your strands. We’ll get into it extra later, however as a briefer: Hair that has excessive porosity means the cuticles are extra open, so hair absorbs water simply. But it surely additionally means it evaporates simply. Hair that has low porosity has dense cuticles. This implies the hair has a tougher time absorbing water, product, and even your scalp’s pure oils, and you will see buildup quicker. It additionally takes longer to dry after getting moist because it’s holding all that water in. Then you possibly can fall someplace between these two ends of the spectrum, which is taken into account medium porosity.
Porosity issues as a result of it can have an effect on how you take care of and magnificence your hair. We have a tendency to think about hair care simply when it comes to hair sort. Or, we might even contemplate our scalp sort or how thick or skinny our hair is. However probably the most vital issues for care is definitely porosity—and many individuals don’t truly know what their degree is. That’s why it’s so vital to check yours.
