Porosity 101

Porosity, please! If this is not something you’re considering when it comes to picking the right types of products for your hair routine, you’re doing it all wrong! Unfortunately, it’s not exactly easy to figure out what your porosity is, but that’s what I’m going to help you out with here. And you can put down the glass of water, we won’t be doing the “float test”.

What is Porosity?

Hair Porosity refers to how well your hair is able to absorb and hold moisture. The hair’s outer cuticle layer protects what’s inside and determines:

  • How easily moisture and oils pass in and out of your hair
  • How well your hair can hold onto moisture
  • Hair color dye longevity.
  • Hair’s shine factor.

If you search for “healthy hair” in an encyclopedia, you would basically get the description of low porosity hair. Many people assume their hair is healthy/low porosity if they have never colored or damaged it in a conventional way (that they’re aware of), but you can actually be born with higher porosity hair.

FUN FACT: Fine hair has less cuticle layers which are easier to permeate and damage, and coarse thick strands have more cuticle layers. In fact, you can have different areas of porosity on your head. Curly and textured hair in general has a greater porosity due to its unique protein structure. In most ways, your porosity is genetic – but it can change.

There is one more level of porosity: Grade 5 Porosity – but if you have grade 5 porosity you probably don’t have much hair because at that stage, there is a total loss of your cuticle, breakage is extreme, the hair is compromised beyond repair and might even be melting off. Nothing will fix this besides a haircut and I hope for your sake that this isn’t you! You should definitely avoid the following in excess if you are grade 3 or 4 so you do not get to this point:

When Does Your Porosity Change?

It starts with a swollen cuticle. As hair swells, its roof-like scales lift and become susceptible to flaking off which hinders how well it can protect the inner contents of the hair. Some situations that influence porosity: 

  • Alkalinity. On the pH scale, hair sits between 4.5-5.5 and anything over that causes some degree of swelling. Anything over pH 8 can significantly increase permeability, this includes most permanent hair color (professional or box dye), hair lightener (bleach).
  • Hygral Fatigue, this is caused by frequent and excessive wash & dry cycles of the hair. See my video on this topic here
  • High temperature, this accelerates water penetration. 
  • Chemical processes, such as permanent waving, relaxing, bleaching and coloring
  • High exposure to UV radiation See my blog on Sun Damage
  • High humidity. 

The thing about porosity is that it’s not a sliding scale, but an uphill battle. In other words, if you start off low porosity, it can only increase. There is no natural way to lower your porosity, but by applying the right products, you can mimic the look, feel, and function of “healthy” hair that holds its moisture.

Products That Help Even Out Porosity:

Hair Peptide:

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Bond Builder:

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Protein:

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Moisturizing:

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Oils:

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