I remember when I first decided to take a permanent hiatus from the creamy crack and embrace my natural tresses. I had no idea what to expect and the natural hair lane seemed so overwhelming to navigate. There were so many dos and don'ts and I quickly realized that there is no one size fits all approach to healthy hair. The first thing I had to determine was my hair porosity level. To keep things simple, hair porosity is your hair's ability to absorb moisture and it varies from person to person.Generally, hair porosity is classified by 3 levels- high, medium and low. This is the most important step to your journey as it will help you understand how your hair behaves and responds to different products.
To fully understand the concept of hair porosity, let’s first dive into the oh so fascinating structure of your hair:
The Cuticle: This is the outermost layer and it serves as your hairs protective barrier. The smaller cuticles overlap each other, similar to the shingles on a roof
The Cortex: This is the middle layer of the hair shaft which provides your hair with texture, color, protein and strength.
The Medulla: This is the deepest layer of the hair shaft and is usually found in thicker hair.
In order to maintain those healthy tresses, water, oil and other moisturizing products must be able to pass through the cuticle and make its way to the cortex.
For the sake of visual aids, think of the cuticles as the shingles on a roof. When the shingles are open it’s easy for water or product to penetrate aka high porosity. When the shingles are lying flat or closed this represents low porosity hair so water and product tend to sit on top rather than penetrate the hair.
I know what you’re thinking- how in the world can I determine my hair porosity level? It’s super simple- retrieve a clean piece of hair from that beautiful crown of yours and place it in a cup of water. If the hair floats then it’s safe to say you have low porosity hair. If your hair hangs out somewhere in the middle then you fall into the medium level. If your hair sinks then it’s highly porous so kudos on being able to absorb some moisture sis!
I know, it’s a lot to take in but we got you covered. Check out our blog on high and low porosity hair to get more specific hair care tips!