Telltale signs of high porosity include hair that retains excessive amounts of water and grabs onto color quickly causing it to look uneven. Medium porosity is the sweet spot for hair because it lets moisture in and keeps water out. Then there's low porosity, where the hair's cuticle remains flat and closed.
Water can be retained in the cuticle, but there are a lot of things at play here. Coarser hair has a larger cortex which is much like a sponge that can absorb water. Also, the cuticles are larger and hold more water. Think of these like flower petals... some small, but on course hair very large.
By the time cells are fully keratinized in the hair shaft, the hair contains only about 10% water. Moisture in the hair shaft can vary depending on the humidity of the climate one lives in. So in a very humid climate, moisture content in hair can rise to as much as 30%.
What is Porosity? Porosity is the term coined to describe your hair's ability to absorb moisture. Moisturizing your hair whether you are natural, relaxed or loc'd is the core foundation of healthy hair. There is not too much you can not without providing H2O to your strands similar to almost every other thing on earth.
Some people have high porosity hair, and water is easily absorbed into it. Some people have low porosity hair, like mine; it takes a while for my hair to absorb anything, without heat. With heat, it's much much easier to open the cuticles of the hair and absorb water and products.
In highly porous hair, the cuticle is raised. According to Refinery29's article on hair porosity, this type of hair suffers from breakage and is generally weaker. Telltale signs of high porosity include hair that retains excessive amounts of water and grabs onto color quickly causing it to look uneven.
Each hair follicle contains stem cells that can keep dividing, which allows hair to grow. The stem cells can also regrow a new hair after one falls out. Another structure associated with a hair follicle is a sebaceous gland that produces oily sebum. The sebum lubricates and helps to waterproof the hair.
See Where It Lands. If your hair immediately sinks to the bottom, then it's highly porous. If it floats in the middle, then it's in the medium to normal porosity range, and if it sits on top, then it has a low porosity.
While it's less than ideal, your hair may take a long time to dry simply because you maintain healthy hair practices and your strands are able to easily absorb and retain moisture. With that said, things like hair density, texture and how much hair you have also play a role in how fast or how slowly your hair dries.
“Your skin is the largest organ in the body and absorbs fluid easily,” says Dr. Keith Kantor, a leading nutritionist and CEO of the Nutritional Addiction Mitigation Eating and Drinking (NAMED) program. “After a swim or a shower, your body can absorb 1 to 3 cups of water, increasing your true weight by a few pounds.”
Hair in the nose, ears, and around the eyes protects these sensitive areas from dust and other small particles. Eyebrows and eyelashes protect eyes by decreasing the amount of light and particles that go into them. The fine hair that covers the body provides warmth and protects the skin.
High porosity hair typically absorbs moisture quickly but loses it just as fast, leading to issues with dryness, brittleness, and frizz.
Drinking water makes the hair you have look thicker, reducing the appearance of hair loss. Dried out hair not only becomes brittle, but it also looks thinner. Think of it like a leaf on a tree. When the leaf is attached to the tree and getting plenty of water, it is thick and lush.
Oftentimes, shampooing strips away natural oils from our scalp and strands leaving them vulnerable to drying out - which can make your hair appear poofy or unruly.
If your hair dries extremely quickly, can handle a lot of product, and/or tends to be frizzy, there's a chance you could have high porosity hair. Now, there's nothing wrong with having this hair type, you just have to use the appropriate high porosity hair products to help it look its best.
According to Curlkeeper, less than 20% of people have curly hair, making it a rare hair type. However, curly hair comes in all kinds of different styles starting with super coiled curls to slightly wavy. Curly hair requires work to maintain and take care of it, making it hard for some to stick to the routine.
Sustainability concerns: One of the major cons of the Curly Girl Method is its impact on sustainability. The method involves using a lot of products, most are contained in plastic packaging, contributing to environmental waste. All plastic that exists will continue to exist in our lifespan.
“In general, wet hair is more fragile and prone to breakage than dry hair,” says Timothy Schmidt, MD, a dermatologist at University of Utah Health. “The water weakens the hair's protein structure, making it more elastic and easier to stretch and snap.
Chlorine is bad for your hair due to its strong oxidizing properties and its ability to strip away natural oils and proteins from the hair shaft. This can leave your strands brittle and dull, and your scalp itchy and red.
You might have spotted pet or human hair strands in the sink or shower drain and brushed it off as nothing to worry about. But did you know these individual hair strands can build up and form a clog over time? Hair is one of the most common culprits behind blocked drains.
Here's a general overview: For those with dry, damaged, or color-treated hair, daily wetting may not be advisable as it can further strip the hair of its natural oils and moisture, leading to increased dryness, frizz, and breakage.
The human (or animal) body is not waterproof— both in to outwards and out to inwards water movement can occur.
Waste hair can be recycled for hair extensions, wigs, eyelashes, mustaches, beards, and many more beauty accessories. This is one of the most ancient and currently the largest human hair-based industries.