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The cognitive process begins with the word "moisturize."
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Red "+" signs indicate (roughly) potential binding sites for cationic hair conditioners in this low porosity, coily hair. |
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Red "+" signs on this porous hair, where cuticle edges are broken indicate potential binding sites for conditioners. |
Dose - it's all about dose and application
It's easy to say, "I can't use oils or that conditioner or x, y and z." But sometimes our problem isn't the ingredient, it's the dose. Low porosity hair still needs oils and conditioners, it may need them in smaller doses. Or to have them used before washing our hair instead of after. If you're using a thick, rich conditioner for it's slip (detangling) but it feels too heavy or greasy, look for a lighter-weight conditioner that is more fluid but still has good slip. See the "product list by category" tab on this page for product-ideas.©Science-yHairBlog 2023
- Leaving in conditioner: For low porosity hair, leave-in conditioners are used to add lubrication, weight and flexibility and provide softness. We're using it for a superficial effect, as a styling product - it probably won't feel like it soaks in. If you find that leave-in conditioners seem to sit atop your hair, try this trick:©Science-yHairBlog 2023
- Leave-in conditioner trick for low porosity hair: Use leave-in conditioners on dripping wet hair, or apply them and then quickly move your head under and then back out of the shower spray (or pour some water over your hair) for good coverage and dilution. You may not need much leave-in conditioner, and diluting & distributing it with the shower spray can help the product act like a primer (like with painting) - to coat and smooth. Not everybody needs a leave-in conditioner. If your hair needs help with flexibility and softness, or if your hair is coarse, you're more likely to need some.
- Film-forming humectants: Here is a link to a post about these ingredients. Film-forming humectants really are the bee's knees for low porosity hair. Flaxseed gel (linseed) or okra gel, aloe vera gel, pectin, hydroxyethylcellulose, marshmallow root, slippery elm, panthenol, xanthan gum, Hydroxypropyltrimonium honey, glycine betaine (beet extract, sugar cane extract), seaweed extract or Irish moss extract; all these ingredients form clear, flexible films over your hair that trap water near your hair to keep it hydrated or moisturized - but without being creamy or oily. Protein also falls into this category, more on that below. These ingredients can keep hair hydrated extremely well and also have great styling benefits. Hydrated hair is flexible, well-defined and softer. Look in the "Product List by Ingredient Category" page to find products containing these ingredients. Film-forming humectants work in rinse-out and leave-on products. The Best Leave On / Styling Products For Low Porosity Hair contain a balance of film forming humectants, light conditioning ingredients and oils. More conditioner and oils if your hair is Coarse, less if it is Medium or Fine.
- Protein: Hydrolyzed protein for lower porosity hair acts as a hydrating (moisturizing) agent. Protein slows water loss from hair. Depending on the hydrolyzed protein in a product, it can form hair-hugging, water-grabbing films over hairs that trap moisture near your hair, or settle in under and around the cuticles and keep the water in your hair longer. Proteins actively hold on to water so when your hair dries, it is better hydrated than without the protein. ©Science-yHairBlog 2013
- Fine and medium hair can usually tolerate more frequent protein than very coarse hair. Because protein adds some extra support to hair, it can make coarser hair feel rough and dry and abrasive if used too often. This is a link to a post with more about protein.
- Oil choices and oils in products vs. choosing well-balanced products: Oils for leaving on low porosity hair? Sure! But your hair is probably picky about which oils you use.
- Oils may behave very differently in your hair when they are emulsified in a conditioner formula, if oils always seem to leave your hair looking or feeling greasy.
- Like the difference between oil-and-vinegar salad dressing and creamy salad dressing, oil blended into a conditioner may be so much easier to benefit from and not over-apply.
- A little oil on the ends of low-porosity hair can keep them flexible and reduce frizz. Unless your hair is high density or very tangly, use tiny drops. The size of drop you would get from dipping the end of a toothpick in the oil.
- Curl Keeper Slip
- California Baby Conditioners
- Giovanni Direct Leave-in (can use as a rinse-out also)
- Giovanni Nutrafix Conditioner
- Giovanni Smooth As Silk Deeper Moisture Conditioner
- Ovation Volume Conditioner
- Trader Joe's Tea Tree Tingle Conditioner
- As I Am Naturally Leave-In Conditioner
- Rainbow Research Kid's Conditioners
- Oil Pre-Shampoo / Pre-cleansing treatments: <-- Click this link for a post about how to make oil pre-shampoo treatments work with your hair. With low porosity hair - getting a benefit from oil sometimes means knowing some tricks for using it. Using a hair-penetrating oil on your hair like coconut oil, sunflower oil, avocado or olive oil or my oil blend recipe for several hours before you wash your hair can add softness, lubrication and weight to your hair. Detangling power! Because you wash after this treatment, you won't have greasy feeling hair, but the softness and definition remains.
- Trick for using oils on low porosity hair: Use a light touch for an oil pre-wash treatment. Enough oil to add some shine, or maybe a little more to add some weight and make your hair feel a little "dirty." Use this only on the ends if your hair becomes greasy easily. Leave on for 1-6 hours or overnight. Use a good shampoo to cleanse; if you're using a very mild shampoo, you might want to do a second wash with shampoo diluted with water if you used more oil than you needed. If you're a co-washer, be sure to work the conditioner thoroughly into your hair to remove excess oil.
- Whose low porosity hair needs oil most?
- Coarse hair (wide strands)
- Very tangle-prone hair
- Long hair (ends may be a little porous)
- People who live in very dry climates
- Curly hair (especially high-density hair)
- Heat: 1) Heat (used with hair treatments) may increase your hair's porosity slightly - but not in the more aggressive way of acids and alkaline solutions. See this post for more details. Heat gives your hair a greater surface for binding conditioners. 2) Heat liquefies ingredients, and more conditioner will adhere to your hair when you use heat. Use heat with deep conditioning treatments if your hair is feeling extra dry or tangling more than usual. Using heat can double the amount of conditioner that binds to your hair.©Science-yHairBlog 2023
- Steam: Steam combines the beneficial effects of heat (listed above) with an abundance of moisture in the form of water vapor. In the presence of steam and a conditioner, your hair will be plumping up with water and with it will go some of the good things from the conditioner you have put in your hair. Heat increases conditioner binding to your hair, hydrates it to the maximum for even more softening and conditioning. Use a hood or bonnet type steamer or a handheld steamer made for use on hair. Steamers made for upholstery or clothing will produce a lot of steam that is much too hot to be safe for your scalp. Steamers for the face are safer for hair also.
- Steam for deep conditioning treatments or steam in your leave-in conditioner or some oil to lock in the steamy goodness instead of rinsing it out.©Science-yHairBlog 2023
- Deep conditioning: Lower porosity hair does not bond with as much conditioner as hair that is more porous. If your hair needs an intense burst of softness, detangling or hydration, use a deep conditioner, or your usual conditioner with a little oil and whatever else you like added.
- Add heat or steam to the treatment, barely warmer than body temperature is all that is necessary.
- Leave it on 3-5 minutes for hair that is easily over-conditioned or gets too soft, 10-30 minutes for the most intense effect.
- See this post for more details about how to work with heat and timing for deep conditioning.
- Alkaline solutions: You will find baking soda treatments online for moisturizing hair, or increasing porosity. These can temporarily (or permanently) alter your hair's porosity and may change surface texture. But there's more to baking soda than porosity...
- The probable explanation for the positive result some people get with baking soda mixtures is related to surface chemistry as well as porosity. The alkaline baking soda solution likely disrupts or breaks down the "F layer" containing 18-MEA (the lipid-rich epicuticle - see the beginning of this post). Once this has happened, the hair is no longer as hydrophobic (water-repelling). Hair becomes more hydrophilic (water-attracting). It becomes wet more easily. There is a disrupted lipid barrier (the epicuticle was degraded or removed) that was slowing the movement of water in and out. As a result, the hair will bond with more of whichever cationic conditioner you apply. At least the first time you use conditioner after the alkaline treatment. This still isn't porosity, it's surface chemistry. You lose the natural lipid layer and replace it with commercial conditioner. Conditioners have different textural and aesthetic qualities from the oils that were on your hair before. ©Science-yHairBlog 2023
- Mix your baking soda with conditioner to buffer the hair a little - this does protect the hair a little.
- Use shampoo bars or superfatted bar soap instead of liquid castile soap - the oils help protect your hair by adding lubrication.
- If you use liquid castile soap, dilute it with water.©Science-yHairBlog 2023
- The potential problem with using baking soda and soap bars and acid to try to moisturize hair:You'll read online that alkaline solutions make cuticles open and acidic solutions make cuticles lie flat or "close down" too. That is semi-accurate - alkaline solutions force hair to swell. As it swells, the cuticles pop up and there is an exchange of solutes inside the hair and alkaline solution that you applied. Everybody's hair is just a little different - not just the fiber itself, but what we've done to it, where we live and what we've put on it. Is it really possible that everybody's hair will display the exact same behavior in acidic and alkaline solutions? Of course not. Some hair reacts violently to baking soda and some hair reacts (swells) very little. Some hair is in between. If your hair is low-porosity, it's probably not extremely reactive - though the ends might be. Please, please, please do a test strand first!
Please note : Baking soda will dissolve faster in a heated liquid with plenty of stirring. See more at the end about how baking soda changes your hair.©Science-yHairBlog 2023In my experience with hair analyses, it is unpredictable whose hair will swell and thus become more porous in acids and bases (alkaline solutions). Some people's hair is very sensitive to vinegar solution, but not citric acid or vice versa. Some people's hair does not swell in baking soda solution, but does in the lather of a strongly alkaline soap bar. If your lower porosity hair is acid and alkaline-sensitive and you use an alkaline soap bar followed by a vinegar rinse because the soap is supposed to "open" the cuticles and the vinegar is supposed to "close" them, you may have just permanently damaged your hair without meaning to. Maybe a little, maybe a lot. Only time will tell. Only your hair "knows" whether it will respond badly to being subjected to acidic and alkaline solutions. If you use a treatment that works well for somebody else and get a undesirable result, don't assume there's something wrong with your hair - there's something wrong with how that treatment interacted with your hair.©Science-yHairBlog 2023Why would you want to increase porosity?: Porous hair tends to respond better to conditioners and oils and has more "grip" so that hairs cling to each other and group together. It tends to be easier to hold a style, volume may be easier to maintain.
- To help your lower-porosity hair be more flexible, keep the hydration levels optimal. That means using film-forming humectants, preventing water loss with balanced products which contain film-formers (i.e. plant-based gels), a little oil and/or some conditioning ingredients.
- Meanwhile, give your hair some daily help (or whenever it feels less-flexible) with a hydration spray such as a mixture of distilled water and conditioner and anything else your hair appreciates that might improve hydration like aloe vera juice or a protein additive like Ion Protein Filer. Use this spray lightly to bring moisture and flexibility to your hair and get the water levels back up. Unless the air around you indoors and outdoors is humid all day (tropical or nearly so), your hair will tend to lose moisture to the air.
- For added flexibility, when hair looks dull or begins to spread out and lose definition, feels inflexible, use a little oil (spread a couple drops on your palms and fingers and rub until they shine) on the ends and work your way up. Oil can be used alone for flexibility and definition, or it can go under or over a hydrating spray.
- Conditioner pomade. Rub a little conditioner between your palms and fingers until it's a bit dry and pasty feeling. Use that on any frizzy or inflexible areas - smooth it over sections as though making a ponytail(s), or as though you are pinching and sliding a ribbon between your fingers for smaller sections. The ingredients in conditioners have a very light "hold" and tack unlike oils. This can be done on damp or dry hair.
Wear a silk or silky, smooth scarf, bonnet or "buff" at night to reduce friction and create a little humid environment around your hair - the humidity comes from your skin.
Hard Water: (added May 2016)
If you have hard water in your shower, it can make the water-repelling behavior of your low porosity hair more pronounced. See this post for more details and how to manage hard water and your hair. Minerals in hard water bond to hair just like conditioner does. So there are the hair-lubricating and softening cationic conditioners fighting it out with the hair-stiffening and friction-creating calcium and magnesium carbonates and bicarbonates in your water. Hard water makes your low-porosity hair even less friendly towards oils and conditioners.
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Various sources from ingredient manufacturers and suppliers.
5+ Years of experience communicating with hair analysis clients about what works for their hair.