Porous Hair Care: Part 1

The Low Porosity post  is one of the more popular posts on this blog. There were requests to do a "Porous hair" post. This is Part 1.

Porous Hair Definition: Hair which absorbs and loses water quickly and easily. Going from hyper-hydration to dehydration readily, depending on conditions. Most causes of porosity also break down or put holes in the epicuticle, which is a waterproof and chemical-resisting, lipid coating on the hair surface, leaving it more vulnerable to damage.

Porous Hair Causes:

• Sun exposure 
• Swimming 
• Brushing (frequent or extended) 
• Highlighting and lightening processes
• Permanent hair color
• Permanent waves
• Permanent straightening (alkali relaxer, Brazilian blowout)
• High-heat styling (curling iron/tongs, flat iron).
• High-heat blow dryer
• Hairstyles with tight ponytail elastics worn regularly

Additional Vocabulary: 

We don’t have a lot of words for talking about porous hair. People will often say “dry.” But that word doesn’t point you toward potential solutions because it’s not as specifically descriptive as words like these - which describe problems we might need to address in porous hair.

• Inflexible (stiff) - needs flexibility
• Rough - needs softening and smoothing
• Dull - needs softening and smoothing
• Brittle or fragile - needs flexibility and hydration
• Flat (hydrated hair has bounce and buoyancy) 
• Weightless - dehydrated porous with a wave/curl pattern hair may not have a nice substantial feel and may not pull together with definition. Straighter hair may be flyaway.

Goals:

• Hydration: Moisture retention (also flexibility)
• Flexibility: From hydration and softening
• Lubrication: To prevent friction and reduce a rough feel - to smooth
• Softening: That feeling of flexibility provided by emollients (oils, conditioners)

Check out this diagram. To keep porous hair feeling nice and behaving well, you need a little of all these goals. But depending on your climate, your hairstyling preferences, your hair-care routine, products you use (or not), you may need to lean more towards one goal than others. That black circle might shift towards one or the other colors.

The arrow points to the place where these 4 variables overlap. This is where porous hair-care leads. A little bit of everything.

If the air is dry, you might find yourself working more on Hydration (yellow). 

If your hair is Coarse, Silver, Type 4 Curls/Coils, or if you have very hard water, you might emphasize Flexibility, Lubrication and Softening.

People with silky/Finer hair might emphasize Hydration, Flexibility.

These are the same goals that are emphasized for Low Porosity hair, but the maintenance for Porous hair is different, and the importance of hair care for preventing breakage and damage is more important. With porous hair, we don't have to struggle to get past hair's defenses (keeping water out, accumulating build-up like crazy) - we have to work harder at keeping hair-moisture levels consistent and reproducing the protective benefits that nature provides for lower porosity hair.  

Part 2 will cover management strategies and preventative maintenance.