Porosity and frizz

Find out if your hair is porous and learn how to take care of it

In addition to hair type , you may have heard about different hair characteristics, such as hair porosity , a very important attribute when determining which treatment(s) and styles best suit your hair. In addition, it is also an indirect reflection of how healthy your hair is.

In this article I explain a little more about this feature so that you can give your hair what it needs at all times.

What is hair porosity?

Before starting, in order to better understand the concept of hair porosity , it will be good for you to know a little more about the structure of hair, which fundamentally consists of 3 layers:

Healthy and properly hydrated hair allows water, oils and other moisturizing products to pass from the outermost layer (the cuticle) to the cortex. The porosity of the hair speaks precisely of this, of the hair's ability to absorb and retain its hydration .

When the cuticles are very close and together, it is difficult for water and oils to penetrate the hair, resulting in low porosity. On the contrary, if the cuticles are too far apart, the hair will be able to easily absorb water and moisturizing products, but will have more difficulty retaining its hydration.

Based on this, we talk about there being 3 levels of porosity:

What determines it?

The ability to absorb or retain moisture is fundamentally conditioned by genetics . If low porosity tends to run in your family, it's very likely that you have it too. However, there are factors that can contribute to increasing or decreasing hair porosity .

The following factors increase hair porosity because they open and lift the cuticles:

Steps to know what the porosity of the hair is

One of the easiest ways to determine hair porosity is with the glass of water test . This test consists of 4 easy steps:

You can also determine hair porosity by feeling a strand . If the feel is smooth along the length of the strand, you probably have hair with low porosity. On the other hand, if you feel a lot of bumps and it feels rough, it is most likely that you have high porosity.

Recommendations according to porosity levels

🟡 Low porosity : If you have this level of porosity, you may notice that your hair absorbs hair products very little or not at all and that it takes a long time to dry. In that case, I recommend:

🟠 Medium porosity : Moisture penetrates easily, but is also retained for a relatively long period of time. This level of porosity of the hair allows the hair to be easily shaped, it takes the color well, it looks healthy and shiny and it does not take excessive time to dry. Of course, be careful with thermal or chemical damage since they can alter the porosity of the hair over time.

🔴 High porosity : this hair easily absorbs moisturizing products, but does not retain moisture for long. People with this level of hair porosity notice that even though moisturizing products penetrate easily, their hair tends to break, is usually dry and frizzy, and takes little time to dry. If this is your case:

Although we cannot change our genetics, as you can see there are some strategies we can use to improve the health of our hair and make it more manageable and easier to style.

Olistic , as a nutricosmetic that contributes to improving the health of your hair by taking care of your overall health, can also help you balance hair porosity levels thanks to the presence of these ingredients in its 100% natural formula: