Dry Hair, Breakage/Damage & Porosity

Hi Lovely Ladies!! 

It's been a minute but I am back on this lovely Thursday with some information from the hair book that changed my thinking towards hair. The information in this post is from the book with some of my own thoughts based on experience with my own hair journey. I hope this information can help you get further with your healthy hair journeys! 


What is Porosity?


"Porosity refers to the hair's ability, or inability, to absorb water o chemicals into the cortex." In Audrey Davis-Sivasothy's guide, The Science of Black Hair, she uses the illustration of a fence and weathering to better explain porosity. Sivasothy states that a new fence can protect one's yard from outside intrusion and disturbances but as the fence gets older and faces destructive elements it becomes open in some places or more porous and that protection is therefore compromised. Our hair grows from the root strong and protected by the cuticle layer, like that new fence, but as we style, handle our hair and our hair strands age those layers "crack, peel and lift away" therefore on one head each strand's porosity increases from root to end.

What is low porosity vs. high porosity?

Low porosity means that the hair strands do not absorb moisture immediately and resist chemical treatments such as relaxers or permanent hair coloring. This hair is considered quite healthy and has not yet been exposed to "cuticle-degrading treatments". With low porosity hair the cuticles of the strand(s) are tightly closed therefore protecting the cortex or center-most part of the strand. 

Hair with higher porosity can absorb moisture a lot faster than hair with lower porosity. The cuticles easily lift to absorb that moisture but if the porosity of the hair is too high those cuticles will remain open, losing that moisture just as fast. Therefore hair that is super porous can be wet over and over again and not retain that moisture leaving the hair (once dried) hard, brittle and dry. 

How does this information relate to Breakage/Damage?

On your head the part of your hair that would have the lowest porosity would be the hair freshly grown out of your scalp while the hair with the highest porosity would be your ends due to your ends being the oldest part of your hair. Many of us fight with dry brittle ends while the rest of out hair can retain moisture amazingly. Those dry, porous ends can make or break the health or our hair. This is why trimming/dusting our ends is so important. These dry, old ends can cause splits all the way up our hair shaft and definitely  keep us from reaching our length goals.

The Wrap-up

For overall hair health where should your hair land on the porosity scale? Ideally we would want our hair to be at a happy medium between the two extremes. You want your hair to be able o absorb moisture well while having enough cuticle tightness to maintain that moisture leaving hair healthy, moisturized and giving us better manageability!

Did I miss anything? Have any questions? Leave a Comment!!!

Thanks for reading,

KoilyKute



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