Hair Porosity: How Does it Affect Your Hair?
What is porosity? It’s how your hair absorbs moisture. There’s low, normal, and high porosity. If you could figure out if you had low, high or normal porosity hair so you can curate your own hair care regimen based on your hair type, how to keep your hair healthy—or in this case, porosity—you would. After all, the better you take care of your hair, the happier it will be. Happy hair is beautiful hair. Happy hair is healthy hair.
1. Take the Porosity Test
Remember those cool hands-on science projects we all loved back in High School? Well, get ready because we have a little project for you. It’s fun, we promise! To find out your hair’s porosity, fill a spray bottle up with water, and spray it onto your hair, “If it beads up, you have low-porosity hair,” explains Unilever’s Senior Hair Manager for R&D, Leon Van-Gorkom. If it soaks in, you have high porosity hair. Does neither? You know what that means: normal porosity. That means you have healthy hair.
2. Best Products for Medium Porosity Hair Types
“For ‘medium porosity’ hair, you want to look for systems designed for medium to dry hair (healthy hair), as you don’t need a lot of conditioning. You might try Dove Oxygen Moisture. As always, it is important to get the right product for your hair type. The right products make it easy to have healthy hair. Fine hair does not need heavy conditioning, while coarse, curly hair does,” Van-Gorkom explains.
How to Make Your Hair Stronger, One Product at a Time
1. Eat healthy.
How to make hair stronger (and maintain your overall health) starts by eating right. Incorporate more Omega 3 fatty acids, protein and vitamins A, C, D and E that include healthy foods, like salmon, flax seeds, walnuts and chia seeds. You’ll start to see beautiful hair and skin in a matter of weeks.
2. Watch how you wash your hair.
Washing your hair is one of the most back to basics way to make sure you are properly taking care of your hair. If you wash roughly, too often, and with a stripping shampoo, you’ll make your hair weaker instead of stronger. First, choose the right shampoo for your hair type. If making your hair stronger is at the top of your list, we recommend you use Suave Professionals Damage Resist Shampoo and Conditioner. Only wash your hair when it is oily, or when you need to, and be sure to be gentle. When your hair is wet, the strands are at their most vulnerable, washing and roughly towel drying can damage the hair. When you take care of your hair, it becomes beautiful hair.
3. Use a hair mask.
To keep damage at bay, how to keep hair healthy, and make your hair stronger, use a hair mask at least once a week. Nexxus Youth Renewal Treatment Masque, enriched with Liquid Pearl and Elastin Protein, works to strengthen your hair as it retains volume and body to your hair. You can also D.I.Y. it with a coconut oil mask to help strengthen your hair from the inside out. Whatever mask you use, make sure you thoroughly rinse it out so it doesn’t weigh down your hair. Masks are a great way to get gorgeous hair. Another helpful hair product is a serum to protect your hair after every wash. Try out Dove Regenerative Nourishment Serum-In-Oil to protect your hair from daily damage, and leave your hair moisturized and frizz-free.
4. Take care of your hair.
There are lots of little things you can do every day to make sure that you don’t weaken your hair. One way to make your hair stronger is to ease up on the rough brushing. It’s really important to use a hairbrush that’s designed for your hair type and to start off your hair brushing by using some detangling spray, like Dove Quench Absolute Leave-in Detangler. If your hair is especially knotty, a detangler brush is good to have on-hand as it can help you to get rid of tangles. If you are a daily blow-dry addict (raises hand!), try to ease up on your heat styling by using lower heat and taking occasional breaks from your beloved blowdryer. After you air-dry your hair, consider trying out some heatless hairstyles, like heatless curls, to style your hair.
