Continuing on from my last post on hair porosity test, I want to share with you how knowing what your hair porosity is will help determine tha kind of products you use in your hair and your child’s hair.
High Porosity
Having highly porous hair means your hair takes in moisture easily. On the flip side, it also means it loses moisture easily.
Tips
1. Layer your hair with a leave-in conditioner, hair oil, moisturiser (optional) and seal with a heavy hair butter. This will help your hair hold on to the moisture you give it and protect it from losing too much moisture.
2. If you live in a country with climates of high heat and humidity (e.g. Nigeria) ensure to include the use of anti-humectants for example, Shea butter. This will help seal your lifted or damaged cuticles and prevent your hair from absorbing excess moisture in the air.
3. Also look for products with silicones in it, packaging usually has “anti-frizz” or “anti-humidity” highlighted on the front. As most silicones are not water-soluble, they prevent the moisture in the air from penetrating your hair shaft and causing your strands to expand and contract.
4. Ensure anti-humectant is the last product you apply to the hair as a sealant – see point 1 above.
Low Porosity
Having low porosity hair means your hair repels moisture when you try to wet it, as the hair cuticles are tightly bound. This also means your hair will hard to process (e.g. relaxers or texturisers) as it resists penetration of chemicals. Low-porous hair also suffers from a stiff and straw-like feeling when there is a build-up of protein-rich deep conditioning products.
Tips
1. Stick to protein-free, daily conditioners with humectants such as glycerin or honey. You can also make your own daily conditioning mix. Humectants are beneficial to low porosity hair as such products attract moisture from the atmosphere to your hair. Key to apply this first so the hair shaft can open up to absorb moisture before sealing it in with moisturiser / hair cream.
2. Use moderate heat with protein-free deep conditioning treatments to help open up the tightly bound cuticle.
3. Choose lighter, liquid-based products such as hair milks that won’t sit on your hair and leave it oily or greasy.
4. Low porosity hair requires moisturizers rich in emollients such as shea butter, jojoba oil and coconut oil.
All these might seem like a lot of information, so take one step at a time – first determine your child and your hair porosity (ensure you do the tests separately). Once you know this, you can follow the guide for the ingredients your hair products should have. Then ransack your home for any hair products and read the ingredients, chances are you already have some of these in the house and slowly get on a healthy and informed natural hair journey with your littles.
Thanks for reading! Until next time…
Temi
fabmommablog.com
