hypothesis: correlation between hair porosity and effectiveness of leave-ins?

[piratejenny23]

i've been trying all sorts of oils & leave-ins for months in an effort to get my ends softer. from all the suggestions and articles i've read, and all the things i've tried, i'm started to wonder if hair porosity, rather than texture or level of moisture, has something to do with the effectiveness. almost everything i try (except avocado oil) makes my hair sticky and dull or very greasy, whether i use heat, apply it to dry or wet hair, leave it on overnight, etc, etc, even when it's recommended by someone whose hair seems similar to mine.

just wondering if anyone else has noticed this. if this turns out to be a real phenomenon, it could save a lot of people a lot of money & time! while almost anything might penetrate highly porous hair, we could narrow down which substances penetrate less porous hair.

there is lots of info on how to classify the texture, elasticity, thickness, etc of your hair. i've read that you can test the porosity by laying a strand on top of water in a bowl; the longer it takes to sink, the less porous your hair is. sometimes one section of your hair will sink while the rest of the strand floats, and this is normal. ETA: over 2 minutes to sink is considered low porosity.

if there's already a thread on this, please let me know. TIA

[Kaijah]

Personally, I think porosity plays the biggest role in whether or not a particular product will work for someone, and texture (hair strand thickness) is helpful to a lesser extent. The appearance typings, while interesting, are basically useless for knowing why a product works for you. I don't think the hair-in-a-glass water trick is really helpful. I tried it out of curiosity, and my hair never really sank even though it's medium-to-highly porous. I think how well hair absorbs water as a whole, when showering, and how it takes stylers/color are better indicators. I know I've also heard of a 'feel' test, where you run your fingers up a strand to feel how smooth or rough it is... and that seems a little crazy to me. The hairs cuticle is TINY. If you can feel it, you've got some serious extra sensory powers going on.

Highly porous will get wet fast and will dry fast, and can absorb A LOT of water and product. Low porosity will take longer to fully wet, and might even repel water. It's also going to be harder to have it hold a style/process (e.g. curling/coloring) because of the tight cuticle layer. Normal porosity will be... well... average. :P It takes what water it needs, but not too much.

And to complicate matters, there can definitely be different porosities along one hair strand. My virgin hair is pretty much normal porosity, but as it gets longer and older, it suffers more damage and the porosity increases.

And adjusting how much product you use is a biggie, too. Really porous hair might be able to take a lot of product, and sometimes needs a lot to get it's moisture - but dumping a gallon of oil on porous hair can make it lank and over conditioned just like a smaller amount might make less porous hair. This is the area texture comes into play as well. Courser hair can usually take more than finer hair.

But of course, being that this is life and hair, everyone is different. ;P

[treesandcoffee]

I found good information on porosity on this site: http://www.livecurlylivefree.com/cur...r%20basics.htm

(you have to scroll down a bit)

although it is for curly hair, it is still informative for all hair in general.

I agree with your hypothesis, and it seems so does the individual who wrote the article I linked.