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HazelBug
May 12th, 2014, 11:04 AM
I was trying to understand the in's and out's of my hair so I can better care for it. Well, it occurred to me that my level of porosity might be one of the things I needed to figure out. I have hair that is very resistant to dyes for instance. It usually takes 2 or 3 applications of permanent hair color to get good coverage. I'm not dying my hair at this time. But it was a frustrating experience. Semi and demi dyes don't do anything even when I apply heat and leave it on longer than the directions say. If color does appear it's very spotty and unattractive. I have to use very hot water to get my hair to feel right, if that makes any sense. I think it is a necessary step to get moisture back in the hair shafts.
My hair doesn't curl at all. Also, if I wanted my hair to look like very 1a hair I'm out of luck. It doesn't take to that either. I have tried many methods to try to get and keep curls or waves. No product or ammount of time in rollers or braids will get it to stay for more than an hour. I'm usually lucky to get 20 minutes.
But the great thing is that even though I have fine hair, it isn't damaged easily. I just don't get splits much ever. And on the rare occasion that I find one or 2 they are maybe up 1mm. Nothing to panic over anyway. I don't get breakage. I've not seen the white dot thing as far as I can remember.
(I wonder if this is a native american trait I've somehow inherited. I mean, I am about 1/8th but look like the whitest white girl you would ever see. But that doesn't mean I didn't inherent something. )
Anyway, I'm excited to have figured out another puzzle to my hair. It was kinda funny doing the porosity test. I put the hair in and waited. Nothing happened. So I went and made my Hubby his lunch for work. When I came back it was still afloat. I took my sweet time. I did the feel tests too. Super smooth, even running my fingers from tip to root.
Now I think it will be easier to figure out how to get moisture into my hair when it does get dry. I should have thought to figure this out sooner! :)

meteor
May 12th, 2014, 12:25 PM
Non-porous hair is a good thing because this hair isn't weathered as much and resists damage better. It also needs no patch-repair and no heavy conditioning, only mild and effective cleansing.

Science-y Hair Blog has some of the best popular articles I've come across on the subject of hair porosity: http://science-yhairblog.blogspot.ca/2011/09/porosity-in-hair.html

Here, she explains why the float test is inaccurate and how to measure porosity: http://science-yhairblog.blogspot.ca/2012/06/hair-porosity-how-to-measure-sort-of.html

And, obviously, very long hair tends to have differing porosity at the roots (lower) and weathered ends (higher): http://science-yhairblog.blogspot.ca/2013/09/different-porosity-same-hair.html

spidermom
May 12th, 2014, 12:36 PM
And mine is porous. It's a bummer.

florenonite
May 12th, 2014, 01:47 PM
Here, she explains why the float test is inaccurate and how to measure porosity: http://science-yhairblog.blogspot.ca/2012/06/hair-porosity-how-to-measure-sort-of.html

Thanks for that link! I like how she has quite pragmatic descriptors of porosity. I'm sure that's just the most accurate way of testing it at home, but I like it because IMO for the purposes of haircare it's more important to get to know how your hair behaves than know its microscopic structure. So knowing my hair behaves like low-porosity hair, I can then read up on products that work well, things to avoid, etc.

ExpectoPatronum
May 12th, 2014, 03:25 PM
My hair isn't very porous either! Oils tend to sit on it, and I had to dye my hair twice before I got an even color because it just would not take to the top half of my hair evenly at all. (My ends are porous though, and they soaked the dye right up lol). It's nice having hair that's fairly resilient though, isn't it?

HazelBug
May 12th, 2014, 11:37 PM
It is nice having resilient hair! I'm a pretty clumsy person so simething that's harder to damage is good for me! :)


My hair isn't very porous either! Oils tend to sit on it, and I had to dye my hair twice before I got an even color because it just would not take to the top half of my hair evenly at all. (My ends are porous though, and they soaked the dye right up lol). It's nice having hair that's fairly resilient though, isn't it?

HazelBug
May 12th, 2014, 11:40 PM
I actually found that out yesterday when I was searching through threads on porosity and saw where you had said that. Kinda funny! You have been active on lhc for some time huh!


And mine is porous. It's a bummer.

MungoMania
May 13th, 2014, 12:24 AM
Your hair sounds just like mine. I feel like my hair has been Scotchguarded. It repels everything.

My hair responds to protein treatments very well. Have you tried ceramides for moisturizing?

AmyBeth
May 13th, 2014, 02:09 AM
My hair has become almost impervious to anything at all since I began using henna. It's a whole different ballgame! I had to relearn how to wash and condition, and how often and how much to oil. It's much heavier than it used to be and it takes forever to dry after washing. The only way to get any wave at all is to braid it when it is wet, and leave it in until it's dry, and even then, the waves don't last very long. But it's so much stronger than it used to be and split ends just don't happen anymore. All in all, I'm loving it! I'll take non-porous over porous any time.

florenonite
May 13th, 2014, 05:15 AM
My hair has become almost impervious to anything at all since I began using henna. It's a whole different ballgame! I had to relearn how to wash and condition, and how often and how much to oil. It's much heavier than it used to be and it takes forever to dry after washing. The only way to get any wave at all is to braid it when it is wet, and leave it in until it's dry, and even then, the waves don't last very long. But it's so much stronger than it used to be and split ends just don't happen anymore. All in all, I'm loving it! I'll take non-porous over porous any time.

Huh. I assumed it was a lack of porosity that meant if I tie my hair up when wet, or sleep on it wet, it dries looking greasy. There's more moisture than it can absorb, so it just ends up kind of sitting there or something. Does anyone else have this problem?

Night_Kitten
May 13th, 2014, 11:39 AM
Thanks for those links meteor :)
Mine is also non-porous at the roots and most of the length and normal-porous at the ends, won't hold curls / wave, oils just sit on it (except coconut oil on the ends, that is slowly absorbed over several days), and doesn't take well to dies, even henna... No one even notices any difference if I do a henna treatment, lol :) And when I stopped hennaing last time the demarcation line faded and blended in after a couple of months, leaving me with slightly redder ends...

Night_Kitten
May 13th, 2014, 11:41 AM
Double post, sorry...

Simone_Fatale
May 16th, 2014, 10:36 AM
My hair is also low-porous, if porous at all. I guess it's not a bad thing but it really makes it very hard to moisturize. It can hold a curl pretty well, though, depending on how much I leave rollers in my hair. Heavy conditioning (a few hours of soaking in conditioner with heat) seems to be the only way to moisturize it.