Interesting video on porosity

[lapushka]

Found this interesting, also she has gorgeous hair!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Kw5T1M29oY

[Platzhalter]

Okay, that's a good one... thanks for sharing :)

[gthlvrmx]

Oh thank you so much for posting! Now I know more about porosity! She does have pretty hair too!

[Agnes Hannah]

Really informative vid, thanks for posting!

[mermaid lullaby]

Thank you!

[Daylilly]

Lapushka, that was a very informative video. I have thirsty hair and it explains why my niece has such smooth and shiny hair. My hair drinks oil and my niece never has any frizz. Thank you for sharing.

[Nadine <3]

Interesting, I'm not sure what my porosity is, my hair tends to dry pretty fast and for fine hair it can really soak up oil like a champ, more so in the winter. I think I am high porosity, because if I ran my finger up a strand like she described, it does feel "grabby" and weird. I don't have to look for the bulb at the end of the hair to figure out what way the hair goes, I can tell just by feeling the hair. Weird.

[hanne jensen]

Thanks for posting. I'll do the cup of water test on some of my shed hairs.

[hanne jensen]

I did the water test before washing my hair. I just took a hair out of my TT. It floated for 4 minutes. So, I've been using deep moisturizing products needlessly. My hair takes eternity to dry and always feels like I have some kind of build up. My canopy is fried, the hair is split in two all the way up to the follicle. Sooner or later these hairs will shed out so I'm ignoring them.

When I washed my hair I used a mild poo and only a little creme rinse for slip. My hair hasn't felt this nice in years. Thanks again for posting this video. It has helped me a lot.

[missblueeyes]

Interesting! According to this, I have low porosity hair even though it has been bleached at least 2 times. Weird. :S

[DreamSheep]

I was never really sure how legit the water test was, but I haven't tried it either, so can't really report results.

My hair is in no way grabby, but I can sometimes tell if I'm gliding my fingers up against the grain.
Before the LHC, I thought my hair dried relatively fast, but since learning some haircare techniques here such as oiling, it now does dry a lot slower than I remember.
So.. I probably just have normal porosity hair.

[DreamSheep]

I was never really sure how legit the water test was, but I haven't tried it either, so can't really report results.

My hair is in no way grabby, but I can sometimes tell if I'm gliding my fingers up against the grain.
Before the LHC, I thought my hair dried relatively fast, but since learning some haircare techniques here such as oiling, it now does dry a lot slower than I remember.
So.. I probably just have normal porosity hair.

[meteor]

I like the video and absolutely adore her gorgeous hair! :thud:


I was never really sure how legit the water test was, but I haven't tried it either, so can't really report results.

I must say there are multiple problems with the accuracy of the "float test", e.g. the surface tension of water, the specific gravity of hair and water, the conditioners on hair, all detailed pretty well in this post (http://science-yhairblog.blogspot.ca/2012/06/hair-porosity-how-to-measure-sort-of.html) on the Science-y Hair Blog, and later in this one (testing the "float test") (http://science-yhairblog.blogspot.ca/2014/12/testing-float-test-for-hair-porosity.html), too.

Here are a few issues I can think of:
- how heavy/coarse/thick your individual hair strands are (diameter size) will affect the test;
- how long the hair chunks you are testing are and which chunks you use (e.g. if I use one of my 44'' hair strands, it won't show the same results as a 1'' chunk of my hair);
- all the stuff that penetrated or coated your hair (henna, proteins, oils...);
- how much time exactly you decide to let your hair sit on/in water before calling results;
- water temperature; etc etc...

Ultimately, sorry for being so unscientific, but I prefer the "duck test" myself :lol: : if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck... I would suspect it can be a little more informative than the float test - just check if your hair behaves as low- or high- porosity and which products/ingredients it likes.
And the feel test (running fingers up and down to feel how smooth the cuticles are) is somewhat superior to the float test, IMHO, and a bit more informative on other issues too, too: you'll know if your hair has kinks or changes in diameter or if your porosity changes from root to end.
And of course, I would imagine that microscopic analysis is the most reliable way of analyzing porosity. :)

[lapushka]

I must say there are multiple problems with the accuracy of the "float test", e.g. the surface tension of water, the specific gravity of hair and water, the conditioners on hair, all detailed pretty well in this post (http://science-yhairblog.blogspot.ca/2012/06/hair-porosity-how-to-measure-sort-of.html) on the Science-y Hair Blog, and later in this one (testing the "float test") (http://science-yhairblog.blogspot.ca/2014/12/testing-float-test-for-hair-porosity.html), too.

I've seen a vid by a YTer that water tested her natural dry kinky-curly hair as is (sunk), then her hair with product on it (floated), all to prove she had high porosity. Let me see if I can dig that one up... test is in part 3 (also she does a version of the LOC method on one bit of hair).

Part 1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IU6p_NtrHxQ

Part 2:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRwqwn_QXfs

Part 3:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hO9wHGYp_aA

[meteor]

^ Interesting! :D Thank you so much, lapushka!
Her float test is in video # 3 that you linked. :)
To me, her test proves that lipid barrier protects hair from absorbing too much water (maybe protecting from hygral fatigue?), which is great!
But I am not 100% sure that it shows that her hair is high-porosity... if her hair had no cuticle chips at all, I don't know if it would necessarily follow that hair would have to float on water (wouldn't the hair weight (thickness) drive it to a certain extent?).

My question is: is it correct to equate high porosity hair with damaged hair? And low porosity hair = undamaged, virgin hair? Why would virgin, undamaged hair have any chips (or "pores") in its structure? :hmm:
I would imagine that hair growing from scalp has cuticles lying as tight and non-chipped, non-damaged as they can (so considered low-porosity), but as hair accumulates damage, cuticle "roof shingles" start to lift and/or come off, so hair porosity increases. Or am I missing something? :?:

[lapushka]

I would imagine that hair growing from scalp has cuticles lying as tight and non-chipped, non-damaged as they can (so considered low-porosity), but as hair accumulates damage, cuticle "roof shingles" start to lift and/or come off, so hair porosity increases. Or am I missing something? :?:

Yes, that's what I always thought, until I saw her video (the three-parter) and was actually stunned her hair sank. I don't know if she dyes her hair or not, or if it's totally virgin... That could explain a few things, if dye was in the picture, for me at least.

[petcrazy18]

DANG. 8 seconds into the video and my mouth nearly dropped to the floor. Her hair is so pretty! It reminds me of the perfect curls and spirals of a gypsy, WOWZA.
In relation to the video, I always wanted to know and understand the hair porosity topic. This video was seriously helpful on a personal level.
Self discovery: I think I have normal to low porosity (I heard that squeaky sound.. :p)