The Porosity Test- Is it worth it?
The Porosity Test - Is it worth it?
What is Porosity?
Hair porosity is your hair’s ability to retain moisture after absorbing water. The hair porosity test is designed to help decide this.
That said, it is beneficial to know how you treat your hair product-wise and routine-wise, on wash days to have a better understanding of your own porosity make-up; even more so than defining your hair type!
With so much talk about porosity, even TikTok viral videos, what is the truth in regarding the porosity test, and do we really need to do it?
We once heard someone say there is no such thing as porosity, just whether your hair is moisturised or not! That could not be further from the truth!
Porosity, high porosity, and low porosity even mixed porosity, scientifically all exist!
The Porosity Test: How to do it?
If you put this phrase into google it will throw up thousands of resources telling you to pluck a strand off hair from your brush, fill a glass with water and drop it in.
The results are then split between, the strand that sinks, meaning high porosity, the strand that floats, meaning low porosity, and the strand that stays in the middle of the glass, indicating normal porosity!
The truth is this whole experiment!! is scientifically incorrect! Recently we were asked to comment on the porosity test video that went viral on Tik Tok by the Metro newspaper, here is what we said:
Afro hair care strategist and founder of Root2tip, also says that this hack isn’t suitable for Afro or curly hair. ‘Detecting the porosity level on Afro/curly hair, in all honesty, is a science experiment.
The truth is, our hair will have a number of porosity levels even on one strand,’ says Salem. ‘The hair in the glass test when done without scientific criteria is flawed on many levels.
A strand of hair plopped in a glass that has been taken from your head or hairbrush will be covered in a moisturising product or even hair gel. This alone will interfere with the accuracy of the water in the glass porosity test.’
The Porosity test from a science view-point!
We are not going to bog you down with the science of this test however there are a number of blog posts that do go into finite detail and videos too, like this one by Sister scientist:
To conclude if you are still feeling a little Meh! Here are a few tips to assess what your hair will or won't like. The truth is, when you appreciate that all hair has multiple porosity types on one head, you fret less.
Old hair v New hair: The Porosity test:
The older your hair is, by old, we mean the tips, (if your hair is past your shoulders) has been with you for 4 years or more, this hair may have been washed more than 700 times, this set of strands will be of a higher porosity than the roots!
The roots, are new hair, they have not subject to the handling and product load that the tips have gone through just yet!
Moisturising Low Porosity hair:
Our top tips are to check how long it takes for your hair to fully absob water when under the shower, if you are there for over 2 minutes and its still not getting completely wet, you are most likely on the lower porostiy scale.
Hot water is your friend, this will raise the cuticle and allow you to add the conditioner and it will eventually absorb.
Use our Comb-out cowash conditioner and rinse with cold water to lock in moisture.
Low Porosity hair loves Water-based leave-in products: Our Triple M Milk is perfect here, it is lightweight but ultra-nourishing, our customers swear by this for their lower porosity strands!
Your hair care journey is a marathon, so take the time to get to know your hair inside and out. Do not follow trends that are not based in science! Keep it super simple and your hair will thrive.
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