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Article: How-to: Find Out Your Hair Porosity Test

How-to: Find Out Your Hair Porosity Test

How-to: Find Out Your Hair Porosity Test

Ever wonder why curls are all so different? Well, it's mainly due to our hair porosity levels. This determines...

  • How long your hair gets, or stays, wet
  • How hard your hair is to detangle
  • If your hair likes heavy/thick products or lightweight products 

Low Porosity Or High Porosity?

Now there's 2 ways to find out what your hair porosity is:

  1. Hair Porosity: Strand Test
  2. Hair Porosity: Characteristics Match

Hair Porosity: Strand Test

Here's how you can give yourself a hair porosity test at-home:

  1. Get a cup of tap water
  2. Choose a hair strand from your brush/comb (you don't need to pull a strand out of your head, please spare them 😂)
  3. Place the strand in the cup and swirl around with a finger
  4. Wait about a minute to see if your hair strand floats, or sinks
  5. Determine if your have low or high porosity:
  • If your hair FLOATS = You have LOW POROSITY
  • If your hair SINKS = You have HIGH POROSITY
This video is an example of the Hair Porosity: Strand Test at-home (results: sink = high porosity hair)*

Hair Porosity: Characteristics Match

Use the below table to see what characteristics your hair matches (or needs) the most:

HIGH POROSITY

LOW POROSITY

*float then sink* *stays floating*
dries quickly dries slowly
gets frizzy retains moisture
breaks easily can sustain most damage
hard to detangle easy to detangle
needs high protein best with no-low protein
heavy/thick products lightweight products
requires low heat can withstand high heat
absorbs quickly absorbs slowly
moisturizing shampoo clarifying shampoo
extra conditioning mild conditioning

 

If you're in the middle of any of these 2 sides, you most likely have Medium Porosity hair (which is generally "happy hair"). You can use a mix of products to suit your needs (like if you want more definition or more volume). Have fun!

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