Retaining your hair's moisture

Guest post by Kim Isaacs

You’ve already learned that porosity is your hair’s ability to absorb and retain moisture. Now you are probably wondering how to determine your hair’s porosity. There are a few tests you can perform to find out.

                             

How does your hair respond to water when you are washing your hair? Does it get thoroughly wet the minute you step in the shower? Or does it take a while and you find yourself manipulating your hair in order to make certain it’s wet? How long does it take your hair to dry?

If your hair gets wet easily and dries very fast, then chances are your hair is highly porous. If your hair gets wet easily, and doesn’t dry fast, chances are your hair has normal porosity. If your hair takes a minute to get wet in the shower, and takes forever to dry, your hair probably has low porosity.

Each level of porosity has different hair care methods.

I have found that many of us with low porosity hair — including me — can keep our hair moisturized by using the liquid, cream, and oil method. Wash your hair and while it’s still wet (liquid) apply your leave in conditioner of choice (cream). Next, apply a butter or (oil) to seal in the moisture. You can then apply a styler of choice. This is an excellent way to moisturize low porosity hair. 

If your hair is highly porous, your hair tends to be the driest hair type, as moisture leaves your hair very quickly. People with highly porous hair can use the liquid, oil, and cream method (LOC). When your hair is wet (liquid), apply oil or butter (oil), and then apply your leave in (cream). This works extremely well.

If you have normal porosity, try either method to determine which one works best. However, I would imagine that the LOC method may be too heavy for your hair, as you don’t have a problem keeping your hair moisturized.

Keeping your hair moisturized is the No. 1 thing you can to do have gorgeous, healthy curly hair. Our hair has so many twists and turns, any natural oils that our scalp produces can’t make it down to our twisty hair strands. This is why most curlies tend to have dry hair.