Desperately need porosity type help!!

Allie.Blake

Hey Curlies! :wave:

So I've been trying to figure out for weeks/months what kind of porosity my hair is so that I can go about making the right product choices to start my CG journey, and I can never seem to get a definite answer. I've tried the float test with the cup of water and my hair floats every time, but I've also heard that that experiment is kind of like "junk science" - whether that's true or not I am not sure. I've also tried the slip/slide test, and it's a really smooth slide up from the ends to the scalp.

My hair always feels super dry and parched, and it takes a good 2-3 minutes for it to get completely saturated with water when I'm in the shower, yet tends to air dry relatively quickly (around 2 hours). I do have SUPER fine, low density hair, so part of me wonders if it dries quickly because of it.

It frizzes like crazy (3a hair if that helps), and looks like sheep's wool when it's not styled (the best way I can describe it is almost afro-like). It takes to color pretty well, and tends to last pretty long. When I got the keratin treatment a couple years ago, it lasted for nearly a year until I finally decided to go back to curly.

I'm sure you guys can see my confusion! If you guys could give your opinion on what you think my porosity type is, I would super appreciate it.

Thank you!!

curlyamaryllis

I would guess you tend toward the higher end of porosity. Lopo hair usually doesn't take color well, plus, if you've colored your hair, you've raised your porosity a bit, just by the nature of coloring.

If I were you, I'd treat your hair like hipo (at least on the lower half) and see how it reacts. Keep in mind, though, just because your hair doesn't like something that rates well with most hipo hair doesn't mean your hair is lopo, it might just not like an ingredient. I definitely have hipo hair and there are some things my hair hates that most hipos do really well with.

Therese1

It can be confusing sometimes. My hair started as hi-po and then gradually went to lo-po. I didn't notice a difference in drying time really but did notice that my hair was not soaking up nearly as much product. I guess I would say that if you can throw products at your hair with wild abandon and have your hair soak them up well, you are likely high porosity. If, on the other hand, you find that your hair gets weighed down extremely easily and cannot tolerate much in the way of products, you are likely low porosity.