Written by Mio Acosta @ayymio
As I was rinsing a treatment off in the shower, my face was twisted in HORROR! This was my washday experience for 3 months straight!
Unfortunately, a mistake I made with a homemade deep conditioner completely overprocessed my hair. I didn’t realize my hair porosity had changed and that I was only making it worse. It took me too long to realize I needed to use protein! After that, I vowed to listen to my hair more to get to the literal root of the problem.
Figuring out how to care for my high porosity hair wasn’t easy. I am writing this article to prevent the same feeling of helplessness in you!
Before we dive deeper, let’s review the characteristics of high porosity hair.
Test a strand of your hair so that you are sure this is your hair type!
The following tips will save you some trouble and/or hopefully fix some ongoing issues you may be experiencing! We will start with what might be going wrong in your natural hair routine & how to remedy that!
1- You Are Not Using Protein on Your High Porosity Hair
If you take a strand of high porosity hair in between two fingertips and glide down, you can feel that that hair cuticle is “raised.” Given the highly porous nature of high porosity hair, protein helps fill in those gaps temporarily.
Protein strengthens the hair and prevents additional breakage and damage. Depending on your hair’s sensitivity to protein, you should be doing a protein treatment at least once a month. You could also alternate with lighter protein treatments in between.
Take a look at this list to Recognize The Different Protein Ingredients Found in Hair Products.
Reading labels will help you discern what products may work for you and what won’t. You also want to be careful not to overdo it with the protein. From personal experience, protein overload is a nightmare you don’t want to deal with.
2- You Are Not Deep Conditioning Your High Porosity Hair.
If you are not deep conditioning your high porosity hair regularly, what are you even doing, sis?! Deep conditioning should follow EVERY wash session for these important reasons:
- It Prevents Breakage
- Combats Frizz & Dryness
- Can Reduce Damage
- It Helps Maintain Moisture & Protein Balance
Water is not enough to keep your hair hydrated; shampoo and conditioner can only go so far. When deep conditioning high porosity hair, it’s important to maintain a protein and moisture balance. An imbalance in either can create the above-mentioned issues. Pro tip: Have moisturizing deep conditioners in rotation and in between protein treatments.
3- You Are Not Sealing In Moisture Properly.
I’m sure it’s happened to you where you are not even out of the shower for 5 minutes and your hair is already almost half dry! This is another characteristic of high porosity hair that needs to be addressed.
Since this hair type can absorb and lose moisture quickly, sealing moisture is the key! There are a couple of ways you can do this. For example, you can rinse your hair with COLD water so that the hair cuticle closes. You can also dilute apple cider vinegar with water as a final hair rinse for the same purposes.
The most important method, however, is the L.O.C. Method, and alternatively the L.C.O. Method. Standing for leave-in (or water), oil and cream. Layering products this way will retain moisture in the days after washday. You can also switch the order of the cream and oil depending on your preference. From there, feel free to use your other gels and stylers of your choice. You can check out this post for some of my favorite products for high porosity hair
Make sure you are using oils and butters that are heavy enough to seal moisture such as shea butter or avocado oil.
4- You Are Not Detangling Correctly
Wherever you are in your hair journey, please tell you you are NOT detangling your hair while it’s dry! That’s a huge no, no!
High porosity hair is prone to damage due to raised hair cuticles, unlike low porosity hair which has flat cuticles. Any dry detangling will only cause more breakage and shedding. I implore you to only detangle while pre-pooing or while using conditioner on wet hair.
5- You Are Still Using Heat/Over Manipulating/Coloring
I believe this goes without saying; however if you are still regularly straightening, blow-drying, relaxing, coloring, or over manipulating your high porosity hair, you WILL NOT ACHIEVE HEALTHY HAIR!
Everything mentioned above contributes to the weakening of the hair strand. Do your best to stop cold turkey or transition so that your hair can finally thrive. You did decide to return to being natural for a reason, right?
Phewww! I know this was a read, curl Friend.
Just know that there are other steps you can take to take care of your high porosity hair as well, but the ones I touched on above are the most important, so bookmark this page so you can reference back to it when needed!
Your natural crown is worth all of the care and maintenance! I know that after applying these tips, your next washday will be full of smiles!
Take another step towards amazing hair & check out some of my favorite products for High Porosity Hair
Low porosity hair? Learn more about your hair type in this post
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