Hey my loves!

One thing I know is we all want luscious, long and healthy hair, right? So, before anything let’s discuss your hair type, this way we can find what products and techniques best suit your hair to make your hair game even better! Knowing your hair type is the starting point of your haircare routine! One product does not fit all, I know stressful right? But together we will get there. 

Hair Porosity 
Firstly, I will explain what hair porosity is and how you can test your own! Sound good? Let’s get started then!  

So porosity is how well your hair is able to absorb and hold moisture. There are different grades of porosity.  

If you look at a scale it goes:

Low Porosity (Grade 1 & 2) 

Medium Porosity (Grade 3)  

High Porosity (Grade 4 & 5) 

There we have all the different hair porosities, wow so much about hair! However it’s important to know about the key facts about hair porosity so, we can get the best out of our hair products and be on the verge of having beautiful hair!  

It’s key to understand that you may have low porosity at your healthy roots and higher porosity on your dry ends. So for example, you could have grade 2 on your roots and grade 4 at the lengths but it’s vital to treat your hair as if it is grade 4! Your hair porosity is affected by the flexible outer hair layer which we call the ‘cuticle’. Similar to nails I  know, but somewhat different. Let me explain my hair loving besties! The cuticle actually determines how easy moisture and oils can pass in and out of your hair. Interesting right? Anyways, porosity is mainly genetic however, porosity can be affected by external factors such as using too much heat, bleaching or dyeing your hair and certain treatments! So don’t get confused and fully blame your genetics my loves! Besties I cannot express how important it is to know your hair porosity as it is essential in helping you choose the correct products to keep your hair well moisturized, healthy, shiny and strong! Now I know that’s what we all want right? Nothing better than having rapunzel locks! 

So much to take in I know my besties, but it’s essential to know these facts and key information if we want an amazing hair transformation!  

Next I will discuss how we can actually test our own hair and determine which category we fall into! One step closer to start our hair journey how exciting! So let’s start!  

Hair Porosity Tests 

Below every test is described in full and will make it easier for you girls to understand which category is best suited to your hair type.  

Low Porosity

• Slip & Slide test: So, you take a strand of your hair and slide it between two fingers. You slide your fingers up the shaft, this is towards your scalp besties! If you girls feel nothing and your fingers slip smoothly you my loves have ‘low porosity hair’.  
• To determine if you have low porosity hair, your hair will take more than 8 hours to air dry, wow so much time!  
• Low porosity hair is also classed for those who have never colored their hair and never used heat or chemical treatments. 

• Low porosity hair is also easily weighed down and when the hair is wet you will be able to see water droplets laying on the hair.  

Next lets discuss the next test, don’t forget knowing this information will help turn your hair into gorgeous locks! 

Medium Porosity  

• Slip & Slide test: So, you take a strand of your hair and slide it between two fingers. You slide with your fingers up the shaft, again this is towards your scalp! My loves if you feel little bumps along the way but not too much then you have ‘ medium porosity hair’.  

• Another factor of medium porosity hair is that it will take between 4-8 hours to air dry! 
• This hair type is usually lightly colored (not more than 3 shades lighter or darker than the natural hair color).  
• With this porosity it is easier to style and can hold styles for a long time. 
• Also hair will look healthy, glossy and shiny, amazinggg! 

• Finally with this hair type girls your wet hair will be able to absorb water normally into the hair cuticle.  

Last but not least..

 High porosity 

• You take a strand of your hair and slide it between two fingers. You must slide with your fingers up the shaft, so girls this is towards your scalp. If you feel little bumps along the way this means you have ‘high porosity’ as your cuticle is lifted when you are running your fingers across your hair strand, how interesting! 
• For low porosity hair it will take less than 4 hours to air dry! 
• Hair has gaps and holes in the cuticle. 
• High porosity hair is usually overly colored (more than 7 shades lighter or darker than the natural hair color).  
• Usually the hair damaged due to hair color, bleach, chemical treatment and heat damage from (flat irons, curling iron and/or blow dryer). 
• With high porosity, water drops are not visible on the hair when he hair is wet.  

WOW! A lot to take in my loves, but we don’t finish there! Hair porosity is super important but let me introduce you to another factor which goes hand in hand with hair porosity, which is labelled ‘Hair Elasticity’. Knowing both these factors is equally important to help start a journey to transform your beautiful locks. 

Hair Elasticity 

Let me explain what hair elasticity is.. hair elasticity is the hairs ability to stretch and return to it’s original shape. Hair elasticity is determined by the moisture levels in your hair. Want to know more, keep reading! 

So, my loves there are 3 grades of hair elasticity.. the scale goes: 

• Good Elasticity 
• Low Elasticity  
• High Elasticity 

Lets learn how we can determine our hair elasticity, keep focused! 

To test this you will pinch a strand of hair between your hands and hold it tight . Then gently tug the strand to stretch it. If the strand stretches and bounces back it has good elasticity and good levels of moisture. 

If the hair isn’t very flexible and doesn’t stretch much or snaps whilst trying then the elasticity is ‘low’ and it doesn’t have good levels of moisture! 

However, if the strand stretches and keeps stretching but breaks with no bounce back to its original state the hair has ‘too much moisture’ and ‘poor elasticity’.  

There we are my loves, above we have explored the importance of knowing your hair porosity and hair elasticity and the method to test it out for yourself, isn’t that incredible! You are now to start the journey to begin your hair transformation and I cannot wait to see!  

YAAS to beautiful goldilocks! And yay to more posts! Heres to more hair help and transformations, do check back! Lots of love Afsennah.