High Porosity Hair – What It Is, Best Products 2024 & More

When people talk about hair, the conversation centers around a few things.

They might compare inches.

They might compare colors.

You might hear women go back and forth about whether their hair is relaxed or natural.

For women who are natural, they probably discuss their hair types and compare whether they are 4A, 4B, or 4C.

Have you ever talked to someone else about how much moisture your hair can hold?

Grab your brushes and your comb, because we’re about to shed some light on high porosity hair.

Definition: What Is High Porosity Hair

If you hear the word “porous,” what do you think of?

To help define high porosity hair, something that is porous is full of tiny holes.

If something is full of holes, you can imagine it would be pretty hard for it to retain water, right?

When dealing with all things life, water is equal to moisture.

For hair, it’s water plus a ton of other projects to help along the way.

With words like high porosity leading the way, you could deduce that high porosity isn’t able to hold moisture.

If you guessed this, then hooray for you!

High porosity hair is when your hair has tons of holes and breaks.

Because of this, your hair is able to absorb moisture quickly however it is unable to retain moisture and is more prone to breaking off.

You can kiss that length goodbye!

High porosity hair isn’t something that you can really change unless you’re rocking a wig or a sew-in.

As with anything else, there are tips and tricks to managing this type of hair.

Here’s all you need to know about high porosity hair and dealing with it.

How to Test for Hair Porosity

You can’t really look at someone’s hair and automatically be able to tell if they have high porosity hair or not.

You would, however, be able to guess on the porosity of your hair.

Do you feel like your hair dries out quickly?

Are constantly applying oils to your scalp?

While this is a good indication, you won’t know for sure how porous your hair is without a test.

Are you checking to see whether your hair is highly porous?

There are multiple methods you can easily try at home.

Method one, all you need is a cup of water and a few strands of clean hair, so do this after a wash day!

Run your hands through your hair to collect a few strands.

Get a clear glass and fill it with water. Drop your hair into the glass and watch what happens.

If you have low porosity hair, your hair will spend a long time floating at the top of the class.

If you have normal porosity hair, you’ll notice that your hair will slowly sink to the bottom of the glass.

For those with high porosity hair, your hair will quickly sink to the bottom of the glass.

If you’d rather not purposely lose a few strands of hair for this experiment, you can try method two.

Take a spray bottle and fill it with water.

Lightly spray your hair. Just a few sprays!

If you have low porosity, you’ll notice that the water will look like it’s sitting on top of the strands versus actually being absorbed.

If you have normal porosity hair, you’ll notice that while the water will sit on top of your hair initially, it will eventually be absorbed into the hair.

For those with high porosity hair, the water will immediately be absorbed into the hair.

As I said before, high porosity hair can absorb the water, but because it’s so porous, it won’t retain any of that water.

Characteristics Of High Porosity Hair

While you won’t always be able to spot it, there are a few glaring characteristics of high porosity hair.

One characteristic is that the hair might look or feel dry. Or both!

Since high porosity hair isn’t able to retain water, this leads to very dry locks and dull looking hair.

Another characteristic is that this type of hair gets tangled very easily.

Because of the lack of moisture, the hair rubs together causing friction high leads to tangles.

While a few snags is manageable, there’s nothing worse than spending hours detangling your hair.

One easy characteristic to spot in high porosity hair is that your hair dries fast.

You might notice that during your showers or wash days that your hair easily gets soaked.

If your hair is drying equally as fast, this is another marker of high porosity hair.

Our last characteristic of high porosity hair is that your hair is frizzy.

Obviously there are things like humidity that can often play a role, but if you tend to say that your hair is “naturally frizzy,” you might be leaning towards high porosity hair.

What It Means to Have Low or Normal Hair Porosity

Sometimes it’s easier to understand things when you have something to compare them to.

With low, normal, and high porosity hair, there’s no clear spectrum of bad to worse.

Rather, you want to be in the middle of both extremes.

Low porosity hair might not seem extreme, but it can cause a big problem for people with this hair type.

Similar to those with high porosity hair, low porosity hair also tends to be very dry.

This is because low porosity hair is unable to absorb moisture well.

Because the cuticles in the hair are packed so tightly together, there is no room for absorption and the water just tends to roll right off.

Normal porosity hair is where everyone should want to be.

In comparison to low and high porosity, it’s exactly what you might expect.

There is enough room between the cuticles that moisture is able to seep through.

You also don’t have to worry about too many holes that the hair is unable to retain moisture.

The Best Products for High Porosity Hair

When thinking about high porosity hair, you might immediately think about the hair that has already grown out of your head.

Think deeper than that.

By the time your hair has grown from your scalp, its porosity is already decided.

What isn’t decided, however, is the amount of damage it has.

While high porosity hair naturally has many holes, damaged hair can exacerbate your conditions.

There are a few products that can help you with your hair.

One of the first products to consider trying would be a reconstructor.

It won’t completely reverse all damage to your hair, but it will help strengthen your hair and reverse some of the breaks and split ends.

A popular one to try is ApHogee Keratin 2 Minute Reconstructor.

Another product that is crucial is conditioner.

You won’t find a single black woman who isn’t aware of how important conditioner is.

There’s a few different ways to tackle conditioner.

You might use a conditioner after shampooing before washing it out.

You could even use a leave-in conditioner or do a hair mask to help your hair retain the moisture.

A few great conditioners are: Deva Curl Heaven In Hair Moisture Treatment, Eden Bodyworks Coconut Shea CoWash, and Camille Rose Naturals Moisture Milk.

High porosity hair isn’t a lost case.

While it might be annoying to deal with and manage, there are definitely methods and products to help make your hair as healthy as possible.

Does High Porosity Hair Dry Quicker Or Slower Than Low Porosity Hair?

What’s the main difference between low and high porosity hair?

Low porosity hair is very slow to retain moisture while high porosity hair soaks it up like a biscuit does gravy.

Since it takes a long time for low porosity to retain moisture, you might think it will take equally long for it to dry.

You’d be right!

Low porosity hair takes an extended amount of time to dry. Why?

As I explained before, there are very free holes in low porosity hair which makes it take a while to absorb water.

Because of this, the water also has nowhere to escape which leads to a long amount of time needed to dry.

Alternatively, this isn’t the problem for high porosity hair.

As compared to low porosity hair, high porosity is very quick to dry.

This is due to the abundance of holes that can be found in high porosity hair.

So when the question comes up for whether low or high porosity hair dries faster, it’s not even a competition.

High porosity hair is winning in a landslide.

Does Having High Porosity Hair Mean Your Hair’s Damaged?

This misconception is popular about high porosity hair, so let’s not dwell on the explanation first.

The answer is no.

Having high porosity hair does not mean your hair is damaged.

Unless your body is going through extreme chemical changes, no one’s hair grows out of their scalp damaged.

However, high porosity hair does grow out of your scalp.

This means that if you have high porosity hair, that doesn’t mean your hair is automatically damaged.

Something that high porosity hair does do is make your hair more prone to damage.

Because high porosity hair can easily be damaged, this is why the misconception exists.

High porosity hair is quick to dry and one of the easiest ways to damage your hair is through heat damage.

Heat damage can cause breaks and splits in the hair which will obviously make the hair more damaged.

Essentially, high porosity hair can lead to damaged hair but high porosity hair doesn’t mean your hair is damaged.

How to Grow High Porosity Hair – A Few Tips

Whether you have low, normal, or high porosity hair, the one question everyone has is “how do I grow my hair?”

For those with high porosity hair that might be prone to breakage, they might wonder how is it possible for continued growth with this hair type.

It is possible!

Here are a few tips to help your hair grow:

Tip 1: Load up on the conditioner.

While shampooing can dry out your hair, the conditioner is your chance to bring the moisture back.

Washing your hair daily isn’t going to help you, but you should deep condition often.

Tip 2: Use protein treatments.

Hair grows more quickly when it’s strong.

If you have high porosity hair, your hair is already weaker than most because it tends to be dry.

Protein treatments are going to help make your hair stronger which will help it grow.

Tip 3: Put your hair in protective styles.

When you put your hair in protective styles, you don’t have to worry about things like tangles.

If you’re doing a style like braids or locs, this is always a great way to keep your scalp moisturized.

Not only will protective styles help your hair grow, but they’re a great way to track your growth as well.

Hair Care Tips for High Porosity Hair

If you’ve discovered that you have high porosity hair, don’t be discouraged!

There are numerous tips to try so that you don’t have to deal with and experience breaks and splits in your hair.

The first tip is to let your hair dry naturally – always.

Don’t even think of drying your hair with a blow dryer.

With high porosity hair, your hair is going to dry quickly regardless so by adding heat to it, you’re just damaging it even more.

The second tip is to do as many heatless hairstyles as possible.

When dealing with dry hair, heat can easily cause your hair to break off.

The third tip is to detangle your hair when it’s wet.

It is easier for hair to break off when it is dry, and this is especially true for those with high porosity hair.

Instead of trying to detangle your hair while it’s dry, apply a detangling product to your wet hair before detangling.

This will minimize the amount of breakage you’re seeing and help you grow longer, stronger hair.

Homemade Remedies for High Porosity Hair

Tired of constantly needing to shop around for hair products?

If you have high porosity hair, there are a few do-it-yourself remedies that can help.

Remedy 1: Make an Apple Cider Vinegar rinse

For this remedy, all you need are two ingredients, apple cider vinegar and water.

If you have high porosity hair, your hair is dry which means the apple cider vinegar ratio would be smaller than for those with oily hair.

For every cup of water, you’re only going to use ⅛ cup of ACV which is about two tablespoons.

Spray the mixture into your hair and let it sit for around 10 minutes.

High porosity hair tends to look dull and lackluster and this remedy will help bring some life back into your hair.

This rinse shouldn’t be applied to your hair more the twice a week.

Remedy 2: Use Rice Water

Rice water is a relatively new idea in the world of hair care.

Meant to help your hair grow and make it stronger, rice water is easy to make yourself.

All you need is about ½ a cup of water.

After cleaning, place the rice in 2 cups of water. Let the rice sit for half an hour before straining the rice out and leaving the rice water behind.

While you can easily pour rice water into your hair, it’s easier to apply with a spray bottle.

After saturating your hair, let it sit for around 20 minutes.

No matter what type of hair you have, rice water can easily help you grow long, luscious hair.

High Porosity Hair Conclusion

Don’t let your hair keep you down.

If you have high porosity hair, there’s a chance that you probably didn’t know that before you read this.

For those who’ve discovered that they have high porosity hair, don’t worry!

Just take the information and tips from this article and you’ll be well on your way to stronger, healthier hair!