Have you ever looked at someone with a similar curl pattern as you and wondered – why can I never get my hair to look like that?! This was me for the longest time until 3 weeks ago.
After finding out I have low porosity hair and buying products specifically to help low porosity, my hair completely changed. I’m talking about going from dry, frizzy, sad, depressed “curls” to soft, moisturized, beautiful, happy, A+ student, 4.0 gpa curls.
For reference, I have 3a/3b curls. For the majority of my life, I straightened my hair because it was the only way to keep it manageable. Wearing my natural hair left me with tangles, knots and dry frizzy hair, so naturally, straightening it every week without having to do any upkeep was the easiest thing to do.
But finally at the start of this year, I completely stopped straightening my hair. This left me with having to find products that worked with my natural hair and I am so happy that I finally found them (but that doesn’t stop me from trying out new products because what can I say, what’s more satisfying than trying out brand new products?!)
Sections of this post:
1 – Determining Porosity – the key to buying the right products
2 – How to test your porosity
3 – Treating low porosity hair – hair product ingredients to look for and avoid
4 – My simple low porosity hair routine
5 – Products I use to treat my low porosity hair
Determining Porosity – the key to buying the right products
What is porosity? To keep it short and simple, hair porosity determines how well your hair can both absorb and retain moisture. Low porosity hair has a harder time absorbing moisture, while high porosity hair has a hard time retaining moisture. Medium/normal porosity allows your hair to absorb AND retain moisture. We will get into how to test your hair in a sec, but first let’s go over the qualities of each type.
Porosity can be determined by different factors such as genetics, environment, heat damage, over washing, just about anything, you name it. What I have found is that not using the right products caused my low porosity. High porosity can be caused by constant bleaching or using harsh products or dyes on your hair. Curl patterns can also affect your type but not always.
Also, it IS possible to change your hair porosity, or at least help it, you just have to find the right products.
Now, let’s take a look at how each porosity may look:
Low porosity:
- Hair tangles easily, dry, lots of knots
- Hair may take a long time to dry
- Products don’t absorb and may weigh down your hair
- May have more build up on scalp
High porosity:
- Hair is frizzy and dry when dried
- Hair can break easily
- Hair dries fast
Normal/medium porosity:
- Hair looks shiny and healthy
- Hair can hold products well
How to test your porosity
- Grab a glass of water.
- Take a strand of your hair (make sure it’s clean, so this would be best to do after washing your hair but it’s not entirely necessary).
- Place it in the middle of the glass so that it’s not touching the sides of the glass.
- Wait a minute or two and check where the strand is.
If it’s floating on top you have low porosity, if it sinks to the bottom, you have high porosity and if it floats in the middle, you have normal/medium.
Treating low porosity hair – hair product ingredients to look for and avoid
Because I have low porosity hair, I will be talking about what helped my hair, so unfortunately I can’t speak on high porosity or normal hair (although who knows, maybe I’ll mess up my hair and in a month I’ll be making a post called “this product helped my high porosity hair!”)
When it comes to low porosity hair, you might think it’s the worst out of all hair types but it’s really not! You just need to find products that will moisturize and penetrate the cuticles of your hair to stay moisturized.
When looking at the ingredients of any hair product, there are several ingredients you will want to look for that will be good for you.
GOOD ingredients in hair products for treating low porosity hair:
- Water (this should ALWAYS be the first ingredient)
- Glycerin
- Fatty alcohols such as: cetyl alcohol, stearyl alcohol, lauryl alcohol, cetearyl alcohol
- Aloe vera
Ingredients you should use more sparingly when treating low porosity hair:
- Sulfates, parabens, petroleum
Ingredients with oils such as coconut oil, caster oil, etc. and shea butter can be used but be sure to use them sparingly once you have a good routine, as they can have the opposite effect since they seal the cuticles of your hair – which you don’t want to do before getting moisture in.
Now that that’s all out of the way, I can finally tell you about the products that changed my hair game, how I use them, how often, and all that! I will also give a list of other recs I have gathered from looking at ingredients and talking to people with low porosity hair.
My simple low porosity hair routine
My routine is pretty simple. I have my main wash day on Sunday night, then will do a co wash on Thursday morning.
On Sunday night my routine is:
- Shampoo with a clarifying shampoo
- Condition with a moisturizing conditioner
- Use a leave in hair mask
- Style with a curl creme and air dry overnight
On Thursday:
- Use a co wash
- Style with a curl creme and air dry overnight
Products I use to treat my low porosity hair
Now we’re finally at the part that you probably came for – some affordable drugstore products! I’m going to list the products I use as well as some alternative products (full disclaimer: I haven’t tried all of these products yet, but from looking at the ingredients and getting recs from friends they seem to work really well for low porosity hair)
Step 1: Shampoo with VO5 Herbal Escapes Kiwi Lime Squeeze Clarifying Shampoo
For us low po girls we are more likely to have buildup on top of our hair since it doesn’t fully absorb products. That’s why a clarifying shampoo is really important as it gets rid of all that build up.
other shampoo products:
Step 2: Condition with Suave Essentials Conditioner Conditioner for Dry Hair Strawberry Infused
other conditioner products:
Step 3: Deep condition with Shea Moisture Manuka Honey & Mafura Oil Intensive Hydration Hair Masque
Now THIS product is the real magic. If you get anything at all from this post let it be this. I will section my hair and apply this, then comb it through, put it in a bun and in a shower cap and leave it on for about 40 minutes. Then just rinse it out with lukewarm water and wrap my hair in a cotton T-shirt.
other deep conditioner products:
Step 4: Leave in and style with EDEN BodyWorks Coconut Shea Curl Defining Creme
I kept seeing this product all over TikTok and decided to give in and try it and I do not regret it at all. This might be the only styling product I will ever use for my curls, I don’t even have to use gel or anything this seriously doubles as my styling product. It seriously changed my curl game. It does have some products I listed earlier to go easy on like coconut oil, so make sure you use it sparingly, a little goes a long way!
other leave in products:
- Shea Moisture, Silicone Free Miracle Styler Leave In Treatment
- Curls Blueberry Bliss Reparative Leave In Conditioner
On Thursday I just have two steps:
Step 1: Wash my hair with EDEN BodyWorks Coconut Shea Cleansing Cowash
I will brush this through my hair from the roots to the ends and leave it in for about 5 minutes.
Step 2 is Step 4 in my Sunday routine which is just styling with the Eden Curl defining creme.
~ Fin ~
So that’s about it! I hope that this post helped you in any way and thank you for reading. 🙂
Also if you have any hair product recommendations that changed your hair life please reach out to me and let me know them, I love trying new products!!
