10 Essential Low Porosity Hair Care Tips to Transform Your Routine

Instead of jumping straight to care tips, let’s understand what low porosity hair is.

Basically, it is characterized by closely bounded cuticle layers, which not only limits hydration but also contributes to issues like product buildup.

Even with intense care, the moisture and products often remain on the surface, leading to hair dryness and an over-layered feeling.

Curious about how to care for it? Keep reading for essential tips that will transform your routine!

One of the low porosity hair care tips is to clarify regularly. If you do this frequently it is possible to clean the product residues that may remain on the hairs’ surface.

To rectify this, use a mild clarifying shampoo once a month (or depending on the hair’s condition). This may help  clear away this buildup, allowing treatments and moisture to infiltrate more effectively.  

Whenever you wash your head with warm water, it opens the sealed cuticles. Lifting up the closed cuticles makes it easier for moisture and products to absorb.

As you know, low porosity hair struggles to breathe because of its compact structure. These are essential steps to follow for ensuring proper hair care.

Therefore, you may treat your hair by rinsing your hair with warm water before applying conditioner or treatment. This simple step can enhance the effectiveness of your hair care without requiring extra products.

A pre-shampoo treatment is another hair care for low porosity hair. It is a beneficial care tip for low-porosity hair because it helps to protect and hydrate the hair before the shampooing process.

Wondering how it works? It is due to the barrier that is created to prevent excessive moisture loss during cleansing.

For this, apply pre-shampoo treatments, such as oil or deep conditioning masks. This helps your hair retain hydration, and leave it soft and shinier.

It’s a simple yet effective technique that anyone can follow. As it helps open up the hair's cuticle layers, allowing better moisture penetration, similar to the effect of a warm water rinse.

By infusing moisture deep into the strands without stripping natural oils, this method helps hydrate the hair.

The warm, moist environment created by the steamer also improves product absorption, making it a valuable addition to your low-porosity hair care routine.

Having a low-porosity hair can easily be weighed down by a heavy conditioner. This leaves your hair making it feel greasy or limp.

Moreover, applying a lightweight conditioner allows moisture to absorb it without overloading the strands.

Thus, it also ensures that your hair doesn’t get coated with too much product, which can prevent proper hydration and lead to buildup.

Opting for a lightweight, water based conditioner helps maintain balance, keeping the hair hydrated and soft without weighing it down.

Does hair seem to have trouble retaining moisture? Consider using humectants that draw moisture into the hair shaft. Those humectants can be honey, aloe vera or glycerin.

Incorporating other ingredients into your everyday routine can improve hair health. For more effective results, apply them in a humid environment or with heat.

As a result, this ensures that moisture stays in the hair, giving it a rejuvenated, healthy appearance.

Ever wonder why shiny, strong hair works so well for some people? This is often because they don’t understand low porosity hair.

However, if you have very shiny hair you may still have to apply an emollient. The most common ones are the oils, such as argan, jojoba or avocado oil, shea butter and silicones.

Apply the emollients properly to increase the softness and retain the moisture for longer times by reducing the penetration barrier of the skin towards moisture.

When your hair feels heavy or weighed down, product buildup could be the cause.  While certain hair products may promise great results, they can actually overload your hair, leaving it looking flat and lifeless.

To avoid this, skip heavy products like creamy leave-in conditioners, thick gels, and dense serums or oils. Instead, go for lightweight alternatives that let your hair absorb moisture without becoming greasy.

By choosing lighter products, you’ll keep your low-porosity hair soft, bouncy, and easier to style.

How to care for low porosity natural hair? One answer can be by avoiding protein-rich products.

While proteins help reinforce hair, too much can make it feel stiff, brittle, and dry.

Therefore, focus on moisturizing and hydrating treatments to keep your hair supple and healthy rather than using protein-heavy products.

This helps maintain balance without risking protein overload, ensuring your hair stays nourished and flexible.

Many people overlook the toll heat damage can take when using a blow dryer-over time, that exposure can cause dryness and even breakage.

Sure, it might seem quicker to reach for the blow dryer, but letting your hair dry naturally helps preserve its health and prevents long-term damage.

If you can afford the time, air drying is a safer, more nourishing option for your hair.

Most low-porosity hair is inherited, but other external factors can also affect its development or condition.

Genetics

The chances of inheriting low porosity from both parents are very high. Since the hair cuticles are tightly packed and flattened, penetration of water or products into the hair shaft becomes difficult.

Lack of Scalp Oils

Low-porosity hair typically produces very little sebum. Inadequate amounts of natural oil leads to highly packed cuticles, meaning that penetration of moisture into the hair shafts is not easy.

Age

As the hair grows older, it also gets less porous. Scalp oil production reduces with age and the cuticle layer is tightly packed, denying entry to moisture into the hair.

Environmental Factors

Harsh weather, UV rays, or pollution can alter the condition of your hair and potentially affect its porosity.

Medical Conditions

Health issues, hormonal problems, autoimmune diseases or any other disease which may remain can alter the quality and texture of hair and hence porosity.

Do you know how to check the porosity of your hair? If not! Here are a few methods you can use to assess your hair’s porosity:

The Floating Test

Steps:

First fill a glass with water. Cut a few strands of clean, dry hair. Then, drop the hair into the water and observe its behavior. 

Results:

Low Porosity: The hair floats on the top.

Medium Porosity: The hair floats for a while and eventually starts sinking.

High Porosity: The hair sinks immediately.

The Slide Test

Steps:

To start with, you may take a strand of hair and run your fingers along its length-from ends to roots.

Results:

Low Porosity: The hair feels smooth and slippery.

Medium Porosity: You’ll feel slight bumps as you move your fingers

High Porosity: The hair feels rough or has noticeable texture.

The Water Absorption Test

Steps:

Initially wet a strand of hair using water, and allow it to stay on for a few minutes. After that, press the strand between your fingers and see how much moisture is absorbed.

Results:

Low Porosity: It resists absorbing waters and takes longer to get fully wet.

Medium Porosity: It absorbs water evenly and quickly.

High Porosity: The strands get quickly soaked up.

Once you determine that you have low-porosity hair, it’s best to start with home remedies before exploring other treatments.

Avocado And Olive Oil Deep Conditioning Mask

Now to prepare the hair mask for low porosity hair you need to mash an avocado and mix with olive oil and honey to make it a creamy paste. Pour the mixture on damp hair and let the mask work for 20-30 minutes.

With warm water, rinse well until the soap or shampoo is eliminated from the hair. This treatment delivers vital nutrients that your hair needs to overcome hurdles concerning low porosity especially as concerning moisture retention and softness.

Aloe Vera And Honey Hydrating Mask

There is a reason aloe vera is useful on this mask since it hydrates and softens the hair while honey functions like a humectant to attract moisture.

If combined and used for your hair, these ingredients can help combat the effects of what I’d consider low porosity.

Green Tea Rinse

In order to prepare the green tea rinse, boil a cup of green tea together with one tablespoon of apple cider vinegar and apply after shampooing.

When done this way, it will decrease buildup, provide shine and ensure a soothed scalp. In addition the ACV balances the pH and smooths the cuticle.

Yogurt And Banana Nourishing Mask

The banana and honey make hair shiny, as well as moist, and the yogurt in the mixture assists in building hair strands.

Therefore, to prepare this mask, it will take you 2 tablespoons plain yogurt, 1 tablespoon honey and 1 ripe banana.

So, if you’re concerned about which oil is the best for low porosity hair then that is jojoba oil.

It closely resembles the scalp's natural sebum, making it lightweight and easily absorbed by low-porosity hair absorbed by low porous hair.

On the contrary, you should avoid heavy oil like castor and coconut oil. As they may sit on the surface of low-porosity hair, leading to buildup and a grease feel.

If you don’t have an alternative for these oils, use these sparingly or as pre-shampoo treatments only.