Trying to grow your hair to great lengths can be frustrating, especially when faced with the challenges of low-porosity strands that resist moisture and treatments. If you’ve felt the struggle firsthand, it’s time to shift your perspective.
To promote growth for your low-porosity hair, consider incorporating a balanced diet and regular exercise into your routine. Maintaining a healthy scalp and nurturing your hair follicles are essential steps. Avoiding sulfates, ensuring adequate conditioning, and indulging in a pre-poo oil treatment can make a significant difference. Explore specialized hair growth formulations to give your low-porosity locks the care they deserve.
With the help of my hair scientist friend, who holds a PhD in Chemistry, we’re here to guide you through the process.
Growing Low Porosity Hair: 10 Tips for Regrowth & Hair Loss Prevention
Growing low-porosity hair requires a strategic approach, which may take place over a long period of time. In our efforts to address this, we’ve curated a dual approach that combines a specific nutritional plan with a comprehensive regimen for preventing hair shedding/hair loss. Let’s now explore the details of each component.
1) Consumer Well-Being and Nutritional Considerations
The health and quality of our hair are significantly influenced by our internal metabolic activity. Besides hair care products, it is crucial to maintain an active lifestyle and a balanced diet rich in essential vitamins, minerals, and nutrients to achieve healthy skin, normal hair growth, and overall vitality. These elements play a fundamental role in promoting the prosperity of hair follicles.
2) Balanced Diet
Maintaining a balanced diet that includes adequate proteins, carbohydrates, lipids, vitamins, and minerals is crucial for normal metabolic and follicle activity. Nutrient deficiencies can disrupt the hair cycle, leading to abnormalities. It’s strongly advised to consult with an experienced dietitian to create a personalized plan tailored to your unique needs.
Key components essential for optimal hair health include :
- Biotin
- Vitamins C, D & E
- Zinc
- Iron
- Omega-3 & Omega-6 oils
3) Physical Activity and Regular Exercise
Establishing a consistent exercise routine is highly recommended. Beyond boosting metabolism and enhancing immunity, regular physical activity contributes to increased self-confidence. Activities such as walking, cycling, swimming, or regular gym sessions promote healthy blood circulation in muscles, stimulating cell restoration. This improves overall bodily health, minimizes hair fall, and supports better hair regrowth, fostering a healthier lifestyle overall.
4) Cosmetic Factors
Fact
A healthy scalp = better hair growth
The foundation of healthy hair lies in maintaining a well-kept scalp. Our follicles, residing on the skin’s surface, require a clean and hygienic environment for optimal function. Accumulation of dandruff, debris, or product residue hinders normal follicle activity.4
To ensure healthy hair, it’s crucial to care for your scalp by regularly washing your hair with high-quality shampoo and conditioner. Treating your scalp with light oils and leave-in conditioner or deep conditioner provides extra nourishment, resulting in a softer, healthier appearance.
5) Keep Your Follicles Healthy
The cornerstone of hair growth lies in maintaining healthy follicles, as inactive ones cannot generate new hairs. It’s important to be careful with protective styles, ensuring they don’t lead to excessive tension or damage that could compromise the health of the follicles and impede the natural hair growth cycle.
Essential for scalp cell and follicle health, oil massaging has proven to be highly stimulating, regardless of hair type. Applying the right oils spurs cell regeneration and provides the nutrition for healthier hair.
Choose your preferred natural oil or butter; options like rosemary, eucalyptus, and tea tree essential oils offer therapeutic effects on cell regeneration, enhancing blood flow and displaying antimicrobial activity. The best way to use essential oils is to dilute them with a carrier oil such as castor oil, argan oil, jojoba oil, or coconut oil before applying them to the scalp.
Olive oil, sunflower oil, and sesame seed oil are also recommended, boasting a robust antioxidant profile. They help minimize oxidative stress in follicles, soothe scalp tissues, and stimulate healthy cellular turnover.
6) Avoid Too Much Sulfates
While sulfate-based surfactant shampoos are popular in the market for their budget-friendly and convenient nature, they have become the primary choice for hair cleaning among hair products.
However, sulfates can be excessively irritating for certain individuals and are known to strip away hair proteins. Research indicates a decrease in overall fiber protein content after exposure to sulfate washing, weakening the strands and potentially leading to hair loss with frequent use.
Moreover, sulfates like sodium lauryl sulfate may irritate sensitive scalps, causing redness and itching, which could disrupt the natural growth process of hair follicles. Opt for shampoos that work well for low-porosity hair.
7) Adequate Hair Conditioning
Daily styling efforts can face obstacles due to cuticular damage to hair fibers, often stemming from thermal styling. Thus, adopting protective measures when applying heat to your tresses is crucial.
Thermal styling exposes hair to excessive heat, leading to the denaturation of proteins, rupture of the upper cuticle layer, and subsequent chipping.6 The same risk applies to combing and brushingโexcessive or harsh practices may strip cuticles from hair fibers, resulting in the loss of vital proteins.
Damaged or highly porous hair requires consistent recovery for restoration to its original state. Successful rehabilitation involves regular conditioning. Hair conditioners are equipped with cationic detangling agents, realign cuticles, enhance smoothness, and reduce friction during combing or styling.
To prevent hair fiber damage, avoid prolonged and excessive heat exposure. Ensuring protection against heat-induced injury necessitates the application of a thermal protectant product containing natural oils and butter before using heated styling tools. This proactive step safeguards the hair shaft for optimal safety during each use.
8) Pre-Poo Oil Treatment for Extra TLC
Introducing a pre-shampoo routine proves highly beneficial for maintaining well-hydrated hair before the actual wash day shampooing process. This holds particular significance for low porosity hair, characterized by closely-knit cuticles resistant to moisture absorption.
Pre-shampooing functions as a protective barrier against the detergents in regular shampoo, facilitating improved absorption of oils. Avoid heavy oils such as mineral oil and opt for oils and butter rich in fatty acids and antioxidants to nourish, protect, and moisturize both the hair strands and the scalp.
Proper care is essential for those aiming at hair growth or length retention. Balancing health and damage protection forms the cornerstone of achieving optimal growth results. The more attentiveness directed toward the specific health needs of your hair, the more robust and flourishing its growth potential becomes.
9) Product Build-Up
One crucial aspect to consider is the impact of product build-up on the hair’s ability to thrive. Low-porosity hair tends to resist moisture absorption, and the accumulation of styling products, conditioners, and other substances can exacerbate this challenge.
To address product buildup effectively, incorporate the use of a clarifying shampoo into your hair care routine. This specialized shampoo helps remove residue from hair products, pollutants, and excess sebum, giving your hair a reboot or fresh start.
10) Hair Growth Formulations
Various options are available if you’re seeking a solution to promote new hair growth. Minoxidil is a popular choice, demonstrating positive results with topical applicationโalthough noteworthy progress may take 4-6 weeks to become apparent.
For those exploring formulations to stimulate hair regrowth, consider trying Minoxidil. However, before incorporating it or any other hair growth-promoting substance, it is strongly advised to consult with a dermatologist.
Alternatively, plant-based extracts like garlic and onion, known for their sulfur properties, have proven successful in promoting hair growth. Direct application and massaging on the scalp stimulate new hair growth while safeguarding existing strands from shedding. It’s important to note that these natural methods may require a longer duration before visible results are observed.
What Low Porosity Hair Means
It’s not always simple to determine if your hair falls into the low porosity hair category and it’s easily misjudged. Here are the fundamentals and its defining traits.
- Hair fibers that are virgin, natural hair, and free from chemical treatments are typically classified as “low porosity hair.”
- Low porosity hair, challenging to assess and care for, particularly in its natural state, is characterized by smaller pore sizes in the hair’s structure, resulting from factors like combing, brushing, solar exposure, and thermal processing.
- Though appearing healthy, low porosity strands may experience quick end damage, potentially leading to breakage or split ends over time. Regular sulfate shampoo use exacerbates the issue by causing protein loss and porosity problems.
Understanding Porosity and Its Impact on Hair Health
Hair loss is a common concern for both men and women, with a more visible impact on males.1-2 Moreover, hair porosity can contribute to breakage and loss of strands.3 Without the right care and maintenance routine, this issue can worsen over time due to the following factors:
- Self-inflicted damage, such as chemical treatments, hair dyes, or bleach, can impact not only the health of your hair but also its porosity level, potentially leading to high porosity hair.
- Mechanical damage from improper handling and excessive use of heat styling tools.
- Exposure to environmental stressors all play significant roles in exacerbating the fragility of low porosity hair.
These factors can weaken the hair structure, making it more prone to breakage and hindering the natural growth cycle. Implementing a tailored care routine that addresses the specific needs of the low-porosity type of hair is crucial to mitigating the risk of self-inflicted damage and promoting overall hair health.
FAQs
Can low-porosity hair experience hair loss?
Indeed, even low-porosity hair is susceptible to hair loss, disrupting the natural regrowth process. Let me clarify.
Your hair’s porosity level can range from low to high. Damage weakens the hair from the inside out, leading to breakage and hair loss.
Repeated brushing and combing, particularly when hair is wet, along with thermal styling, can damage the protein structure in both cuticles and the deep cortex of your hair. This results in weakened strands and a loss of mechanical strength in hairโa situation no one wants to face.
Continued processing can lead to thinning and eventual breakage, prematurely or rapidly disrupting the hair’s life cycle and impeding normal growth. Addressing these factors is crucial to maintaining a healthy hair growth cycle.
References
1. Zviak, C., The Science of Hair Care. Taylor & Francis: 1986.
2. Shiel, S., Hair health and management of common hair disorders. Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology 2007, 6, 12-17.
3. Marsh, J. M.; Gray, J.; Tosti, A., Healthy Hair. Springer International Publishing: 2015.
4. Harkey, M. R., Anatomy and physiology of hair. Forensic Sci.Int. 1993, 63 (1-3), 9-18.
5. Wagner, R. D. C.; Joekes, I., Hair protein removal by sodium dodecyl sulfate. Colloid Surf. B-Biointerfaces 2005, 41 (1), 7-14.
6. Gamez-Garcia, M., The cracking of human hair cuticles by cyclical thermal stresses. J. Soc. Cosmet. Chem. 1998, 49 (3), 141-153.