Wavy Hair Care

How To Care For Low Porosity Wavy Hair

September 16, 2022 by Emily Evert Smith 2 Comments

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What Is Low Porosity Hair?

Low porosity hair is hair that has tightly closed hair cuticles. Our hair cuticle is often compared to a pinecone (closed for low porosity, open for high porosity). Another analogy for the hair cuticle is a shingled roof, with a newly made roof being low porosity, and a roof with some raised/curling shingles and/or missing shingles being high porosity.

Having a tight, closed cuticle means that once water gets into your hair strand, it’s likely to stay nice and hydrated as the tight cuticle will be great at holding water in your hair. It may be harder for water and hair product ingredients to get into your hair though. For this reason, some with low porosity hair struggle with dry hair while others with low porosity hair struggle with over-moisturized hair.

If you have low porosity hair and aren’t successful at getting water and products into your hair strands, it can become dry. If you have low porosity hair and are successful at getting water and products into your hair strands, it can become over-moisturized.

Signs That You Have Low Porosity Hair

Identifying Protein Hair Products

September 3, 2022 by Emily Evert Smith 1 Comment

Once you’ve learned that your hair needs protein, it can still be confusing to figure out how to incorporate it into your routine. If you’re new, it can even be challenging to figure out which hair products have protein and which don’t! Thankfully, you don’t really need to learn every hair product ingredient out there in order to learn to detect protein-based ingredients in hair products. You can make an educated guess based on how the product is marketed.

Signs That A Hair Product Has Protein

The product describes itself as…

Repairative
Strengthening
Fortifying
For bleached hair
For damaged hair
Restoring
Renewing
Reconstructing

Protein is not just for damaged hair, but damaged hair does need protein so most protein products are marketed at damaged hair. In a nutshell, protein-containing hair products will market themselves as lending strength to your hair.

Ingredients that are protein

Signs & Causes Of Damaged Wavy Hair

August 27, 2022 by Emily Evert Smith Leave a Comment

Signs That Your Wavy Hair Is Damaged

Split ends. These are a giveaway that your hair is definitely damaged. It’s best to have them trimmed because while splits will start at the ends, if left untreated they can continue to split up the hair shaft.

Unexplained texture change. Texture can change due to hormonal changes so if you’ve gone through puberty, pregnancy, or changes in hormonal medications that could be the cause. Keep in mind that hair grows about half a inch per month, or six inches per year. So it may be several months or even a year after a hormonal change before you may really notice the change. If you have seen a texture change with no clear cause, it could be damage.

No elasticity. If you pull on your waves and they don’t spring back at all, that’s a lack of elasticity. It can be a sign of needing protein or using products that are too heavy…but it also can be a sign of damage.

Your hair feels dry compared to your norm.

Tangles. Tangles are normal for many hair types, but if your hair has become much more tangly this can be due to damage.

Breakage. If you see lots of broken pieces of hair happening, that’s a sign that your hair is likely weak due to damage.

Lots of frizz. All wavy hair has some frizz, some more than others. In general, there are many, many causes of frizz and most aren’t a sign of damage. But if yours has gotten really frizzy vs your usual that can be damage.

Your hair is rough feeling. Some hair types are naturally less soft than others. For example, really thick hair strands are often rougher feeling than fine hair strands. So this is another one that you should base on your norm.

High porosity hair is usually a sign of damage. Gets soaked easily but dries fast too. Feels rough after your hair dries unless you use leave in.

Your hair looks matte or dull rather than shiny. Hair type can make a difference in natural shine, but if your hair used to be shinier and has gotten more dull, that’s likely damage.

Longer hair is always going to be a little damaged because even gentle grooming and ordinary living life in the world causes some damage to hair. So the longer you grow your hair, the older your hair ends are, and the more time they’ve had to get damaged by life. Here is a quote about ‘natural’ (non-chemical or hair dye-related) damage in hair.

“Cuticle damage evidenced by broken scale edges can usually be observed a few centimeters away from the scalp. Such damage is caused by weathering and mechanical damage from the effects of normal grooming actions, such as combing, brushing and shampooing. In many long hair fibers (25 cm or longer), progressive surface damage may be observed (illustrated by Fig. 1.23). Stage 1 shows intact smooth scale edges and scale surfaces; stage 2 contains broken scale edges; in stage 3, the scales have been partially removed, and in stage 4 the hair splits indicating extensive cortical damage. ” quote is from Chemical and Physical Behavior of Human Hair by Clarence R. Robbins.

Causes Of Damage In Wavy Hair

Lazy Curly Girl Method Routine For Wavy Hair

August 5, 2022 by Emily Evert Smith 9 Comments

What is the easiest wavy hair routine?
Do you have any advice for how to do the curly girl method if you don’t have much time to do your hair?
What can I do with my hair on days where I am really busy?
I am a mom of two under two and I can’t spend an hour on my hair on wash day. Do you have tips for how to do this in as little time as possible?
I have a chronic illness. Do you have a routine that I might be able to do on a low spoons day?

These are all samples of a type of question I’ve received that in my mind, ultimately boil down to “How can I embrace my wavy hair with less effort or less time?”

Let me add the disclaimer that I am not saying that opting for a lower maintenance or less time-consuming routine means you are being lazy. I used that in the title because it’s a way that people commonly describe easier hair routines, and I thought it would help people find this post. There are endless reasons why you may choose to go for a routine that is simpler or faster, ad there is no shame in any of those reasons in my opinion. Nobody should feel obligated to spend a lot of time on their hair in my opinion!

Anyway, back to the topic of so-called lazy wavy hair routines. I didn’t feel great about my answer to people who were asking me for quicker or easier hair routines until recently.

Over the last several weeks, I’ve been trying to find a routine that took less of my time, but gave me results I was comfortable with. I’ve found a routine that I’m shockingly happy with. I started out trying to find a routine that might be “acceptable” for people who needed or wanted an easier route, but I expected to have to sacrifice the tightness of my wavy curls quite a bit.

In the past I had tried to compare air drying and diffusing, and my air drying results were never satisfying to me. I’ve always felt like I pretty much have to diffuse my hair to near-dry to get results I was happy with. That isn’t the case, though!

Simplified Curly Girl Method Routine For Wavy Hair

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