The spiral shapes means the cuticle can be slightly lifted, which makes it more prone to damage, and more likely to leak moisture. Low porosity hair, on the other hand, is slow to absorb moisture, but once it’s locked in, it’s really locked in.Ĭurls are more delicate than straight strands due to the shape of the hair fiber. While high porosity hair is quick to absorb moisture from products, leaving it well-hydrated, it’s also quick to absorb moisture from its environment which can result in frizz. Each level has its own pros and cons, explains Douglas. High porosity hair, on the other hand, sucks up moisture like a sponge because its cuticles are lifted, often as a result of color processing or heat damage. Low porosity hair means your cuticles are compact and difficult to penetrate. Your hair’s porosity describes how its cuticles absorb and maintain moisture. In Douglas’ words, “it’s all downhill from there.” What Is Hair Porosity? “Everything that’s in our bodies kind of gets frozen in time in your hair because it’s an imprint of everything that’s in your bloodstream.” Hair becomes the hardened, strand-shape mass we see growing outside our skin through a process called keratinization, and hair is at its healthiest when it is first pushed through the scalp. “It’s the aggregation of proteins and nutrients under your scalp,” explains Doulgas. What you know as hair actually exists under the scalp in a different physical state: not exactly a liquid, but certainly more liquid than a strand. The only time hair is actually able to heal itself is when it’s in liquid form under the scalp. That said, Douglas points out that it’s important to remember that hair is dead by the time we see it. Though heat-styling doesn’t affect the hair follicle itself, once damage is done to a curl, the only way to undo it is by cutting it off. The more you manipulate your hair, the more its structural integrity breaks down. Because the hair is more wiry, it can be harder to align with other parts of your curl pattern.ĭamage - especially heat damage - can also have a major impact on curls. Around the same time hairs lose melanin - the colored pigment found in hair - follicles start producing less sebum (oil), and as a result strands become more wiry and less pliable. Graying is also associated with a change in curl patterns. Within these curl pattern charts, you can have any combination of texture and curl - 2B, 4C, 3A, for example. (Type 3 curls include loose spirals to tight corkscrews and type 4 hair is the most tightly coiled.) These types are additionally divided by textures: thin and fine to thick and coarse as ranked from A through C. These charts typically range from 2, which is wavy, through 4, which is coily. Over time, a basic system of curl classification has been developed, first by stylist Andre Walker, and then built upon by online communities like Naturally Curly. How Are Curls Classified?įiguring out the types of curls you have - and yes, there can be multiple - is a big part of determining which products will work best for you. So what dictates the shape of our follicles? It’s largely genetic. In a straight-haired follicle, keratin is evenly distributed on each strand (keeping it straight), but in the U- or C-shaped follicles that produce curls and kinks, keratin accumulates more on one side of the hair strand than the other, further enhancing that spiral shape. Keratin is distributed via the follicle and provides structure to human hair. The angle and shape of follicles also contributes to another distinguishing characteristic of hair: how each strand is structured. Straight hair follicles tunnel vertically into the scalp while curly and wavy follicles angle into the skin, causing the hair to curve as it grows, eventually creating curls. In addition to follicle shape, the angle at which hair follicles tunnel into the scalp contribute to whether or not hair will curl, wave, or grow in straight. “If you have a U- or C-shaped follicle, you're going to have very curly hair,” she says, adding that follicles with a slight bend produce wavy hair and perfectly round follicles produce straight hair. It’s the shape of the follicle each hair grows from that dictates how straight, curly, or coily an individual strand will be, explains Douglas on our episode. If you put a strand of curly hair under a microscope, it won’t have any biological differences from a straight one. So with help of cosmetic chemist Erica Douglas, our hosts Michelle Lee, editor in chief, and Jenny Bailly, executive beauty director, set out to explain what curls actually are, debunk some common myths, and a whole lot more.
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