by DHA's DIY | Jul 18, 2022 | High Porosity, Low Porosity, Porosity, Super Low Porosity
Why is hair porosity important? Does it really matter?
And how do you even find out if you have high porosity, medium porosity, low porosity or super low porosity hair?
The answers to these, plus (finally!) a legit, science-based porosity test that actually works.
First, what’s hair porosity?
Unlike other hair typing systems, which are based on strand diameter (fine, medium, coarse), density (thin, medium, thick), or wave pattern (straight, wavy, curly), hair porosity is more evident in the way your hair behaves than how it looks.
That’s because your hair porosity isn’t a feature you can see, at least with the naked eye. It’s a measure of how your strands react to products, ingredients, and even air or water. The more willing your hair is to absorb these different things, or hold them on its surface, the higher your hair porosity.
What are the porosity hair types?
The main hair porosity types are: high porosity hair, medium porosity hair, and low porosity hair . Low porosity hair can be divided into two further subtypes (moderately) low porosity hair, and super low porosity hair as when hair porosity gets very low it begins to act in almost the opposite way to other low porosity hair. Porosity occurs along a range, from extremely high to extremely low.
As a result, some high porosity hair is higher than others, and even within extremely low porosity hair (aka super low porosity) there are degrees of difference in how low your porosity is.
Hair porosity also refers to the amount of pores or holes on the surface of your hair. Damaged hair tends to have lots of these, which makes it porous; prone to absorbing a lot of stuff due to its structure.
Why does hair porosity matter?
The main reason why hair porosity is important is because it controls how your hair interacts with pretty much everything, from the weather, to water, to the products you apply.
Your hair’s porosity affects how it reacts to humidity. Image by Rodrigo Feksa.
Because it’s based on how the surface of your hair behaves, porosity is a better predictor of how your hair will respond to any of these factors than traditional ideas used to classify hair, including strand diameter, curl type or ethnicity.
Knowing your hair’s porosity will help you know how your hair is likely to react to humid weather, figure out what type of dye or other process you can use, and choose the right products and routines.
What’s high porosity hair?
High porosity hair is the same as “porous hair”; it’s hair with a more ‘open’ structure than other hair types. This can be for a variety of reasons. For one, the cuticle layers might be more raised, naturally, or due to severe chemical or physical damage.
The surface of the strand might have more pores or holes in it, due to damage. Or the outer layers of the hair might be completely or partially missing; this also happens due to damage.
Sometimes, it’s all three. Either way, this makes the hair more porous: it will absorb more liquids, but usually release them very quickly, too. Ingredients that don’t stick to the surface of other hair types can stick to the surface of high porosity hair and be very difficult to remove.
And frequently, products and ingredients that can’t make it past the surface on other hair types get drawn in deep on high porosity hair and often seem to ‘disappear’. Chemical processes also tend to happen faster on this type of hair, too. Check out the DHA High Porosity Guide to find out more about what makes hair high porosity, and how to take care of high porosity hair.
What’s low porosity hair?
Low porosity hair is the type of hair we’re all born with: it has flattened, compact cuticles, and a hydrophobic, ‘water hating’ surface that absorbs very little, very slowly.
Over time, most people’s hair transforms to medium or even high porosity, due to wear and tear. The hair that doesn’t change as much, and retains most of these characteristics is called low porosity hair.
Low porosity hair in general tends to have a resistant surface which is choosy about the products it will let sit on its surface let alone absorb. Chemical processes also typically take longer on low porosity hair because of this resistant surface.
Low porosity begins with moderately low porosity hair, which while slow, absorbs moisture and retains it very well, so tends not to suffer from dryness. It extends all the way to super low porosity hair at the very end of the porosity continuum.
What is super low porosity hair?
This is the second of the two subtypes of low porosity hair. While moderately low porosity hair, is what is often thought of as ‘classic low porosity hair’, super low porosity hair’s extreme traits mean some people might not realise it is actually low porosity hair.
Super low porosity hair isn’t just slow to absorb; it resists penetration by even water, almost completely. Most products slide off its surface or sit awkwardly on the cuticle, causing flaking or buildup instead of really connecting with the hair.
As a result, super low porosity hair doesn’t have the great moisture retention typically attributed to low porosity hair because it can never take in enough to meet its needs in the first place.
On this type of low porosity hair, severe dryness is a common issue–despite the widely held idea that low porosity hair is doesn’t suffer from moisture issues.
As the name suggests, medium porosity hair stands somewhere in the middle. It’s not resistant to processing or products, nor does it overly absorb or react to them. When this hair type is in good condition, its moisture needs are low and easily met by normal shampoooing and conditioning. However, when it is damaged, or exposed to extreme weather, both undermoisturisation and overmoisturisation can be a problem. Medium porosity hair is often described as “normal porosity hair”, although due to wide use of chemicals and low porosity hair being more common than originally thought, it is probably not the norm.
Hair porosity: How to know
You can determine your hair’s porosity by its characteristics, which we’ve mentioned in this article, weighing them up and seeing which category your hair best fits into.
You can also take a hair porosity quiz like the one below, or physically do a hair porosity test, by applying water to your hair and observing what happens to the water, while it’s on your strand.
If the water gets taken in very quickly, your hair is most likely high porosity. If that happens very slowly, or doesn’t seem to happen at all, then you have low porosity hair. There’s more on that below.
Hair porosity and drying time
The biggest clue to your hair’s porosity is the drying time—but be careful. It does throw up more than a little confusion. . .
What hair porosity takes forever to dry?
Low porosity hair is notorious for taking long to dry. It can take several hours, sometimes well over a day, to airdry after washing. Why? The resistant surface on this hair type is hard to penetrate, but once water enters, it’s even harder to leave.
Some low porosity hair can remain wet for several hours. Image by Ashley
This characteristic only applies to one type of low porosity hair, however: moderately low porosity hair. The lower the porosity goes, the more this effect weakens, until it disappears completely.
There are also some extreme cases, where high porosity hair is so porous, it begins to hold onto moisture for ages, just like low porosity hair. But in this case, it’s not because the cuticle won’t let the water leave; it’s because the cuticle and lipid layers have been completely destroyed. The cortex underneath is very hydrophilic or water-loving, so will hold onto a lot of water, even though excess water absorption damages the hair.
What porosity hair dries fast?
This is a tricky one. There are actually two hair porosity types that dry very fast: high porosity hair and super low porosity hair. Other than their fast drying time, which happens for completely opposite reasons, these porosity types are actually very different and need very different care.
Porosity hair test: water version
Be warned: the ‘porosity test’ where you put a strand of your hair in a glass of water and see if it will float or not is bogus. It’s been debunked many times over.
The main flaw is that it tends to give false results depending on how thick your strands are (heavier strands tend to sink regardless of porosity; finer ones tend to float), and what’s on your hair (oil helps the hair float, other more humectant debris could make it more sinkable).
Floating a strand of your hair in a glass of water won’t tell you your porosity. Image by Marco Flores.
If you want to use water to test your hair’s porosity, there are much better ways.
For a rough test of your hair porosity, you can just start with freshly shampooed, product-free hair. Then let it airdry. If it dries really slowly, you most likely have moderately low porosity hair. If it takes a few hours, that’s likely to be medium, and if it dries super fast, you either have super low porosity hair or high porosity hair.
Step-by-step instructions on how to do a more accurate version of the porosity test are here.
Or try the no water porosity test:
Porosity test: no water version
If you want to know if you have low porosity or high porosity hair, but don’t feel like applying water to your hair and then waiting with the patience of a scientist to see what it does, you can take the science-based porosity test at the top of this page, based on your hair’s behaviour to give you a result in about 3 minutes.
When to test hair porosity
If you’re going to do a physical test of your hair’s porosity, you need to do it when your hair is clean, as in freshly shampooed; product-free – as in nothing applied after the shampoo, not even conditioner, or a drop of oil. Your hair should also be airdried – so don’t use a blowdryer, as this can have a temporary effect on your hair’s porosity.
For the most accurate results, follow the step-by-step instructions in the DHA High Porosity Guide which you can download for free here.
Hair porosity and products
Your hair’s porosity has an overarching impact on how products work. Porosity decides which products can absorb into your hair, which ones get to adsorb (have some type of attraction or bond that sticks them to your hair’s surface) or which ones will just sit there momentarily until they roll off, evaporate or get rubbed away.
And because different porosity types act differently in different weather, you’ll need to change up your products (or at least how you apply them), based on the way your porosity interacts with the weather.
For example, humidity tends to be more of a problem for high or medium porosity hair than for low porosity hair types.
If you have medium to high porosity hair, you might be better off trying to block excess moisture from entering your hair in humid conditions. Simple steps like using an occlusive conditioner, and finishing off with a few drops of Shine Drop Shield Leave In Conditioning Serum would do a good job of reducing frizz and swelling.
But if you have low porosity hair, whether moderately low or super low, the high levels of moisture in the air can be a good thing. Because of your hair’s resistant structure, it’s unlikely to absorb too much moisture. Instead, the warm, wet air could enhance the work of your leave in and actually calm frizz.
Moisturizing with La Aplanadora Leave In, topped by a humectant-rich jelly like Capilo Pro B-Natural Gel could help you make the most of sultry weather, especially if you tend to suffer from dryness in more temperate climes.
Which hair porosity is the best?
It all depends on which problems you’d prefer to have. Each level of porosity comes with its own advantages and tradeoffs.
High porosity hair tends to respond well to most products, but it tends to absorb them very quickly so you’ll need to strategise on how to apply them. As a rule of thumb you’ll need to use very concentrated treatments: think La Aplanadora or Silicon Mix, to get the conditioning effects to last a lot longer and keep on top of dryness.
You’ll also need to be extra strict about chemical processes when you have this hair type, since high porosity hair tends to overprocess easily. In extreme cases, when the porosity is due to severe damage, it can become impossible for hair dye to take.
Most products are designed for medium porosity hair, which makes it easy to find products that work at this porosity level. However, medium porosity hair can be sensitive to humidity and get weighed down easily.
Moderately low porosity hair tends to be better at holding onto moisture than other hair types. The flipside is that great moisture retention tends to come with an extremely long drying time.
Low porosity hair in general tends to only ‘like’ a few products, so you might end up searching for longer before you find something that actually suits your hair. Few conditioners ‘penetrate’ because they can’t bind well to the resistant surface typical of low porosity hair; one that does is Keratin Rich Detangling Conditioner and the new Afro Love Detox Mask.
Super low porosity hair rejects even more products and ingredients than moderately low porosity hair. It’s also a lot harder to moisturise (though it gets easy when you know how).
The key is finding the products that match your hair’s surface and then layering them: using a mild sulfate shampoo like Silicon Mix Hidratante, to clear the surface is the first step. Then, you need to infuse moisture and emollients: Baba de Caracol Conditioner overlaid with Baba de Caracol Mask, followed up with La Aplanadora Leave In and a low porosity sealant will help your hair overcome typical super low porosity moisture issues.
On the flipside, there are advantages. Super low porosity hair dries so fast after you wash it, you will probably never need a blowdryer if you have this hair type–Dominican Blowouts aside, of course. And because it’s much more difficult to weigh down, super low porosity hair tends to have pretty good volume.
Can hair porosity change?
Yes. You can temporarily change the porosity of your hair by the products you use. Conditioners, for example are designed to lower the porosity of your hair; natural, healthy hair is always low in porosity.
You can also raise the porosity of your hair: shampoos do this temporarily, as in, they make your hair more hydrophilic or willing to absorb water. Interestingly, conditioners do too, initially, but by the time you’ve rinsed the conditioner from your hair, this effect switches and your hair becomes hydrophobic, more like low porosity hair, thanks to the complex layering of ingredients in conditioning formulas.
Those are the temporary changes. Permanent changes to your hair’s porosity happen via damage. And they only tend to happen in one direction: increasing it.
Cuticle lifting, before and after. Image by Jae Hong Ji, Tae-Sik Park, Hae-Jin Lee, Yoon-Duk Kim, Long-Quan Pi, Xin-Hai Jin & Won-Soo Lee
hair porosity hair porosity hair porosity
The porosity increase happens after a structural change to your hair. One of the most common is cuticle lifting, where your cuticle scales either buckle or get decemented from your strand. Buckling can sometimes be remedied, but a fully lifted cuticle is a gone cuticle; it’s permanently damaged.
Your hair’s porosity can also rise when damage from heat, harsh styling or the environment leaves holes in your cuticle. The most common way to raise your porosity is by dissolving the hydrophobic outer layer of your hair, and creating holes in the next water resistant layer. Most chemicals used to alter colour or texture can do this and the effect is irreversible, a common side effect of bleaching, relaxing or perming hair.
That’s why it’s so important to protect your hair porosity as much as possible when it comes to the products, styling methods and any chemical processes you use on your hair. An excessive increase in porosity always comes with a rise in fragility, roughness and product issues. It can lead to severe breakage.
If you’re looking to increase your hair porosity on purpose, to get it to absorb more moisture, that strategy might work at first, but the damage that gets inflicted eventually becomes unsustainable.
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To enhance your hair’s hydration levels safely, try moisture training instead. hair porosity hair porosity hair porosit
by DHA's DIY | Mar 31, 2022 | High Porosity, Low Porosity, Natural Hair, Natural Methods, Shampoo Alternatives
These days, hair trends spread like wildfire on social media.
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But most information isn’t passed on by experts, and many people who share fail to check the facts first.
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All this means the fallout from dodgy beauty remedies and dangerous natural hair trends can be pretty bad.
Dangerous natural hair trends:
These viral hair trends could destroy your natural hair
Back in the day, most natural advice online could be found on large haircare forums with thousands of threads dedicated to curly hair. These forums were the main hubs of haircare information, bubbling with different curly hair perspectives. These days, hair advice is more diffuse, with the sources scattered across the Internet, including social media sites like YouTube and Instagram.
One downside of this is that we can end up in social bubbles, where the information spread into each community is less likely to get checked. That makes it easier for harmful trends to take root and do some serious damage before they get debunked.
Like the following trends currently circulating online. None of them are worth losing your hair over – feel free to avoid them like the plague.
Hair Myth #1: “Use dishwashing liquid instead of shampoo.”
This scam is currently being peddled all over the Internet by a host of unscrupulous bloggers and Instagrammers. Aiming to stoke controversy and thus increase engagement and stack influencer cash, these individuals advocate replacing your shampoo with dish soap to save money.
Apparently, we’ve been getting tricked all along – shampoo and dishwashing liquid are the same thing, the only difference is the price tag and the bottle.
Some have even posted videos of themselves using dish soap to wash their hair.
Some social media influencers advise followers to wash their hair with dish soap. Image by Marco Verch.
One of the hooks they use is to claim that dishwashing liquid has the same ingredients (sulfates) as shampoos. They even go for an emotional touch, pointing to videos of cute ducks rescued from oil spills being washed clean of crude oil with a popular dishwashing liquid. It must be safe if the ducklings can use it, right?
Not right. There’s so much wrong, we had to put together a whole article to warn people of the dangers of washing their hair with dishwashing liquid. Here are a few reasons why it’s not that smart: For one, dishwashing liquid and shampoos don’t have the same ingredients: dishwashing liquids use a harsher detergent (sodium lauryl sulfate) than the type of cleanser commonly used in shampoo, sodium laureth sulfate.
The amount of surfactant used in dish soap is several times higher than shampoo, and it can also trigger contact dermatitis.
Dishwashing detergent is several times harsher than shampoo. Image by DreamS Hair Salon圓夢髮藝
And while certain posters claim using dishwashing liquid hasn’t damaged their hair, it’s worth questioning whether they really know that for a fact. The sodium lauryl sulfate in washing-up liquid not only strips oils indiscriminately, it erodes the surface of your hair. This happens every time you use it, on a microscopic level, so you won’t see the damage until it accumulates.
But what about the baby ducks? Dishwashing detergent did a fine job of removing crude oil from ducklings, but is that relevant to you washing your hair with it? The ducklings weren’t getting scrubbed with detergent as part of their weekly bubble bath – it was a desperate, one-off intervention to remove crude oil from their feathers and save their lives.
Grebe partly covered in crude oil following oil spill. Image by Ingrid Taylar.
If you have anything as thick and sticky as crude oil, or even as unctuous as the contents of a greasy, deep fryer to remove from your hair, it might make sense to use dishwashing liquid.
But if the level of grease this detergent is designed to remove isn’t there, it’s coming for your strands instead.
The spreaders of this misinformation don’t mind trying every trick in the book to get more traffic. The end goal is to entice companies to pay them to shill on their behalf – and they definitely don’t care if your hair has to suffer to get them there.
Hair myth #2: “Use bleach to clean your scalp.”
You might have seen the tragic news reports about people in poorer countries being duped into giving their sick children bleach water to drink as a supposed cure-all. Back in the West, droves of people with Google at their fingertips have decided that bleach will cure all that ails their scalps. This myth is spreading through social media, as ever, helped by sketchy posters hoping to use controversy to propel them to Internet fame.
Household bleach is chemically different and much harsher than that used in salons. Image by Afromztoa.
Hair myth #3: “Use keratin straightening to smooth and strengthen your hair.”
Now here’s a myth that gets pushed through hairdressers and online. It’s yet another example of how a little knowledge can be a very dangerous thing. We all know that hair is made of keratin and that tiny pieces of keratin can be used to temporarily repair damaged hair. Keratin straightening is not the same thing.
Keratin straightening, aka keratin smoothing treatments, aka the Brazilian Keratin Treatment, is a semi-permanent way of straightening hair using a combination of chemicals and heat. Initially, the main ingredient in these formulas was formaldehyde, but after some well-publicised cases of hairdressers and clients becoming seriously ill from the fumes, a lot of the products were banned. Manufacturers started reformulating with other aldehydes at lower concentrations.
Keratin straightening smooths the outside but destroys the inside of hair strands. Image by Angela Litvin.
While they do contain keratin, it’s very unlikely keratin is what’s giving hair its initial smooth, strong appearance following the process. That smoothness comes from the intense blowdrying and ironing, and the aldehydes forced onto the hair at high temperatures. This creates an illusion of strength with an unnaturally glossy coating. That coating wears off over the following months.
After a few treatments, the damaged fibre becomes more apparent and getting more treatments won’t hide the thinness of the destroyed hair shaft.
This is definitely not the way to go if your aim is stronger hair..
You can build up the health, shine and strength of your hair naturally, by alternating protein and moisture treatments on a regular basis. Go for actual conditioning treatments which don’t chemically alter your hair, whether at home or in the salon.
Check out our article on the best types of deep conditioning treatments for healthy hair.
Hair myth #4: “Using texture softeners won’t damage your hair.”
Similar to the BKT conditioning claims, this is another piece of marketing hype that comes straight from the manufacturers. Texture softeners are basically watered down relaxers, smothered in conditioner and grease. Read the labels and see for yourself: most contain common relaxer ingredients, such as calcium hydroxide and guanidine carbonate.
Texture softeners are similar to relaxers and can damage children’s hair. Image by Carsten ten Brink.
Texture softeners don’t get hair all the way straight, but they work in exactly the same way as relaxers; by breaking the bonds that hold your hair together, leaving you with fewer curls. They pose similar risks for scalp irritation and permanent damage as relaxers, especially on a child’s delicate scalp.
These products are often pushed at stressed, time-poor mums who don’t realise they’re giving their children a relaxer on the low. Their marketing is designed to make you think the only way to soften your child’s hair is to alter it to look like someone else’s.
But if you’re struggling to make your child’s hair softer or more manageable, you don’t need to change the texture. What you do need is a solid routine and some serious hydration from more powerful conditioners than the one you’re using.
Good conditioners and routines will make your child’s hair easier to handle. Image by Tregg Mathis.
These two elements are all it takes to give your child softer, manageable hair – hair that will grow longer, too. You won’t need to worry about scheduling touchups or dealing with chemical damage to your child’s scalp or hair, either.
Hair myth #5: “Use oils as heat protectants instead of silicones.”
Silicones got hit by the same bandwagon that decided to take out sulfates. Despite all the misinformation surrounding them, silicones are not bad for your hair.
You should avoid non-water soluble silicones when you’re on a No Poo routine because conditioner won’t be able to remove them from your hair, which will lead to buildup. But silicones themselves don’t actually damage your hair.
When it comes to heat straightening, they’re much better at protecting your hair than oils. One silicone in particular, dimethicone, resists heat up to 300 degrees Celsius (that’s 450 degrees Fahrenheit). Most oils have low heat stability and smoke points, which means they break down at normal straightening temperatures and can’t protect your hair. You might even be increasing the level of heat your hair is exposed to by using certain oils.
Hair myth #6: “Use baking soda to clarify your hair and scalp.”
Baking soda has a much higher pH than the natural pH of your scalp. Image by Eva Octel.
This has been a popular one on the Internet for a while. Pushed as an alternative to sulfate shampoos for people on ‘No Poo’ routines, baking soda is touted as the gentle way to clarify.
Hair on No Poo needs to be clarified every so often because washing your hair with conditioner only is not enough to remove all residue from your strands. Baking soda’s job is to clear the buildup once it gets too crazy.
The irony is, baking soda is a lot harsher on your scalp and hair than the average sulfate shampoo. Baking soda has a pH of 8.3 while your skin’s natural pH ranges from 4-6, making it way too potent for your scalp and seriously drying to your hair, too.
For some reason, over a decade on, the Internet still can’t shake this myth.
How to spot fake beauty advice online
Not everyone sharing information online has your best interests at heart – and even more innocently don’t know what they’re sharing. The best we can all do is try to verify information we receive – which is why this post links to actual scientific research.
Check the facts for yourself – then share your knowledge to save family and friends getting hoodwinked by the latest hype.
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by DHA's DIY | Mar 30, 2022 | Blowout, Deep Conditioners, Dry Hair, Hair Growth, Hair Straightening, High Porosity, Low Porosity, Natural Hair, Porosity, Super Low Porosity
These days, Silicon Mix Bambu Treatment is almost as popular as the shine-amplifying Silicon Mix original. But what’s the difference between these two Dominican superconditioners and which one is best for your hair type?
What is Silicon Mix Conditioner?
Unless you’ve missed the Caribbean wave of hair products that’s swept the beauty world in recent years – from Jamaican Black Castor oil to Dominican superconditioners – you’ll already have heard of Silicon Mix.
Hailed for its services to blowouts, silk presses and weaves everywhere, Silicon Mix is a line of conditioners, shampoos, leave ins and stylers from the Dominican Republic – the Caribbean island nation famous for its exports of rich, exotic conditioners. There are actually four lines under the Silicon Mix name: the original Silicon Mix (Hidratante), Silicon Mix Argan Oil, Silicon Mix Proteina de Perla, and Silicon Mix Bambu.
Silicon Mix is best known for its conditioners or more accurately, its conditioning treatments: rich, creamy formulas with tropical scents and tons of slip that leave hair gleaming, no matter how damaged, dry or brittle it was before.The original Silicon Mix treatment has become the stuff of hairdressing legend. Once the Dominican salon’s best-kept secret for creating mirror-shiny blowouts on hair textures other salons couldn’t straighten, it quickly spread out to other stylists in cities like NYC, with strong connections to the DR, and
is now used around the world.
Silicon Mix Treatments. Clockwise from top left: Bambu; Hidratante; Argan Oil; and Proteina De Perla.
How Silicon Mix Treatments work
All the Silicon Mix treatments use a proprietary mix of silicones and substantive conditioning agents alongside other ingredients to create a protective layer on the hair that silkens away roughness, smooths curls and amps up the hair’s shine.
While the silicones tackle the surface, ingredients like cetyl alcohol and cetrimonium chloride make the hair softer and more flexible, as well as helping draw moisture into the strand, leaving it hydrated.
The protective, yet weightless layer it encases strands in has gained the original Silicon Mix a second claim to fame: this time for reviving wigs and weaves. Extension specialists use it to maintain Remy hair, extending the lifetime on these costly human hair extensions, allowing them to be reused multiple times.
Silicon Mix Treatment works well on weaves and wigs. Image by Tubarones Photography.
The difference between Silicon Mix and Silicon Mix Bambu
When you open up the jars, you notice the difference in these two products right away. The original Silicon Mix is white and very viscous, while Silicon Mix Bambu is yellow and a little lighter in consistency. Silicon Mix has a gentle musky scent, slightly reminiscent of Caribbean vetiver; Silicon Mix Bambu has a more playful, tropical fruit aroma.
They work differently, too. While all the Silicon Mix conditioners use a blend of silicones and fatty conditioning agents to provide intense conditioning and protection to the hair, each of the spin-offs contains its own star ingredient, designed to add a different benefit. For Silicon Mix Bambu, it’s bamboo extract, known for its strengthening abilities. There are a few other differences as well:
Silicon Mix Bambu is protein-free
The overall formulation is different in Silicon Mix Bambu Treatment vs Silicon Mix Treatment. Flip around the jar to the ingredients list, and you’ll see a number of those differences. For one, protein (keratin) is a key ingredient in Silicon Mix original. It’s partly responsible for the strengthening “shock treatment” the product delivers to damaged, brittle hair.
Silicon Mix Bambu Treatment is keratin-free, which is appealing to people with protein sensitive hair. Mineral oil is also lower down in the list in Bambu, which is good news for people with low porosity hair that doesn’t usually ‘like’ this ingredient in higher concentrations.
Silicon Mix Bambu Treatment is lighter
The lighter consistency makes Silicon Mix Bambu easier and quicker to spread through the hair, especially if you have thick or low porosity hair and like to apply your conditioners with a wet brush. That lighter formula also makes Silicon Mix Bambu a good option for people with loose curls who want to keep the curl in their hair as they blowdry.
The original Silicon Mix is designed for blowdrying hair straight which mean it can straighten a little too much on hair where the curl is not that strong. Silicon Mix Bambu delivers the trademark Silicon Mix smoothing without the straightening effect.
Silicon Mix adds more shine, Bambu is more penetrating
Performance-wise, the original Silicon Mix definitely has the most dramatic effect on the hair’s surface, slipping it into an invisible silicone envelope and creating the most intense shine.
Silicon Mix Bambu penetrates easily into low porosity 4C hair. Image by Tubarones Photography.
This is what makes it so good on weaves and wigs which start to look dull as the cuticle wears down. Silicon Mix’s protective casing makes human hair wigs and extensions look brand new again – especially when you blend it with atrActiva Multivitamin Treatment.
On the other hand, Silicon Mix Bambu Treatment is more penetrating. This means it outperforms the original on hair types that find it difficult to get products to absorb into them, and which are harder to moisturise, such as low porosity hair and 4C hair.
Is Silicon Mix Bambu good for hair?
Yes. Let’s count the ways: First, the blend of ingredients that resist heat (like dimethicone), with flexibility-enhancing ingredients (like cetyl alcohol) makes hair easier to blowdry or iron, while also reducing heat exposure. That means Silicon Mix Bambu has a built-in heat protectant component which helps shield hair, even in intense blowdrying.
Secondly, Bambu does all of this without flattening the hair or leaving behind residue – both of which are frowned upon in the Dominican haircare tradition, which prizes smooth, natural-looking hair with tons of movement.
This requirement for strong conditioning that doesn’t weigh hair down means that Silicon mix Bambu Treatment can be used on all types of hair, even fine or extremely straight hair that usually can’t use conditioners – all without a trace of greasiness.
When Dominican women straighten their hair, a flowing, silky look is preferred. Image by ElMarto.
At Dominican Hair Alliance, we do pretty extensive product testing, on hair with different textures, densities, condition and of different origins. Based on our research, Silicon Mix Bambu is good for hair that is curly, straight, wavy, natural, heat-damaged, bleached, relaxed, dyed, texturized, or Brazilian Keratin straightened, with high, low or medium porosity, from people of African, Native American, European, Asian descent.It works – and by that we mean smooths, softens, adds shine, detangles, protects from heat damage and increases manageability – on almost everyone.
No one product will work for every person on the planet. But we love the fact that it can actually penetrate and hydrate super low porosity 4C hair and yet work on fine, straight, bleached hair that needs conditioning but can’t get it from most products because of the weight.
If your hair is dry, damaged and needs a transformation, the statistics are heavily in in your favour with this versatile, super concentrated treatment.
The best conditioners work even better with consistency. To learn how to create the most moisturizing routine for dry hair, download this moisture training guide and FREE course.
