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First off -  think of your hair not as a fiber like yarn because hair is more complex. Think of the inside of your hair like string cheese - protein which is flexible and retains water - it will swell when wetted. Then think of the cuticle as though you glued several layers of tiny, overlapping shingles to the outside of the cheese. You've used proteins and amino acids and lipids (fats) to glue all this together. It's flexible - but it's also prone to damage because proteins and fats do break down. Your hair's porosity is probably not the same at the roots as at the ends, the ends are usually more porous. "Pores" are openings in the cuticle layer(s) - whether they are chipped or torn cuticle scales (imagine torn or ripped-off shingles), or cracked, shrunken and fused, or simply not glued down very well. Any of these situations leads to a less-protected hair cortex - which means your interior of string cheese will dry out more quickly. ©Science-y Hair Blog 2013...

Ken and his plastic hair. One of the greatest differences for medium to coarse hair vs. fine hair is an element of flexibility. In cosmetics science, it is sometimes called plasticity. This isn’t about plastic hair (but I can’t resist a photo of Ken, Barbie's anatomically ambiguous "friend"). Oils, conditioning agents like cationic quaternary surfactants (your conditioner probably has them), fatty alcohols like cetyl alcohol and “butters” like shea butter and silicones all add plasticity to hair. So might proteins, amino acids and humectants. ©Science-y Hair Blog 2013 When we think “plastic” in everyday life, we usually think of hard or semi-hard plastic boxes and containers. But in biology, physics and engineering, “plasticity” means the object in question has flexibility, it can be molded (deformed) and is pliable. In this post , I suggested that one of the troubling issues for fine hair is that it can have an excess of plasticity – it is very easily deformed. ©Science-...

If you have dry or tightly curled or coarse (hair that has a wide diameter) or kinking hair, you might like this recipe! It does wonders for gray hair too. Defines, softens, de-frizzes, holds gently, adds shine and enhances your hair's natural texture. Warning, Version #1 has one (okay, maybe 2) Uncommon Ingredients. Version #2 does not. It transforms husband's kinking, mind-of-its-own hair into shiny, soft, well-defined waves and curls that just get better as the day wears on. It makes my more silky hair a little heavy, I cannot use too much of it. Here's a link to a stronger-hold recipe, if your hair demands more hold:  Flaxseed Curl Cream . ©Science-y Hair Blog 2013 Ingredients for Super Smooth Flax Curl Cream: - Flaxseeds - Water (preferably distilled) - Coconut oil for dry or porous hair, apricot kernel or grapeseed oil or a mixture of your favorite lighter oils for easily weighed-down hair. Variation #1 : BTMS-25 or BTMS-50 flakes (BTMS contains Cetyl alcohol and Be...

I'm going for long-winded again, but you get pictures at the end as a reward... Hair is a fibrous, proteinaceous system which can absorb fluids. How porous or absorbent your hair is has a lot to do with how it looks and can help you decide what to use on your hair to help it look it’s best. A porosity is a hole or a gap – an opening. For example, teeth are slightly porous and that is why they can be stained by coffee or tea. Limestone is porous and so water can run through it (a groundwater aquifer). Concrete can be porous and so the inside of concrete basements can become damp when the outside soil is saturated with water. ©Science-y Hair Blog 2013 Hair which is porous will take on water and other chemicals easily because of all the tiny openings in the cuticle. Most of these openings only go from the outside world to a deeper layer of cuticle. Porous hair has little flaps of cuticle sticking up. These areas can be “patched” – stuck down or filled in temporarily by hydrolyzed prot...