In the spirit of April fools, I wanted to drop another bomb on this fine Monday. The ‘float test’ has become very popular with naturals as a way to determine porosity however IT DOESN’T WORK! The pseudo science behind this test is that the more porous your hair is the more it will sink, however there is this pesky thing called surface tension that will affect results, not to mention if your hair is coated in oils which are hydrophobic (water repelling) it is more likely to stay near the top. When I was training to become a hairdresser, we we told to test ‘porosity’ by rubbing the hair from tip to root and feeling for roughness. This is also quite inaccurate as the older/longer the hair is, there will naturally be less layers of the cuticle due to wear and tear. The only true way to test porosity is using gas chromatography... • • • #mythbustermonday #mythbustingmonday #aprilfools #floattest #porositytest #porosity #porous #hairporosity #lowporosity #lowporosityhair #highporosity #highporosityhair #afrohair #londonnaturals #uknaturals #peckhampalms #trichology
