A Guide to Lash Porosity and Lash Lifts
Lash Porosity: Where Beauty Meets Biochemistry
How often do you have doubts when choosing the treatment time for each step of your InLei® Lash Filler treatments? We know the general rule when it comes to how long to leave each step on the lashes, but the fact is that there’s a lot more to choosing the ideal time than just taking a look at the lashes! Let’s take a look at how we can better assess our clients’ lashes to ensure we are always getting the best possible results.
Chemical Reactions
Put very simply, lash lifts work because of chemical reactions inside the hairs. To understand how the chemical reactions take place—be it the breaking of disulfide bonds to create a new hair shape, or the colouring of hair during lash tinting—two main factors must be observed, namely hair porosity, and hair structure.
Hair Porosity: What it is and How to Assess It
How shiny or dull hair is depends on its porosity. Porosity is the hair's ability to absorb moisture and can be low, medium or high.
To understand which category the hair you are treating falls under, you need to observe the cuticle. This will not be easy if you do not have a microscope at hand, so you can use how shiny the hair is as a guide to gauge its porosity.
Low Porosity
Low porosity means a low absorption capacity, as the ‘scales’ of the cuticle are very closely aligned with one another. It is very difficult for chemicals to penetrate inside these hairs, so exposure times increase for both perming and tinting. Hairs with low porosity are very shiny and smooth due to the cuticles being tightly closed.
Image courtesy of InLei® Italy
Medium Porosity
The majority of hair you’ll interact with will be of medium porosity. Medium porosity means that the cuticle scales are slightly raised and thin, or there are fewer layers due to ethnicity. These hairs are generally very obedient and will stay on the shields while you work.
Image courtesy of InLei® Italy
High Porosity
Highly porous hairs are more dull in appearance due to the cuticles being raised. This does not allow moisture to remain for long, so at every opportunity the hair tries to absorb as much as possible. Hair with high porosity is often visibly brittle and dull, and can either be the result of damage, or simply due to the hair type; a large proportion of curly hair also has high porosity. During the absorption of the perm (Lash Form 1), you will notice that this hair literally ‘eats’ the solution (which turns from deep white to milky transparent white).
Image courtesy of InLei® Italy
Put simply, if hairs are shiny, they have a low porosity and solutions should be left on for slightly longer, while a matte finish generally means that they have a high porosity, and solutions should be left on for less time to avoid over processing.
Eyelash Structure
By observing porosity, we can also analyse elasticity, because they depend on each other. The ability to retain moisture ensures that the keratin remains elastic, which is why we need to make sure we’re taking it into consideration when performing a Lash Filler treatment.
Like with porosity, we can categorise hairs in three ways when it comes to elasticity.
Soft Hair
This type is often very obedient when being lifted onto the shield, but can sometimes become unruly. In some cases, the hair is so soft and easily moved that it creates ‘waves’ that are very difficult to straighten. In general, these hairs rarely escape from the curler when the first (perming) solution is in place.
Medium Hair
This is the hair type that you will see on the vast majority of clients. Medium hair is obedient and lies on the curler without any problems, and is usually within the medium porosity range. Sometimes during the setting time of the first solution some hairs may lift from the shield. In such cases, these hairs must be put back in place using the ‘spider's web’ method, which involves taking thin pieces of cotton balls to gently re-stick the hairs to the shields.
Rigid Hair
This type of hair shows a lot of resistance to being lifted onto the shields and often struggles to stay in place, so we have to use a lot of fixing gel to keep them in place. We often refer to this type of hair as glassy because it often has low porosity and is therefore very shiny. If you don't use enough fixing gel, many lashes will lift during the Form 1 laying time. For this hair type, it is advisable to lift the hairs section by section rather than trying to lift them all at once.
REMEMBER: This is not about the thickness of the hairs: very fine hairs can be very stiff and coarse hairs can be very soft, which is why it is important to keep these factors in mind when deciding on your development time; judging by thickness alone can lead to under or over processing.
Remember that technical and/or chemical shortcomings are a great risk! A treatment such as an eyelash perm can involve several risks if performed incorrectly. An incorrect application time, for example, can damage the client's eyelashes, just as the incorrect use of certain products can cause severe eye irritation.
Nowadays, what really counts is to be the ‘lash tech of choice’, the one who makes the difference! In order to achieve popularity in the eyelash industry, it is necessary to work with precision and a great deal of expertise. Your clients can immediately see the difference between a mediocre treatment and a professionally executed one, just as they notice the gap between those who know the industry in depth and those who know very little about it.
