What is hygral fatigue in natural hair?

11/4/2013

When hair is wet, it absorbs water and swells. As it dries it releases water and shrivels. This shrinking and swelling can lead to hair damage called hygral fatigue.

How can you prevent hygral fatigue?
Before you shampoo your hair plasticize it by
1. Applying a detangling conditioner or
2. Applying a polar oil (e.g. coconut oil, jojoba oil, avocado oil) or
3. Applying a bit of your regular conditioner with a spritz of water.

Whichever pre-shampoo treatment you use will penetrate your hair fibre so that when your hair is wet it does not swell as much.

Note that not every hair oil will work as a pre-shampoo treatment. Oils that are high in polyunsaturated fatty acids (e.g. castor oil) cannot penetrate the hair fibre; such oils are better for sealing in hair moisture.

You might also like:
What Are Polar Oils? How Do They Protect Natural Hair from Hygral Fatigue?

Get your FREE ebook on How To Grow Long, Healthy Natural Kinky or Curly Hair.

Mia foote

3/5/2013 09:25:12 pm

This is so great to know considering I have gone natural and I have a few customers that has gone natural and it's so hard to comb and dry the hair after shampooing....thank you as I will do this the next time I shampoo my hair and my customers hair...

Rosia bevely link

8/1/2014 05:44:06 pm

I have been natural for about. 5 yrs and the only different about my washed is tray it's wet. I'ts straight manageable & strong dries quick!

Andrea Simpson-Jones link

14/6/2013 05:00:36 pm

This is not just a good idea for pre-shampoo but also prior to swimming to keep the hair from absorbing hair-damaging chlorine.

Kinda Superficial link

16/11/2014 01:07:18 am

I love that the natural hair community is talking about this more and more. I still attest that my coconut oil pre-poo habit was one of the key factors in my successful hair growth, seeing as how I've been doing it for 6 years. I also found a piece on a cosmetic crafting website of interest: http://swiftcraftymonkey.blogspot.ca/2013/06/hygral-fatigue-and-coconut-oil-heavily.html

The woman writing is very knowledgeable about cosmetic chemistry and interpreting/finding studies and she mentions that she could only find one study which even used Hygral Fatigue as a term. Though I'm inclined to believe it's true, we also have to keep in mind that until something has been studied many times over, most scientists would hesitate to conclude anything definitively.

She also links to Ktani's hair sense, who is always a good blog read when you need a skeptical perspective. http://ktanihairsense.blogspot.ca/2013/03/hair-protein-loss-and-coconut-oil.html

And lastly, she links to a study found which examines hair breakage in Black hair from a dermatologist's perspective. I read through the study and find it only mildly technical, so if anyone is really curious I would take a look (note: They only talk about hair that has been hot combed or relaxed, they made no mention of natural hair, so it's probably more an interesting read rather than something truly informative). https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1020026/hairbreakage.pdf

Just some extra content to look at for anyone who is as curious about Hygral Fatigue as I am.

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What is hygral fatigue in natural hair?

By Heather Katsonga-Woodward

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