10 Best Deep Conditioners for Low Porosity Hair

Do you have low porosity hair that always seems to need more moisture, no matter how often you drench it with conditioner?

Curly hair can often be dry, so deep conditioning should be part of every curly girl’s weekly hair care routine if your hair is dry. It’s an essential step that helps deliver hydration and vital nutrients to thirsty strands. 

However, getting moisture into low porosity hair can be challenging, thanks to its tightly closed cuticle. If your low porosity locks are dry, brittle, or frizzy, choosing the right deep conditioner could solve your problem. 

In this guide, I’ll share my pick of the best deep conditioners for low porosity hair. They’re all suitable for natural hair and packed with nourishing natural ingredients to restore your mane to good health. 

10 Best Deep Conditioners for Low Porosity Hair

If you’re looking for a new deep conditioner for low porosity hair, here are 10 of the best products on the market. Most of them have sulfate and silicone-free formulas that make them suitable for use with the Curly Girl Method. 

SheaMoisture Intensive Hydration Hair Masque

This intense conditioning hair mask is ideal for dry natural curls and hair damaged by chemical treatments like hair colors or perms. 

It contains a rich blend of conditioning ingredients, including organic shea butter, manuka honey, mafura and baobab oils, and African Rock Fig, a powerful antioxidant. This formulation will lock in moisture, nourish your hair follicles, and smooth dry, over-processed hair. 

This cruelty-free, ethically-traded product is free from sulfates, phthalates, and parabens, making it perfect for natural hair.

Mielle Organics Babassu & Mint Deep Conditioner  

This protein-rich deep conditioner is enriched with natural oils, fatty acids, and amino acids to nourish and hydrate your scalp and hair. It contains pure South American babassu oil, a rich source of plant sterols and tocopherols that support good hair health, and mint extract to help reduce scalp inflammation.

This deep conditioner helps improve your hair’s elasticity, reduces breakage, and controls frizzy hair and flyaways. It’s based on certified organic ingredients, free from harmful chemicals, and suitable for all natural hair types. 

Jessicurl Deep Conditioning Treatment

This deep conditioning treatment has a thick texture designed to lock moisture into your strands without weighing them down. It’s ideal for coarse hair and dry curls that need an extra boost of hydration. 

The unique blend of natural oils, butters, and proteins will give your tired, thirsty curls the hydration and nutrients they need to look their best. 

This versatile conditioner is free from sulfates, silicones, and parabens and is safe for use on color-treated hair. It can be used as a deep conditioner or a daily conditioner on wash day and can even be used as a leave-in conditioner on thick and dry hair types.

Alikay Naturals Honey and Sage Deep Conditioner

Alikay Naturals Honey and Sage Deep Conditioner contains honey, a natural humectant that will attract maximum moisture into dry and damaged strands. 

A blend of 90% organic ingredients, including babassu, sage, and avocado oils, penetrates deep into the hair follicle to revitalize and strengthen low porosity hair. Aloe vera juice and extra virgin olive oil add softness and shine to your mane, restoring your hair to good health. 

Camille Rose Algae Renew Deep Conditioning Hair Mask

Camille Rose Naturals products aren’t cheap, but this deep conditioning treatment is worth every cent and smells like a luxurious spa treat! 

This lavender-infused deep conditioner is filled with nourishing ingredients like blue green algae, mango butter, and aloe and mint essential oils. This blend will leave your tresses soft and smooth, stimulate healthy hair growth, and moisturize your scalp. 

Ouidad Curl Immersion Triple Threat Deep Conditioner

This best-selling deep conditioner hydrates intensely, locks in moisture, and repairs dry, damaged hair.

Its Curly Girl-friendly formulation is packed with natural ingredients like grapeseed oil, black castor oil, coconut oil, apple cider vinegar, and peppermint essential oil. This not only strengthens and softens your strands but also helps boost scalp health.  

This deep conditioning mask is vegan-friendly and free from sulfates, phthalates, and parabens.

Obia Naturals Babassu Deep Conditioner

If your hair is prone to protein overload or protein sensitivity, this protein-free deep conditioner is a great option. It’s also vegan, pH-balanced, and free from sulfates, parabens, and drying alcohols making it perfect for all natural curl types.

This conditioner contains a blend of natural ingredients, including avocado oil, rosemary essential oil, and babassu oil, for stronger, softer hair and good scalp health. It even helps protect against heat damage from your hair dryer or hot styling tools.

Briogeo Don’t Despair, Repair!

This deep conditioning mask is an excellent choice if you have dry, damaged hair in need of some extra-special treatment. 

It’s a vegan and cruelty-free conditioner packed with natural ingredients like algae extract, rosehip oil, and vitamin B. These will nourish and hydrate your stressed strands and improve their elasticity with a 10-minute weekly treatment. It also boosts your hair’s shine without weighing your strands down, helping to reduce breakage after just two treatments.

Amika Hydro Rush Intense Moisture Mask

This intense deep conditioner is enriched with humectant ingredients like hyaluronic acid and polyglutamic acid that draw moisture into the hair strands. It also contains moisturizing shea butter and squalane to leave your hair feeling soft and hydrated without weighing it down with silicones and heavy oils. 

Although this is an excellent option for dry low-porosity hair, it does contain waxes and alcohol. This means it isn’t suitable if you’re following the Curly Girl Method.

tgin Honey Miracle Hair Mask

Honey is one of the best natural humectants for hair, and this tgin hair mask contains raw honey to leave your dry and damaged hair feeling soft and manageable. Other fantastic ingredients include aloe vera extract and olive and jojoba oil to soften, nourish and heal your tresses.

This deep conditioner is free from parabens, sulfates, and artificial colors, but it does contain silicone. If you’re following the Curly Girl Method strictly or want to avoid product buildup, I’d recommend trying one of the other masks on this list.  

What is Low Porosity Hair?

Hair porosity describes your hair’s ability to absorb and retain moisture. Along with hair density and hair texture, it’s one of the essential factors in achieving good hair health.

The outermost layer of your hair is called the hair cuticle, and it’s made up of overlapping scales that open to allow moisture and nutrients in, then close again to keep them locked into the strand.

If you have low porosity hair, the cuticles of your hair have tightly closed scales that make it hard to deliver hydration and nutrients into the middle of the strands. However, once you get moisture into the strands, the tight cuticles are very good at keeping it locked in.

This means that some hair care treatments and styling products won’t work well, making regular deep conditioning masks an essential part of low porosity hair care. 

Low Porosity Hair Characteristics

If you notice these characteristics, you could have low hair porosity:

• Your hair takes a long time to soak through in the shower
• Air drying your hair takes a long time
• Your strands look smooth and shiny
• You tend to suffer from product buildup
• Your hair doesn’t take color treatments very well

If this sounds like your hair, you can learn more about your hair’s porosity in my Guide to Low Porosity Hair.

On the other hand, high porosity hair absorbs water easily and dries quickly but often feels dry and frizzy. Medium porosity hair falls somewhere between the two and is often described as the normal porosity type. 

Ingredients in Deep Conditioner for Low Porosity Hair

Deep conditioning treatments contain a range of ingredients to infuse your strands with moisture and keep it locked in. They also make detangling easier and help soften and strengthen your strands to improve your hair’s look and feel.

Here are some of the essential ingredients in deep conditioners for low hair porosity.

Humectants

Deep conditioners for low hair porosity often include humectants like glycerin or honey to help attract as much water as possible into the hair shaft. Other humectants that might appear on your deep conditioner’s packaging include propylene glycol or butylene glycol.

Emollients

Emollients are hydrophobic molecules used to create a water-resistant coating on the hair cuticle. This provides hair slip, makes detangling easier, and stops the hair strands from losing hydration. 

Low porosity hair will benefit from light hair oils and butters like olive oil, jojoba oil, sweet almond oil, shea butter, or mango butter. 

Cationic Actives

Positively charged cationic molecules are attracted to the negative charge of hair strands and form an electrostatic bond. This makes it easier to control frizz and flyaway hairs and helps detangle and soften the hair fibers.

Some common cationic ingredients in deep conditioners for low porosity hair include behentrimonium chloride, behentrimonium methosulfate, and stearamidopropyl dimethylamine.

Protein 

Your hair is mainly made up of protein in the form of keratin, so proteins are essential for healthy hair. They help hydrate and moisturize your tresses and also strengthen your strands. 

Common protein ingredients in deep conditioning treatments include silk amino acids, keratin, and any ingredient starting with ‘hydrolyzed.’

However, too much protein can cause protein overload, leaving low-porosity hair brittle and prone to breakage. Avoid deep conditioners that list protein ingredients in the first five positions in their ingredient lists, and if protein overload is a serious problem, you should consider switching to protein-free products.

FAQs

If you’re looking for more information on how to use a deep conditioning mask on low hair, check out our answers to these frequently asked questions. 

How often should I deep condition my hair?

Most people will benefit from using a deep conditioner on low porosity hair around once a week. However, if you have very dry hair that’s prone to frizz, you might want to try deep conditioning your strands 2 or 3 times a week, depending on the condition of your hair.

Should I use heat with my deep conditioner?

To get the best results from your hair conditioner, pop a shower cap on or use a heat cap while your deep conditioner is working. This will encourage the hair strands to absorb even more hydration and nutrients. 

How do you know if your hair needs deep conditioner?

If your low porosity hair has developed frizz and split ends, and is hard to manage, these are all signs that it needs more moisture from a deep conditioner or hair mask. 

Is it bad to leave a deep conditioner on too long?

If you leave your deep conditioner on low porosity hair for too long, the hair strands can absorb too much moisture, which makes them swell and develop a condition called hygral fatigue. This will damage the hair’s cuticle and lead to your strands feeling gummy or mushy, losing elasticity, and becoming prone to breakage. 

The Bottom Line

A weekly deep conditioner treatment part of your hair care routine is essential for good hair health, especially if you have low porosity hair. Low porosity hair types can often struggle to absorb enough moisture and nutrition thanks to their tightly closed cuticle layer. 

In this guide, I’ve shared my pick of the best deep conditioners for low porosity hair. Each of these products is packed with ingredients that will infuse your strands with hydration and nourish them deeply. 

Taking 15-30 minutes each week to pamper your natural curls with one of these conditioning hair products will leave them softer and stronger, and help you achieve your hair goals.