Humidity, Dew Point, Humectants & Why It All Matters for Natural Hair

As we quickly head into a hot curl summer, it’s a common frustration for both our digital and in-salon clients to become grossly frustrated with the weather conditions. We hear this story time and time again, you carefully took the time to set your hair and the weather swooped in and humbled you.

Although many tight curlies + naturals may not want to hear this, we cannot control the weather conditions. The weather is going to weather as simple as that and humid conditions will unfortunately have an impact on your hair. This blog post will explain why humidity, dew point and humectants matter for natural hair.

What Is Humidity?

Humidity is defined as the concentration of water vapor in the air. If there is a lot of water vapor in the air, the humidity will be high. The higher the humidity, the wetter it feels outside.

We tend to choose botanical gels like Uncle Funky's Daughter Curly Magic Curl Stimulator as the base styler of choice for our Hydrate & Define (wash and go) clients. Why?

Nature gives us great hold and botanical gels tend to be plant-based and water soluble (meaning they wash out from the hair easily). Botanical gels typically contain herbal extracts and humectants (such as aloe, flaxseed, honey, okra, pectin or marshmallow root) that are used to promote water retention in your hair by pulling moisture from the air and adding it to your hair.

“Humectants are a group of ingredients that are used in many hair and cosmetic products to attract moisture from the environment. Humectants are hydrophilic (water loving) and will draw moisture from anywhere or anything and bring it straight to your curls.”

However, in high humid conditions (around 90% or so), humectants can actually attract too much water in the air and have a reverse effect to your natural hair causing frizz, fluffiness and your style not lasting as long. So yeah, humidity can be a complete beast.

Don’t Forget About the Dew Point

Humidity is typically the only weather concern that most people think about, but what really impacts your hair is the dew point. Dew point is defined as the temperature at which a vapor begins to condense. It is the temperature that air has to be cooled to in order to reach 100% humidity. Basically, it’s the lowest temperature when water droplets start to form.

Low dew point is when the dew point is below 35 degrees Fahrenheit. In low dew points your hair will release water when using humectants.

High dew point is when the dew point is above 60 degrees F (15C). In high dew points your hair will absorb water from the atmosphere and result in frizz.

“When the dew point is high, you typically want to use less of your botanical gel and less overall water. The botanical gels we professionally recommend are humectant based and humectants attract more water being absorbed in the hair, which can result in poofiness and frizz in humid conditions.”

You can conveniently tell what the dew point is on a given day from most weather apps. Now, let’s discuss 3 ways that you can help combat humidity.

#1: Adjust Your Expectations

Given the information shared above, it’s clear that we cannot control the weather, no matter how hard we try. It’s important that we adjust our expectations in humid conditions and be okay with the fact that you may not get as much longveity in a style as you typically do and that’s okay.

If you come in contact with more frizz, we suggest just embracing it. Grab yourself a few hair accessories and try different styles like buns, puffs, ponytails, frohawks, etc. Especially if you’re on vacation, enjoy your damn vacation and please do not stress out about your hair! Have fun—it’s just hair.

Double Bun Tutorial

Aishia’s, our co-founder and licensed stylist, personal favorite style while on vacation are her double buns. There is a full styling tutorial video inside of our consumer education platform, The SeeSomeCurls Visual Library, on how she achieves this look.

#2: Use an Anti-Humectant Gel

Anti-humectant gels are essentially products with moisture blockers to prevent the hair from trying to absorb moisture from the environment. This results in minimized frizz.

“It’s important to remember that no product on the market is 100% humidity proof no matter what the company advertises it as. Anti-humectant gels can be a helpful add on to your styling, but it isn’t the end all, be all.”

In our wash and go styling, we tend to layer what we call topper gels over our botanical gel. We use anti-humectant gels with polymers and carbomer as a topper layer over the botanical gels for a wash and go when the climate or lifestyle of the client determines that there is either way too much or way too little humidity in the atmosphere.

By placing the botanical gel next to the clean, wet, and bare hair we are supplementing the hydration available to the hair. The use of an anti-humectant gel over it such as Trepadora Papaya Slip Taming Potion, which we call double gelling, allows the hair to maintain hold and hydration.

#3: Explore Alternative Styling Options

Humidity, your unique lifestyle, and how you would like to show up in the world from day-to-day will all determine how you style your hair for humid days.

When we mention “alternative hairstyles” we aren’t necessarily referencing wigs/weaves, crochet or braids. Depending on your Essential Elements, along with hair length, there are other styling options you can do such as: buns, coils, puffs, twist outs, flat twists, ponytails and more.

There are more than 50+ styling video tutorials demonstrated by licensed stylists inside of our consumer education platform, The SeeSomeCurls Visual Library.

Want specific product recommendations for the best products on the market for natural hair? We provide our full curated product list with instructions for best use, detailed hair styling video tutorials, our favorite styling product combinations and more in our Wash Your Damn Hair Styling & Product Guide.

This guide is a beginner-friendly resource to help naturals master their signature style and take the guesswork out of product selection. Use the coupon code STYLE10 at checkout for $10 off your digital copy!