How Often Should You Wash Your Hair? – Less Is More
Many of us are starting to question whether or not we really need to wash our hair as often as we do. For a long time, we have assumed that if we didn’t use shampoo every single day, we would have smelly, unhygienic hair. In reality, washing your hair a few times a week with shampoo is fine. How frequently you use shampoo comes down to personal choice and preference. Some factors to consider are how you style your hair and what type of hair and scalp you have (dry or oily).
Should you Shampoo Every Day?
Hair stylists and dermatologists advise that there is no reason for most people to use shampoo on a daily basis. Think about a wool sweater, or other natural fiber: Every time you wash it, it starts to look a little worse for wear. Your hair is also a natural fiber and doesn’t need daily exposure to detergents. Thicker, longer, curlier, and treated hair can all go longer without shampoo. Such hair tends to be dry because the natural oil from your scalp takes longer to work its way down the shaft of the hair. Even if you have straight, short, thin, untreated hair, you can probably manage to miss a day. You only really need to shampoo every day if your scalp produces a lot of oil, or if you want to improve the fragrance of your hair. If you do shampoo daily, be sure to use an “everyday” or lightweight shampoo, which is made with gentler detergents than most shampoos.
Should You Shampoo Every Few Days?
If you shampoo less often, you can use baby powder, dry shampoo or talc powder in between to absorb the excess oils. These powders can’t replace shampooing entirely, but they can help you go longer between washes and save your hair from becoming limp, unmanageable and frizzy from excessive washing.
Some curly hair can even go a month between shampoos. Curly-haired people may use conditioner more often to keep their curls healthy and their hair moisturized and shiny. Ethnicity can play a major part in what your hair looks and feels like: African Americans especially are often told that to prevent dry hair and breaking off, they should shampoo once a week or less.
We all love rich lather and associate it with squeaky-clean hair. Unfortunately shampoo’s harshest ingredients, sulfates, are responsible for all those bubbles, which in reality do not help to clean your scalp. According to experts, these foaming ingredients do nothing useful and are only included because we expect big bubbles like the ones we see in advertisements.
Too much shampooing can make your hair hard to style. Overly clean hair is limp, too soft, and needs a lot of product to make it hold a shape. Too much styling product then builds up on your hair and makes you want to shampoo it even more, causing the problem to get worse.
Shampoo is really intended to clean the scalp, removing dead skin cells and excess oil. It does nothing for your hair unless it is genuinely dirty because of built up styling product. But shampoo in general is not good for fiber. Using non-foaming cleansers that are sulfate free instead of ordinary shampoo will help protect your hair. These cleansers do not produce bubbles, but they clean your scalp and do not leave as much residue behind.
Do You Need Shampoo At All?
Some people feel that their good hair days always happen when their hair is a little bit dirty. A growing number of people are experimenting with never using shampoo. They have tried a number of alternatives, including baking soda dissolved in water, which they use to wash their hair weekly. Others have used lemon juice or sometimes beer in a similar way.
Many of us are starting to question whether or not we really need to wash our hair as often as we do. For a long time, we have assumed that if we didn’t use shampoo every single day, we would have smelly, unhygienic hair. In reality, washing your hair a few times a week with shampoo is fine. How frequently you use shampoo comes down to personal choice and preference. Some factors to consider are how you style your hair and what type of hair and scalp you have (dry or oily).
