In “South Pacific” the song lyrics are “Gonna Wash that Man Right Out of My Hair. ” In the 50s and 60s our mothers and grandmothers were too busy washing their hair on Friday or Saturday night to go out on a date. In the 80s, it was permed hair to the sky and a person would never say out loud they skipped a day washing their hair. In the words of Jimmy Fallon’s Sara character, saying you didn’t wash your hair would be “Ew!” But ever since Robert Pattinson hit the red carpet with Twilight and “that” hair, saying you look good because you didn’t wash your hair has become a standard, acceptable answer. So how often do we really need to shampoo?
Consensus amongst doctors and hair stylists is that shampooing every day is overkill for most types of hair. Anyone with long, thick, curly or processed hair will probably agree their hair looks look better when it isn’t washed everyday. But how often you wash your hair , or not, is a personal preference. Factors such as scalp condition, type of hair, style and products used as well as the environment should be your determining factors in how often you shampoo.
Lather and Sulfates, do we need them?
When I was a teenager, I used the shampoo bought for the whole family’s use. We didn’t have different shampoos for different family members. Back then, my stylist told me the shampoo I was using could also double to take the wax off her kitchen floor! I always assumed it was her subtle way of telling me I was damaging my hair due to that one specific product. I never thought it was also because I was shampooing too often.
Can we have beautiful hair plus more importantly, a clean, healthy scalp without shampooing every day?
Lather, rinse, repeat . . . Lather, rinse, repeat . . . come on all you Friends Phoebe fans out there, you know her little ditty of a song about shampooing. But while researching “lather” on the internet, I hit multiple articles saying that “lather” is really for show. Lather doesn’t clean a thing. It’s not a scrubby-bubble like the bathtub cleaner. In fact, they say we really shouldn’t want a lather. Say what?
Lather aka foaming bubbles are derived from sulfates which experts say can dehydrate the hair. It also can leave behind residue. In other words, you don’t need a product that fully provides a lather to clean your hair.
What about repeat? It says so right on the bottle. Researching this piece, I discovered repeat was a standard direction written many, many years ago when people showered and bathed once a week. So users needed to “repeat” to ensure the scalp was clean.
Do you use shampoo properly?
Most of us, and I was guilty of this, don’t use shampoo properly. I was shampooing every day AND concentrating more on my hair then my scalp. The scalp needs the most attention as it contains the glands that produce sebum – an oily, waxy substance – that helps lubricate the skin and hair. Therefore, like our faces, the scalp needs to be massaged and cleansed as this area tends to get more greasy than the ends of our hair. But wash the scalp too much and it goes into overdrive to replace the natural oils being removed too frequently.
So let’s do a summary so far:
We need to read the shampoo bottles and avoid products with sulfates. Tons of lather does not equate to clean.
When we use shampoo, we need to concentrate on our scalp and less on the ends unless our entire head is soaking in sweat from a gym work-out, has picked-up surrounding odors from our daily environment or we are trying to remove layers of styling product. Massage that scalp!
We need to take into account the type of hair we have as fine hair has different needs than curly hair.Shampooing too much removes natural oils and strips moisture from our hair. It can also lead to an oily scalp as our bodies
go into overdrive to replace the natural oils.
Break the cycle
Ok . . .but why do celebrities look so good but say they don’t shampoo every day? Because less washed hair holds a style better. In other words, hair washed every day is too soft and too loose, therefore more styling products are needed to achieve the style you want. Build-up of products causes hair to look dull which means you shampoo more to remove this product build-up. Thus here we go ’round and ’round in an endless cycle of sabotaging our hair.
This winter, I decided to cleanse and massage my scalp every other day but use a conditioner every day on my hair. My mom – who is the head of the frizzy hair notification police – keeps asking me what I am doing differently as she likes the results.
If you don’t have time to read labels and do research, ask your stylist what brands she would recommend for your hair type and style. A good stylist will provide you with options that you can select from within their salon as well as your grocery store shelf. While doing my own research for my hair and this blog piece, I found multiple shampoo brands that are sulfate-free that I recognized from the store. But I also think I will ask my stylist at my next appointment and perhaps treat myself to a salon shampoo product. Even our hair needs a little guilty pleasure every now and then!
Consensus amongst doctors and hair stylists is that shampooing every day is overkill for most types of hair. Anyone with long, thick, curly or processed hair will probably agree their hair looks look better when it isn’t washed everyday. But how often you wash your hair , or not, is a personal preference. Factors such as scalp condition, type of hair, style and products used as well as the environment should be your determining factors in how often you shampoo.
Lather and Sulfates, do we need them?
When I was a teenager, I used the shampoo bought for the whole family’s use. We didn’t have different shampoos for different family members. Back then, my stylist told me the shampoo I was using could also double to take the wax off her kitchen floor! I always assumed it was her subtle way of telling me I was damaging my hair due to that one specific product. I never thought it was also because I was shampooing too often.
Can we have beautiful hair plus more importantly, a clean, healthy scalp without shampooing every day?
Lather, rinse, repeat . . . Lather, rinse, repeat . . . come on all you Friends Phoebe fans out there, you know her little ditty of a song about shampooing. But while researching “lather” on the internet, I hit multiple articles saying that “lather” is really for show. Lather doesn’t clean a thing. It’s not a scrubby-bubble like the bathtub cleaner. In fact, they say we really shouldn’t want a lather. Say what?
Lather aka foaming bubbles are derived from sulfates which experts say can dehydrate the hair. It also can leave behind residue. In other words, you don’t need a product that fully provides a lather to clean your hair.
What about repeat? It says so right on the bottle. Researching this piece, I discovered repeat was a standard direction written many, many years ago when people showered and bathed once a week. So users needed to “repeat” to ensure the scalp was clean.
Do you use shampoo properly?
Most of us, and I was guilty of this, don’t use shampoo properly. I was shampooing every day AND concentrating more on my hair then my scalp. The scalp needs the most attention as it contains the glands that produce sebum – an oily, waxy substance – that helps lubricate the skin and hair. Therefore, like our faces, the scalp needs to be massaged and cleansed as this area tends to get more greasy than the ends of our hair. But wash the scalp too much and it goes into overdrive to replace the natural oils being removed too frequently.
So let’s do a summary so far:
We need to read the shampoo bottles and avoid products with sulfates. Tons of lather does not equate to clean.
When we use shampoo, we need to concentrate on our scalp and less on the ends unless our entire head is soaking in sweat from a gym work-out, has picked-up surrounding odors from our daily environment or we are trying to remove layers of styling product. Massage that scalp!
We need to take into account the type of hair we have as fine hair has different needs than curly hair.Shampooing too much removes natural oils and strips moisture from our hair. It can also lead to an oily scalp as our bodies
go into overdrive to replace the natural oils.
Break the cycle
Ok . . .but why do celebrities look so good but say they don’t shampoo every day? Because less washed hair holds a style better. In other words, hair washed every day is too soft and too loose, therefore more styling products are needed to achieve the style you want. Build-up of products causes hair to look dull which means you shampoo more to remove this product build-up. Thus here we go ’round and ’round in an endless cycle of sabotaging our hair.
This winter, I decided to cleanse and massage my scalp every other day but use a conditioner every day on my hair. My mom – who is the head of the frizzy hair notification police – keeps asking me what I am doing differently as she likes the results.
If you don’t have time to read labels and do research, ask your stylist what brands she would recommend for your hair type and style. A good stylist will provide you with options that you can select from within their salon as well as your grocery store shelf. While doing my own research for my hair and this blog piece, I found multiple shampoo brands that are sulfate-free that I recognized from the store. But I also think I will ask my stylist at my next appointment and perhaps treat myself to a salon shampoo product. Even our hair needs a little guilty pleasure every now and then!