How often should you really wash your hair?

Washing your hair can be the bane of some women’s lives. There is a huge amount of effort required. I’ve never actually met a woman that actually enjoys washing and blow drying their hair.

But how necessary is it to wash your hair often? Or are we doing more damage than good? How often should you really wash your hair?

Your hair and your face get oily for the same reason: glands in your skin produce an oil called sebum which keeps our skin from drying out.

The amount of sebum we produce depends on the person. It can be down to genetics, hormones and even the time of your life you are in like puberty, pregnancy, menopause etc.

How often should we be washing out the sebum?

How often you need to wash your hair depends on the person, but experts say that nobody should have to wash their hair every single day.

Research would go as far as to say that washing your hair every single day can cause more damage than good. By washing out the oils too often it encourages the production of more oil. So washing your hair every day to keep is grease free is actually counterintuitive.

Aside from avoiding washing it daily, there are some other factors you should consider when wondering how many washes a week is right for you.

Lifestyle

If you exercise a lot and therefore sweat a lot, or if you live in a place with high humidity, you may have to wash your hair more often.

Skin Type

If your skin is normal (meaning not too oily or too dry) you should only be washing your hair once or twice a week. If your hair is oily, 3 times a week should be enough.

Hair Type

Oil moves down the hair shaft at different times depending on your hair type. For curly or coarse hair, oil will take longer to travel so you may only need to wash it once or twice a week. If you have fine hair you will know it gets oily quite quickly and you will have to wash it twice or three times a week.

How to get longer between washes?

There are many ways you can get an extra day or two out of your hair. The way you style it can be one. Hairbands are a great way of covering excess oils.

Dry shampoo is also a great option. Using this as preventatively works really well. Spray it in at night time and brush through the next morning. You can add some more the next morning for some added volume to the roots.