I can clearly remember how my hairdresser used to scold me about washing my hair too often. Even today I detest how my head feels when my hair is dirty, which makes things tricky when you are as sporty as I am.
How often should you wash your hair? There are a number of factors that will affect how often you need to wash your hair. These include your age, your hair length, texture, and type as well as how physically active you are. When your scalp is oily you need more regular washing and when your scalp is dry, wash your hair less often.
When it comes to hair care, there are so many trends, tips, treatments and products to keep up with. Some of those are nourishing to your hair while others are quite damaging. We all want to know how often to wash our hair so that we err on the side of nourishing our hair while keeping our locks fresh and clean. Keep reading to learn more about your hair and what your unique hair washing schedule should be.
Jodie’s Cologne Of Champions
One thing that I learned to do when training every day is to spray my roots with dry shampoo to help my scalp feel refresh them for a day or so. But that can’t replace actual shampooing. I remember the day back in my triathlon days, chatting to Jodie after a morning swim workout.
I was in a proverbial cloud of perfume and adding leave-in conditioner to my hair just to rid myself of the chlorine smell. Jodie chuckled and said that she had long gotten used to the smell of pool chlorine and thought of it as the “cologne of champions.”
The Factors That Determine How Often You Wash Your Hair
As with many things in life, there is no one size fits all when it comes to hair care.
Choosing the best hair styling products for you will depend on your hair type. Likewise how often you should be washing your hair will depend on your hair type as well.
Girls, please remember that if you are on HRT your hair type will be changing based on your hormone fluctuations. Your best option will be to check with your hairdresser so that your hair care routine can adjust with your changing hair.
Let’s unpack five of the factors that will determine how often to wash your hair.
1. Hair Texture And Type
There has been a long-held belief that oily hair should not be washed frequently. The theory was that washing your hair will trigger your oil glands to produce more sebum, leading you into an ever-increasing oily hair spiral.
You will be happy to learn that according to the Cleveland Clinic, this simply isn’t true!
According to their report, the American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) recommends that those with oily hair wash their hair more frequently. In fact, if you have particularly oily strands, the AAD suggests that you might need to wash it up to once per day.
If you have chemically/color-treated hair, excessive washing may cause your hair to become more brittle.
2. Hair Length
One of my close friends back in high school had super long hair. I am talking about down to just below her bum, and it was completely straight. Her hair was absolutely gorgeous. It took forever to blow dry and brush out, but that is a story for another time.
The reason why I mention her is that she had a constant struggle to the ends of her hair from getting dry and damaged. In her case dry “ends” meant a little over 2ft of the length of her hair.
I remember that one time she tried an experiment of not washing her gorgeous hair for over two weeks in an attempt to get some of the natural oils all the way to the tips of her hair. It didn’t work even though she brushed her hair out three or more times a day. In the end, she gave up and washed her hair because she just felt so dirty.
So it came as no surprise that according to Cleveland Clinic, longer hair tends to equal dry ends since the oil that comes from your roots has a much longer distance to travel before it can moisturize the lengths and ends of your hair.
So, if you have dry, long hair, you may benefit from less frequent washing in addition to using a nourishing hair care system, like the L’Oréal Paris EverCreme Deep Nourish Shampoo and L’Oréal Paris EverCreme Deep Nourish Conditioner. Don’t forget to add more conditioner to the ends of your hair where it needs the treatment the most.
3. Your Age
Like with so much else in our lives, as we age our scalp produces less and less oil. So, in theory, we need less frequent hair-washing but also more conditioner.
When we were younger and more hormonal, like in our teens, our oil glands were more active and therefore we needed to wash our hair more often.
This is an important point because when you start HRT, you again become hormonal and the oil glands on your scalp start to produce more oil. Be sure to check with your hairdresser too so that you can keep your beautiful locks healthy.
4. Your Ethnicity
I know that this can be a rather sensitive subject from a political correctness point of view, but I include it here because all of us are equally deserving of having stunningly healthy hair.
According to the Cleveland Clinic, African Americans tend to have hair that is drier than other races. Therefore washing is needed much less often, and more nourishing treatments should be used.
5. Your Lifestyle
This was always my biggest downfall in my haircare and still is to this day.
As you all know, exercising can make you work up a serious sweat. And believe me, there’s no dry shampoo on the planet that can keep your hair and scalp clean after a really intense workout.
If a combination of pool and ocean swimming is part of your regular workout routine, hair care becomes an absolute nightmare. Been there, done that, got the IM70.3 and XTERRA T-shirts.
If you are like me and exercise often, the Cleveland Clinic suggests that even though we feel like we need to wash after every workout, it would be wiser sticking to a fixed routine for our hair care. Their suggestion is that, for example, we wash our hair three times per week, regardless of whether or not you get more (or less) training in than normal.
To be honest, and all my hairdressers over the years will confirm, I have never been able to get this right for my hair. I love working out 365 days a year and it is a real internal battle not to reach for the shampoo when I get into the shower after a training session.
The bottom line: Pay attention to your hair—and your body! Everyone is different, so the frequency with which you wash your hair should be, too.
Three Signs That You Wash Your Hair Too Often
As you can see, there’s a wide range of answers to the question of how often you should wash your hair. Some of us might need to wash their hair once per day, every single day (I wish that I could). However, others may benefit from holding out and only cleansing twice per month.
In addition to taking all of the above factors into consideration, here are some telltale signs that mean you might be washing too frequently.
1. Your strands are brittle to the touch.
Are your strands so dry that they feel rough and brittle when you touch them? If you’re nodding your head, then you may have brittle hair and you could be washing too frequently. Hairdressers would threaten that this would happen to me, but so far luckily not.
2. Your scalp is itchy and flaking.
It could be dandruff, but if you have a dry scalp, it may also be a sign that you’re washing your hair too often. A dry scalp has been my nemesis because I wash my hair too often, and it flares up more now that I am older.
3. You start shedding hair.
If you think you are losing hair, consider visiting a dermatologist or a physician who can help you rule out more serious causes and determine a treatment plan. One cause of shedding hair is hormonal imbalances and you may need to get tests to see if HRT will be needed.
Three More Hair-Washing Tips
It takes a little time to get your hair-washing frequency right. While that is important, but there’s more to your hair care than that. So, keep the following tips in mind when planning your hair care routine.
1. Use The Shampoo And Conditioner Formulated For Your Hair
Only use a shampoo and conditioner system that’s formulated for your specific hair type and hair care condition.
If you have colored-hair, for example, use a system formulated for color-treated hair. If you have curly hair, use a shampoo and conditioner that’s intended specifically for use on curls. I’m sure you understand what I mean.
2. Focus The Shampoo On Your Scalp
When you do wash your hair, focus the shampoo on your scalp.
Your lengths and ends will get enough cleansing as you rinse the shampoo through and out of your hair.
Your scalp is where things like oil, dead skin cells, and excess hair product can build up. That is why it is the dirty feeling on your scalp that often prompts a hair wash. Because the lengths and ends tend to be the driest parts of your hair, there is no reason to shampoo out the few remaining nutrients in this area.
3. Concentrate Conditioner On Your Ends
While you try to get the shampoo mainly on your scalp, you will want to focus conditioner through your lengths all the way to the ends.
As I mentioned earlier, this tends to be the driest part of your hair. Therefore, it is the area most in need of conditioning.
If you use too much conditioner on your roots are where oil comes from, it will just make your lovely hair appear greasy and heavy.
Thank you for reading all the way through. You will notice that I have linked a couple of L’Oréal Paris products in this post. These are the products that I use. Full disclosure, the links are to Amazon and PinkFemme earns a small affiliate commission on sales.