See that profile pic of me? The hair? Yeah, my tresses are long. Long as in, close to touching the pronounced rump.
That must take a whole lot of time to care for, right? Wrong.
I have a hair confession: I shampoo less than the average American.
Which is why (yet another) NPR story perked my ears. Today on Morning Edition, the report was that though most Americans scrub away about 4.59 times per week, we don’t need to need to nearly that much. In fact, some hair stylists and dermatologists say that we could easily go the way of the Italians or Spaniards and wash our hair only twice a week.
Really?! Yeah, and then we could spend the time we save picking the bugs from one another’s hair and munching them, like our primate cousins.
To which I say: Pashaw! I personally only wash my hair about twice a week, though I’m not exactly marking the calendar when I do. I do this funny thing: wash it when I need to.
See, leaving your hair alone keeps the natural oils in. And those are beneficial to your hair’s texture and to your scalp. You might actually be causing the dandruff with all those suds.
Cut back on the waste, then. Shampoo less! Look, I’m not advocating that you shower less. Bath time is fun, especially if you’ve got safe body care products. But save money, water, and bottled bubbles by forgoing a hair washing. I mean, unless that man’s been buggin’ you: “Wash that man right outta my hair!”
Other Eco-friendly hair tips:
- For extra conditioning, leave in just a tiny bit of the conditioner the times you do wash your hair. It works as a literal leave-in conditioner.
- Use a shampoo bar, which avoids plastic and spillage waste
- Bath with a friend 😉
I experimented with “no poo” but I was a greasy mess. I tried using ACV and baking soda, but I found it very difficult and awkward, hard to get it spread through my long, thick hair, and not great results for all the effort.
Most recently, I’ve been using a shampoo bar, and I’m liking the results so far. It’s more work than squeezing goo from a bottle, but I’m much more comfortable with the ingredients and I think it will be cheaper in the long run.
I’m washing my hair maybe about once a week… ideally I’d like to do it a bit more often. My hair is more ‘coarse’ than with regular shampoo, a bit more prone to tangling, but I actually find it easier to handle that way. And it doesn’t get greasy as fast, for some reason, or as itchy. I’m content!
The older I get the less I need to shampoo my hair. When I was younger even every other day wasn’t often enough to keep it from looking greasy, but now once or twice a week is fine. I’m surprised it’s taken the general public this long to realize that shampooing every day isn’t a good thing. I’m gonna tell my age here. When I was growing up we used lye soap for everything including shampoo and rinsed our hair with ACV. My hair was never healthier. Since I started making soap, I’ve gone back to that.
i only wash mine twice a week too. You know, it is just healthier. Plus I don’t have the time to be washing and styling my hair everyday. I have curly hair, but straighten it flat. (yes, everyone wants curly, but mine isn’t cute curly)
I make my daily showers quick (again, no time for long showers), but I do have to have those!
And…I love NPR!
The thing about this is that everyone produces a different amount of natural oil. For example I got my father’s hair which is dominantly African with this type of hair I cannot wash my hair even twice a week as my scalp does not produce enough oil on its own, so at the most I can wash once a week without too much damage to my hair, but I usually end up washing my hair every other week. My husband however needs to wash his hair nearly every day or every other day because it over produces on the oils.
I wash my hair about twice a week, and my daughter’s hair once a week. You see, once to stop over washing there is a lot less oil being produced in most cases.
I’ve got short hair, but I have to wash it every day, otherwise it gets really greasy. I can go 2 days max without washing my hair, but then it’s still a target for oil-hungry countries in need of an oil-rig or two 🙂
Most people I talk to have no clue that fast hair growth shampoos (obviously with no sulfates, no parabens or DEA) even exist. People now may possess longer hair and have more alternatives. Definitely worth investigating.