When you were young, you were told to wash your hair every day or perhaps every other day. And, there is something to the ritual of washing and drying your hair. It can be soothing and something that feels as natural as brushing your teeth before heading out of the house in the morning.
Everyone knows how it feels when you haven’t washed your hair recently enough. Your scalp becomes itchy, and everything feels unnecessarily greasy. The thought of not washing your hair makes most people a little squeamish.
But, if you didn’t have time to wash your hair this morning, you shouldn’t stress too much about it. In fact, it’s likely to be one of the best things to happen to your scalp in a long time.
You Want Oil in Your Hair
Your hair produces oil known as sebum – and when you don’t have enough of it, you’ll know about it all too quickly. Without enough sebum, your hair becomes brittle and prone to breakages. No one wants that.
As you lather shampoo on your hair, it emulsifies and breaks down the sebum. You wash this essential oil out as you rinse off your shampoo. While conditioners make it easier for you to deal with your hair (especially longer tresses), it’s not the same as the sebum that you need.
Maintaining an even balance of sebum (not too much to make you feel icky and enough so your ends don’t split) should determine the frequency of hair washes. The less you wash your hair, the better it is – to a point. Most people shouldn’t go more than a week without washing their hair, and you should never allow yourself to lapse past two weeks (at that point it is bona fide dirty).
If you’ve been washing your hair daily for as long as you can remember, it will be difficult for you to adjust. Sebum is produced and works down your hair according to your particular washing schedule and hair thickness. However, you can train your hair to last longer between washes by pushing it a little bit longer every time. Of course, you might want to schedule those days for the moments when you don’t have an important meeting or anniversary dinners.
Who Can Make It a Week between Washes?
You would be surprised at the benefits of not washing your hair. It tends to be shinier, appear fuller, and it’s definitely easier to style and maintain. Sebum-rich hair is the healthiest hair which means that you should worry less about its maintenance and appearance.
That said, not everyone can or should go a week without washing their hair (unless they’ve signed up for Survivor or find themselves stranded on an island for a few weeks). Typically speaking, people with very fine hair will find that oil overwhelms them quickly. Additionally, anyone living on the coast or in areas with extreme humidity (so, definitely not the Highveld) will need more control over their hair and scalp oils. And, if you workout frequently, you will absolutely need to wash your hair more often than not.
Of course, if not washing your hair makes you uncomfortable, you shouldn’t stress yourself out about it; that might just lead to hair loss (and that’s usually less preferable than brittle hair).
