One of the things I’m often railing against is what I call the “dry shampoo industrial complex.” If you’ve spent any time in the “haircare” corners of Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, or Pinterest, a dominant belief quickly emerges, which is: thou shalt not wash thine hair more than once a week. Apparently washing our hair too frequently is the source of all our hair problems. Our scalps can be “trained” to produce less oil and once we wash it less, we will look like we are in Pantene commercials–so the story goes. But as far as I’m concerned, that message mostly exists to sell more products–dry shampoos, special scalp tonics, hair “refreshing” mists, and hair “perfumes” designed to mask when our hair is oily or not smelling as good. I know that plenty of people have delicate hair or dry scalps, and those people don’t need frequent hair washes. That’s not what I’m talking about. What I’m talking about is the pressure to walk around with uncomfortably dirty hair so that you can wash it as little as possible because that’s what everybody says you should do.
Here’s the part where I get really controversial: I wash my hair every day. According to the dry shampoo industrial complex, my hair should look like a bird’s nest or like a terrifying bog witch from Beowulf or something. But instead my hair is thick, long, and wavy, with natural shine and no split ends or breakage. (I am very lucky, and I know that.) I wash it every day because it gets oily every day and I hate how that looks and feels. “Training” it for a year in my twenties changed nothing. But even I, the most hardcore shampoo-er, am not sure I would double-cleanse my scalp on the daily. Recently Huff Post interviewed some dermatologists and hairstylists and asked if we really do need to “rinse and repeat” like the directions say. It seems like the consensus is mostly “no” with a few caveats:
Double cleansing may be necessary if you use a lot of styling products: “Generally, if you’re using a good-quality shampoo, you will only need to shampoo your hair once,” [salon owner] Shu-Lan Cheung said, specifically mentioning that the guidelines don’t change based on gender or length of hair. “If you’re washing your hair less frequently or using multiple styling products, you may need to think about double washing because the first wash loosens the dirt and the second removes it.”
But you can over-wash your hair, too: According to board-certified dermatologist Dr. Leah Ansell, even two washes are unnecessary for most people, because the practice may end up stripping your hair of some beneficial oils. “The key is keeping good oils on your scalp, so overwashing might dry them out too much and lead to more problems,” she explained. “It is much better to wash once with a high-quality shampoo than multiple times with a subpar one.” Overwashing may lead to a slew of other issues, including color stripping, dryness, split ends and flakiness.
There are some exceptions: All that being said, there are two instances when using shampoo twice during one “washing session” may prove to be fruitful: if exercising often or if using a medicated shampoo. “If you exercise a lot, you get buildup on your scalp so you might want to double cleanse,” noted [board certified dermatologist Dr. Mia Jing] Gao, mentioning that folks who use medicated or antifungal shampoos might choose to rinse off the product a second time using a “regular” shampoo because “the former might not thoroughly remove the oiliness.”
How often the experts say we should wash our hair: As for how many times a week you should engage in the practice, it depends, although you should aim for two to three washes a week. “The short answer is that everyone’s hair is unique,” Cheung said. “The production of hair oil in specific is influenced by our hormone levels and may affect how we approach hair washing routines.” For example, noted the expert, those with high levels of androgens may have to deal with more hair oil, and therefore may need more frequent washing, than those boasting lower levels of it.
I’m grateful they brought up hormone levels, because you can’t manipulate those that easily. I could “train” my scalp forever but I am just genetically programmed to have hair that gets super oily every 24 hours. Meanwhile, my best friend can get away with once-weekly washings and her hair always looks beautifully soft and clean, because her scalp is dry and heir hair is fine in texture. Double-washing does make sense for product buildup, especially sticky things like hair gel or a lot of hairspray. And three times a week for hair washing seems like a reasonable, middle-of-the-road recommendation that many people could stick to. But this is my chance to convince people to join my movement for hair wash freedom! Wash your hair whenever you feel like you need to. And don’t let anybody tell you that you need to let your hair get super greasy before washing it if you don’t want to put up with how that looks or feels. It’s on your head, not theirs.
photos credit: Armin Rimoldi and Cottonbro via Pexels and via Instagram
I know I sound like a cranky old timer but that repeat wash is bs so get off my lawn with that. It empties the bottle faster. Don’t fall for it unless you have really oily hair or whatever. Okay I will be over there clipping coupons and yelling at the weather channel.
Right there with you!
It was an advertiser who came up with that, ‘rinse, repeat’. Meant to get you to buy more! And let me add a cranky, ‘that’s how they get you!’
I’m in my early 60s, on the other side of menopause, and have always been a sweaty person. My work out is daily before work, and I shampoo every day. I use a gentle shampoo, and my hairdresser/colorist and I can coexist. I can’t abide the dry shampoos. I actually know a woman who criticizes me for my generic anti perspirants being a danger, yet she has no issue with the spray chemicals. Only one soaping though.
My coworker is also in her early 60s, shampoos once a week, and smokes. That 6 feet apart stage was helpful.
Exactly. “rinse and repeat” is a marketing ploy.
I wash my hair daily because I exercise nearly every day and I have very, very fine hair and anything that weighs it down is bad. Once I hit 50, I noticed that it was drier than in my youth, so on the off days where I skip a workout and washed the day before, I might give it a really good rinse if I wasn’t very active that day.
My kids all have to wash daily, too. Their hair ranges in texture from fine to thick, but between oils and dandruff, a skipped day is a bad day.
I agree 100%. Do what feels best for you.
I wash my hair twice a week, sometimes 3 (it depends on the time of the month) and yeah I double wash (once with a normal shampoo and the 2nd time with a purple shampoo as I have platinum blonde hair and the purple shampoo helps keep the colour fresh). I rotate between using a conditioner and hair mask. And finish it off with using an oil on dry hair before using my straightening irons. My hair is good, thick mind you.
As the article says every hair/scalp is different.
I have curly, natural, bleached hair and the one thing that my hairstylist imparted on me is “wash your hair often, it’s dry AF and needs all the water it can get”, so because of that I wash it at least twice per week, but do only one shampoo.
Hormones are running the show and almost no one mentions it (I’m glad they did here).
For years and years I washed daily and had gorgeous healthy hair.
When I was pregnant I would need to wash way less- by the time I was full term it was only once a week. After baby it slowly went back to needing more washing- every other day.
I’m not using hormonal birth control any more and my hair seem to have settled on every 3 days.
Before and through my childbearing years I used the same shampoo and conditioner. I don’t use other products. I ‘styled’ my hair exactly the same. The difference was hormone levels.
I also hate showering and NOT washing my hair. I get relaxing benefits from massaging my scalp with a nice smelling shampoo and leaving conditioner on the ends while I wash my body and shave – I like Eufora, Pureology, or other professional grade quality hair products. And then I don’t need to use any other products on my hair. Because it’s healthy and clean. Also are people not working out more than two or three times a week? Or just getting sweaty, letting it dry, and then using dry shampoo?
I think the argument that this is being driven a lot by the dry shampoo companies is so spot on and one I hadn’t thought of!
Yeah, as a person who ran every day for decades–and now walks & swims for exercise–that ‘advice’ would never fly for me. I had to wash my hair daily. Sweat, dirt, I wasn’t going to just brush that out. And of course I’m washing that chlorine out of my hair. I also protect my head & face more often now by wearing hats when I’m outside & I suffer from lethal hat hair–only washing it will bring it back to life!
I was my hair two or three times a week, and I had thought that I “trained” my scalp to get less oily but I think a) my hair has dried out some as I have been moving through my 40’s and b) I bleach my hair, so I think maybe there’s all three of those things going on, but maybe just being 46. I stopped washing so much bc my hair is so long and it is very fine, and just dealing with getting it combed after I got out of the shower was a lot, and so I had to reduce that. I will say, I do think that unwashed hair stinks, and I get anxious about that, but I think I’m ok with the dry shampoo I do use, which does not have a strong odor (yuck, some of them smell soooooo strong!). I also work from home and am fairly antisocial, haha. I try to figure out when I need to have clean hair versus when I can let it go another day
Double shampooing? sometimes. Although I thought I heard an ad person come up with that bc the bottle needed some copy. But it makes sense if you use a lot of dry shampoo or other stuff. If it doesn’t feel clean, or if I feel like I didn’t get it spread around well enough, I will use some more
Welcome Carina to the Celebitchy family ♥️♥️♥️
Yes! Loving the new content and POV.
Yes, welcome!
My 3 teenage boys who shower daily have joined the “‘poo free” movement and haven’t washed their hair in over a year- they simply rinse it out every day. Their hair is thick, shiny, gorgeous and surprisingly smells nice because of the surf salt hair product they use.
I hate them for that.
I tried it for 2 weeks and could not get over the ickiness of how greasy my hair felt- of course being post menopausal my texture was already much thinner than theirs. I wash it 2-3 times a week now and it’s functional. I miss the days of thick shiny hair 🙁
For men it seems that even washing their hair with hand soap and a brillo pad every day or never and it will still turn out lovely!
I’m sure your sons are lovely young men but let’s face it, I’ve never met a woman who’s said ‘I’m trying to see how long I can go without bathing’. I have actually worked with men like this!! Or only slightly worse, ‘I’m trying to see how long I can wear these pants without washing them’. And I’m talking about field-going archaeologists! (OK, maybe it’s just male field-going archaeologists who are this gross.)
My boys absolutely HATE shampooing their hair, so I shoot for shampooing them once a week and rinsing the rest. One can go over a week without looking dirty or oily, the other shows oil within a few days. It’s just based on their hair texture.
I’ve always been type of person who looks like a dirty rat if I haven’t shampooed in more than two days. Plus I have a scalp condition that requires me to shampoo more often.
And my (maybe) unpopular opinion is that people who don’t shampoo their hair for weeks at a time (and have the ability to!) are gross. It has to smell right? How is there not a ton of buildup and sweat in their hair?
Funny enough when I don’t wash my hair, the oil from my scalp moisturizes my scalp and then migrates down to my face. My hair is more pliable, brighter, and wavy. Never underestimate the power of your body’s ability to take care of itself. Of course, I do wash after awhile and my hair and scalp are nice and clean, but also dry and sometimes a little itchy. I have fine hair. I use very little shampoo and conditioner as too much can leave my hair and scalp with residue. As dirty as it seems if I have to have excessive oil on my scalp and hair, I prefer that my body produces it as opposed to getting it from a bottle.
I double shampoo my hair. I wash 2x a week-ish, more like every 3-5 days. I work out a lot, sweat like mad, live in Central FL, and I also had a tendency to break out around my hairline (reducing how much I use skin and hair products with known pore clogging ingredients has really helped with that). If I have time I’ll use a rosemary oil on my scalp and let it sit for a bit. Then I shampoo with Briogeo’s scalp revival and then shampoo again with something else. Then I condition, use a scalp serum, and a leave in conditioner. I’m pretty happy with my scalp health now and almost never use dry shampoo these days. I feel like it’s taken me forever to find out what works for me. I just started swimming every week as a cross training activity and bc I want to feel more confident in the water, so I know I’ll need to revise this routine.
Does anyone have a suggestion for oily hair shampoo? I can wash it at night and still look oily first thing in the morning! I have tried Head and Shoulders for oily hair and no difference. Thanks for the great article Carina!
When my hair was longer I only washed once a week. I don’t have very oily hair and it’s very thick so any oil gets pretty distributed and I don’t use product. My hair was also dyed bright red meaning frequent washings were discouraged. The main reason honestly that I didn’t wash it more often is that when longer it takes forever to dry and I usually don’t want to take the time to dry it on a week day. I sometimes used dry shampoo on the last day. But there were lots of exceptions when I deviated from the schedule…a sweaty day, an outing to a smelly place like restaurants with strong aromas, etc. And I always washed before going to the stylist. BUT I recently chopped my hair very short and I’m growing out the color so I wash my hair 2-3 times a week because it takes so much less time to wash and dry. And I rarely wash and repeat.
I have Seborrhoeic dermatitis and I have to use a special shampoo that medicate but makes my hair feel greasy if I don’t follow up with another wash with an over the counter scalp shampoo. If I leave it more than two days between washing the skin on my hair and behind my ears starts to flake and it’s annoying. So I have to wash every other day to look passable. I know a guy who washes his hair every day, otherwise his scalp itches. There’s no magic bullet for everyone. Wash when you need to with your tried and true products and don’t worry about it.
I mean, I don’t know anyone whose hair looks like this – “a bird’s nest or like a terrifying bog witch from Beowulf” because they don’t wash it that often. I usually cannot tell when someone last washed their hair. The people I know who wash it less often do use more product, but they would use product anyway even if they were washing it every day – it just saves them more time to not wash every day.
I have super fine, super oily hair and washing it less often really does help. I do every other day, and my hair looks 100% on day 1 and maybe 50-75% on day 2, depending on what products I use and how I style it (today it is just pulled back in a pony, no product at all.) Before, when I was washing it every day, it was at that 50-75% mark every day. So now I tend to get one really good hair day and then one so-so hair day out of a wash cycle, which seems reasonable to me. The more I style it, the longer I can go between washings, but its usually not worth it to me.
I don’t know, I don’t wash my hair every day because I think it makes my hair look better, not because I’m being shamed on tik tok or whatever lol. But I am too old for TikTok so there’s that.
Let’s all be clear here and preface this article by saying “white hair”. (yes I realise Asian hair is not ‘white’ but hopefully you get where I’m coming from – I could get into ‘types’ but trying to keep it simple).
African American or black hair is a TOTALLY different ball game and tbh it’s annoying how approaches to hair in media seem to always lump everyone together and assume black and ‘white’ hair is the same. It is not. The structure is entirely different.
I rarely wash my hair. And I use leave in conditioner. Because my natural hair is incredibly dry and breaks easily. That is how black hair just IS. We cannot partake in this conversation because the treatment of our hair does not get any major airplay whatsoever.
Highly recommend “Good Hair” to gain an understanding of what it’s like having black hair in North America.
Signed – ‘Tired of having to explain it all the time’
I have hip-length, thick hair, so washing my hair once a week is all I can manage. I think everyone has to find what works for them. I use dry shampoo, but I prefer to use actual powder in a puff versus the aerosol stuff. I refuse to spend all that money when dry shampoo is basically corn starch. I add some essential oils and a bit of cinnamon to help it blend better.
Carina,
I like your writing style. I’m glad you joined the team!
I do not have oily hair so I only wash every 2-3 days. I don’t use a lot of product on my hair so it works for me. My mom has incredibly oily hair so she has to wash every day or every other day at least.
I double wash my hair because I deepoil my hair and scalp. It’s part of my beauty rutine and I feel that both things help with the health of my scalp and hair. Do what is best for you.
Formerly oily hair person here. I have very fine hair that would get oily and dirty after one day and I used to wash daily otherwise it looked dirty and gross. After spending most of my life thinking I had oily hair, it dawned on me that my hair was actually dry. I did some research and started piling my scalp and hair once a week. I liberally apply avocado oil (I bought a large, cheap, bottle of generic avocado from local big box store) and massage it into my scalp and leave it in overnight. I thoroughly wash it out the next morning (only one wash) then condition my hair. My hair is now gorgeous and doesn’t get oily. I go about four days between washes and my hair looks amazing. It also grows like crazy and is longer than ever. For all of those who do daily washes, it might be worth it to give it a try.
Greasy hair woman here. When I was young, my mom taught us the corn starch trick: just sprinkle on some corn starch on your roots, rub it into the scalp and then brush it all out. It definitely made the hair look less greasy and could buy you an extra day.
As an adult I washed daily, but worried it was making my bleached highlighted hair too dry and brittle. After a few years of aerosol dry shampoos (and I getting scared off by the chemical recalls) I switched to the powdered kind ($11 per oz). I read the ingredients and lo and behold – mostly rice starch. Food grade rice starch is like $.50 ounce. So now I’m back to either corn starch or rice starch on the hair. It works great, and helps me go 2 days between shampoos.
So is this going to be this years “How often do you bathe?” controversy? My thoughts are that its called “personal hygiene” for a reason. If you are happy with your results keep doing it!
I have worked for a major hair and make up company for 25 years
The phrase lather, rinse and repeat was invented several decades ago by a marketing team to ensure that people use a lot of product so they have to buy more
I wash my long hair once a week and only lather once
There are times very dirty or oily hair does need a second lather but it’s not very often
I have fine straight hair and I used to wash and blow it dry every day. It was stringy oily mess by the next morning. I washed it every morning when I had to go into an office and work with other people, I felt like I would smell if I didn’t.
When that job ended I started working from home, I stopped washing my hair every day (still showered every day, don’t want to start anything here!) and my hair did become less oily. I now wash it once a week and love the way my hair looks. I never loved my hair before. I don’t use product and I air dry and it’s full of body and slight beachy waves. I wish I would have figured that all out earlier.
I have long, thick, wavy hair, and I double-wash it every other day. It’s kept my scalp healthy and my ends unsplit. I use an exfoliating shampoo and deep conditioner once a week, too.
THANK YOU! I’m sick of being forced this narrative that it’s my fault that my scalp is oily. My scalp is just oily. That’s it. Not a big deal, I just wash my hair daily. I’ve tried “training it” to be less oily in the past and gave myself scalp problems I still haven’t recovered from. YouTube stylists f- off!
I always followed directions and washed it twice. Now I feel my hair after the first wash. It usually feels just washed, so I stop there. If it doesn’t feel squeaky clean, I’ll re-wash. It’s not an exact science, for sure.
Welcome Carina! I have thick curly/wavy hair in a chin length bob. I exercise 5-6 days a week and get very sweaty so a simple rinse/condition doesn’t work. Nor does dry shampoo or similar powdery stuff, it actually makes my hair feel dry and stiff, and hard to style. My hair actually feels softer and is easier to style with a daily wash and condition, and I don’t have any split ends or dryness. I also don’t colour my hair and rarely use a blow dryer — when I do I use the curly hair attachment for a couple of minutes — but generally just air-dry it. Everyone’s hair is different, one size does not fit all. Stick with what you like and works for your particular hair type.
I’m in the fine hair that gets oily every 24 hours – and I only do one wash daily. None of this rinse and repeat rubbish designed to get me to buy more product.
Every 3rd day has been good for me pretty much from my teens through now in my 40s, but there was a point in time where out of a sense of thinking cleaner is better, I used a shampoo that was intended for people with buildup from styling products, even though I didn’t use any, and it did totally strip my scalp which reacted by oiling up by the end of the day resulting in me washing my hair daily until I caught on.
These days, although I require even more gentleness to not over strip my my hair and scalp, every 3rd day still seems to be the sweet spot. for those who have a tendency to dryness, what I do is focus my fingers on washing my hair from half an inch away from my scalp. the hairs moving around at the roots from me doing this cleanses the scalp enough. The other thing to remember is that I don’t need my hair to feel squeaky clean after the shampoo, because ingredients in conditioner are cleansing, too. Like, everyone knows Cetaphil is a gentle skin cleanser: now look at the ingredients and compare that to conditioner. Chances are one of the main ingredients in your conditioner is either cetyl alcohol or cetearyl alcohol (which is a mix of cetlyl alcohol and stearyl alcohol) and the latter is a main ingredient in Cetaphil. I actually tried washing my hair with Cetaphil once. Left my hair very soft, but I felt my scalp was over stripped.
I always rinse and repeat and I wash my hair every other day except for long weekends when I am lazy. I also use a scalp brush and tea tree shampoo ever so often along with an anti-fungal shampoo. This has made all the difference and I could go longer if I wanted. I have a lot of highlighted long curly hair that is weirdly fine in texture. It’s in the best shape ever!