How Often Should You Wash Your Hair?

You may recall a few weeks ago, I put together a collection of pictures to document my hair growth over the last year. Spoiler alert on that post: I have a lot of it, now, but you can check out that gallery below.

While going through the pictures to put the collection together, I couldn't help but think about how much work goes into my hair-care routine. Too much, if you ask me, but if you have a lot of hair yourself, you already know that washing your hair can sometimes be an all-day affair. Additionally, you have to factor in the overall health of your hair when determining how to wash!

It's a lot to keep straight.

With everything else that can go into hair care, you may also find yourself asking, "So, how often SHOULD I wash my hair, anyway?" However, finding a good answer can be a little bit more complicated than you think.

If you Google that phrase, guaranteed you'll get at least three different suggestions on hair-washing frequency. Like everything else on the internet, trying to nail down a definitive answer can be difficult at times.

It really depends on your hair type.

So what's the best practice? Unfortunately, hair-care is another of those things about life that ends up being a person-to-person problem. However, there are a few basic guidelines that you may be able to apply, regardless of your type of hair.

For example, if you have curly hair like myself, you should really only wash your hair when you absolutely need to. This is according to the American Academy of Dermatology Association, who recommend a minimum of one wash every two or three weeks to promote a healthy scalp.

Avoid the dandruff!

With that kind of time in-between washes, your scalp may become dry and produce some dandruff, and apparently that's normal. As a matter of fact, it turns out we've been using dandruff shampoo wrong as well!

The AADA suggests that you apply dandruff shampoo only to your scalp to prevent drying out your hair, and I can personally attest that this recommendation it accurate. Nothing dries my hair out quite like dandruff shampoo, so to get around it, you just work it into the scalp and let it sit for the recommended time. As long as you don't spread it through your strands of hair, you can generally avoid the bulk of the drying effect by using a moisturizing shampoo to clean the hair itself.

As always with things like this, these are just some basic guidelines. If you really want to keep your hair healthy, best practice would be to talk it over with your barber or stylist.

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