You Wash Your Hair Too Much

Yep, I actually had a woman to tell me that this week... My first instinct was to be insulted but then I remembered that this was a chance to educate her. I haven't always known about healthy hair practices myself and like most Black women I washed my hair once a week or every 2 weeks when I went to the salon.

In fact, I can recall feeling very indignant about the fact that Black women didn't need to wash their hair everyday. In fact, I recall a good friend asking me one day why "we" didn't wash our hair everyday. My chest puffes up with pride as I explained to my Caucasion friend that her hair was oily and would get nasty if she didn't wash it evveryday whereas my hair, like most Black girls, would not. Just as an aside, I also thought deep conditioners were for special occasions, something you did evvery couple of months to show your hair some extra love...LOL and don't even get me started on my ideas on moisturizing...

Anyway, over the years I have had friends of all races and ethnicities and almost all of them washed their hair daily...so why don't we??? Personally, I think a big part of the reason we don't wash our hair daily is because it would be time consuming... Women who wash daily tend to be able to wash and go with wet hair or can easily blow dry their hair straight in 30 minutes or less... We can't so that and lord knows our mothers didn't have that kind of time.

Does that mean that we're cheating ourselves by not washing our hair everyday?? Nope, I don't think so. In fact, I think washing your hair everyday with a sulfate shampoo would probably do more harm than good. But I also don't believe it's healthy to be washing your hair only every 2 weeks...

The truth, according to me anyway, lies somewhere in between the two. First let me say that I believe these cultural norms (washing everyday vs.washing twice a week) come from misconceptions on both sides. The culture that believes in washing daily hates the hair's natural oil production and blames it for limp, lifeless hair. We've talked about sebum production before so I won't beat a dead horse but the body's sebum production is a good thing for many reasons and while it isn't good to let the oil pile up and clog pores, it also isn't good to strip it all away by washing everyday. Now, remember we previously dicussed that sebum travels down a straight hair strand much faster than it does a curly (kinky) one so those with straight hair may need to wash more often (still not everyday) than those with curlier hair. On our side, I was often told not to wash more than once a week because water dries the hair out. I know it sounds silly now but I know a lot of Black women still believe that. The truth is, the water doesn't dry our hair out, it's all the stuff we do afterwards (blow drying, flat ironing, failing to DC,etc) that dry our hair out.

So how often should you wash??? It depends...LOL... I just can't give you a hard and fast answer but I believe most Black women should wash their hair every 3 to 4 days instead of once every 2 weeks and at the bare minimum you should be washing once a week. Why?? Well it all goes back to that sebum thing. Because the sebum doesn't travel down our hair shaft very well, we need to wash and deep condition regularly to put moisture back in our hair.

So how often do you wash your hair?? Now that you've learned healthier hair care tips are you passing them on to other women? What about if/when you have a daughter?? Will you take the time to wash her hair more often??