How Often Do You Wash Your Hair?

I know I’m going to get a bit of flack when I confess how often I wash my hair — every single day. Even in winter and even if I’m sick. The only time I don’t wash my hair daily is when I want to work out the next morning and washing it at night doesn’t make sense because I would have to wash it again in the morning, nine hours later or something.

This habit comes from living in Singapore for most of my life where the weather is so hot and humid that people take showers twice a day and wash their hair daily. I asked Mr BB this question when we first started dating and he said, “Once a week.” I was flabbergasted and sort of grossed out, though he had really healthy-looking hair. He had shoulder length hair (he was a bit of a party boy then) and the most luscious curls. His hair never looked oily, too, nor did it ever smell bad. He reasoned, “You’ll dry out your hair if you wash it too often.” I do agree with that!

I once had the very unfortunate chance of meeting a hairdresser in Singapore who advised me to wash my hair twice a day to combat oily scalp. I think it was a mixture of embarrassment and desperation that I listened to her advice. No guesses what had happened — I had a very clean scalp but my tresses were so dry after a week of nuking my hair like that. That was a dumb move and I came to my senses a week later. Don’t you just hate it when a trusted professional gives such bad advice (on other note, I’ve had a hair stylist tell me I was balding so I would buy haircare for hair loss)?

I tried washing my hair every other day but I just couldn’t because my scalp gets pretty greasy the next day. I have tied my day-old hair into a pony tail hoping for a slick up-do but it just looks like a greasy up-do. I have toyed with the idea of just not washing my hair for one or two days and just push through with the habit till it sticks and my scalp produces less oil, but I haven’t had enough courage thus far…

Having said that, my scalp is a lot more balanced out after I switched to non-silicone haircare and the grease is noticeably less but I still endeavour to wash my hair daily.

How about you, dear reader — how often do you wash your hair?

Photo credit: here

“Like” us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter or subscribe to our RSS feed or Youtube to get the very latest updates, giveaways, and promotions.

No related posts.

23 Comments so far
Leave a comment

hmm…our Singapore weather requires me to wash my hair daily since I perspire easily in our humid country. I wash it once at night. But now that I’ve moved here and it’s winter, it’s been really drying and I changed it to once every other day but it’s still too much as my hair is in knots so I am trying a strange method – I just wash half of it! The top half, as I want fresh looking hair and I leave the bottom knotty half alone. Let’s see if it improves…

the weather where i am from is usually quite foggy but it doesn’t usually ever get too hot or too cold, so i don’t need to worry about showering because i feel sweaty due to the weather. personally, my hair and scalp does get really greasy and shiny by the second day,but i noticed for myself that the less i touch my head(scratch it or take a long time to style it) it becomes a lot less greasy the next day.also i started using baby shampoo to wash my hair…sounds sketchy i know but, it really surprised me since my hair started to becomes less oily(also the baby shampoo didnt sud up at all almost).as for conditioner i limited it to about the same amount you would use toothpaste to brush your teeth. and i found that this has worked out pretty well for me for now.
-my theory is that some shampoos strip your head of all the oils making your head produce even more oil to hydrate your head

I too have a really oily scalp. Plus the really humid weather here in Houston, Texas. I wash my hair everyday most of the time. But once or twice a week I use a dry shampoo to try and not damage my hair as much.

I have to wash it everyday! My scalp gets greasy by the end of the day and my hair just looks limp and sad >.<

@Agnes: Actually that is not a bad idea…my scalp is actually my concern too…Will try your method!

@kimby: that makes sense because skin behaves the same way too.

@ Amanda: That’s a solution to washing hair less — dry shampoo. I’ve never tried an effective dry shampoo and would be totally down to getting one if it were accessible to me…

@Blair: You live in Malaysia right? I totally hear you girl…I would do the same if I lived in a hot and humid climate. Just that I’m not right now so my daily washing may be doing my hair more harm than good…

@Blair:

When I’m in London, twice a week. When I’m in Muscat, EVERY DAY!

It must be steaming hot in Muscat!

Eek! It seems your husband and I have something in common – I only wash my hair once a week.

I agree with Kimby, the more you strip your hair of oil (by washing it), the more it tries to compensate by producing more oil. So hair gets greasy sooner. I used to wash my hair every other day but when I was at home for the holidays a few years ago (and not seeing anyone) I ‘trained’ it to go for longer. I guess if you have a day job it would be kind of difficult to get through that training period…

Anyway, nowadays my hair doesn’t get greasy until about the 7th day, so I only wash it then. I don’t use products like gels or hairspray or anything in it; if I did I guess I’d have to wash it more often to get all that stuff out.

haha I feel weird admitting that, but I did ask my hairdresser and she said it was fine :p.

everyday! you know how singapore weather is like, lol.

I’ve got a very sensitive scalp. Once it starts to get even just a tad oily, it starts to itch and flake. So when I was in China, I still shampooed daily just to be sure.

i tried not washing it for a month hoping it would be less oily. no luck. i stank so bad and i caved. i haven’t looked back since to be honest.

@Lizzie: thanks for sharing…i think everyone has different scalp and hair and I’m inspired by you to try to go longer without washing my hair.

@Vivi: Yeah I always have a reason to wash my hair…like I’m going to a meeting tomorrow or I need to look good for this party/dinner…!

@Mindy: Wow, a month! Sounds like you were trying the no-poo method…kudos for lasting that long without washing your hair…

Every 3 days i would say, however I still stuck to that when I was in Singapore. What is wrong with me?!?!? Dry shampoo is a goddess in a can, only batisse all the others just cannot compare!

Twice a week. With just water! I want to get it down to once a week, but I haven’t had a break where I can let my hair get greasy and wait for it to adjust, without worrying about being seen like that XD I can understand why you’d keep washing your hair so often. The hair usually does adjust, but it takes time and putting up with a lot of grease…

I wash it daily! It can get greasy in 2 days – I like to keep it fresh and I hate the idea of sleeping with dirty hair on my face lol. Sometimes twice in the summer because it’s so hot and humid in Japan! I’ve noticed my scalp has gone drier because it’s so dry in Japan – I was going to use some oil-remedy if it got worse. it comes and goes. It’s terrible a stylist would say such a thing to get you to buy something.. good job Japan isn’t like that!

every alternate days unless I work out on that day….
it does get a little greasy at the end of day 2. I tried washing it daily for a little while but I felt my hair was so dry…
I think the alternate days work out for me cos I don’t sweat that much and most of the times, I am always indoors. =P

I wash my hair every day. I think you’re right. I recently switched to a non-silicone shampoo and it has made a difference.

@nic nic: yeah i appreciate the fact that hair stylists aren’t pushy about products which is such a problem in Singapore. I prefer cutting my hair here to be honest.

@xuan: same here…end of day 2 I’m a complete greaseball!

@TW: LOVE non-silicone shampoo!!

I also wash my hair everyday otherwise I end up with not very nice smelling, greasy hair! I find that my hair absorbs all the smells of whatever anybody has cooked if I wander through the kitchen.

I also have the same problem with the updos! It just looks plain greasy, not slick at all! T.T

And boooo for unprofessional professionals! They shoudl know that they are trusted by their clients and therefore give responsible advice!!!!

Yeah I do feel like greasy hair makes a greasy pillow at night too which my face might encounter as I flip around in my sleep…

Back in Singapore, I wash my hair everyday even though I had short hair. I also listened to my hairstylist to stop using conditioner daily as he said my hair doesn’t really need it. I also took his recommendation to use Schwarzkopf products and they proved to work very well for my then frizzy hair.

After I came to Japan I realised my hair has “changed”. It took me a long while to find a suitable shampoo, and almost all Japanese brands I tried didn’t work! They caused so much build-up on my scalp, ugh. I brought Phyto anti-hairfall shampoo back from Singapore and it was only after months that I realised Phyto was too strong for my scalp and was actually causing me to lose hair! Japanese conditioners are still okay to use though, and luckily I found Schwarzkopf shampoos on StrawberryNet!

Now that my hair is longer, plus it’s winter season, I wash my hair on alternate days. My hair tends to fall more when it gets long, so I bought the John Master’s Organics hair growth spray after reading some reviews online. I think so far it has worked its magic! I find that I have lesser hairfall when I wash my hair, and even my bf thinks my hair looks slightly fuller recently.

I’ve been wanting to try non-silicone hair products, though the prices put me off… Sorry for the long post!

@Ru: No worries about the long comment. So glad you took the time to put your two cents’ worth. I totally relate to having trouble looking for good haircare products in Japan, plus having skin and hair behave differently here as well — always a work in progress esp with changing seasons as well. The non-silicone brands are pricier but I figure I would waste those from standard brands ones b/c I would stop using them halfway and buy yet another one to try. I’ve never tried John Master’s Organics before but have some samples…Will use them and see how I like them.

Haha I totally know what you mean. Having grown up in Malaysia, I wash my hair daily and I brought this habit with me to the UK. I was as shocked as you were when I discovered my British friends wash it once or twice a WEEK! Not only that, the don’t shower every day either. Yes, I was grossed out.

After a year or so, I decided that the weather in the UK was indeed too drying, so I washed it every other day. I can’t do more than that because it just irks me. Especially if I go down to London, the soot from the underground and the pollution is terrible. The idea of resting my head like that on my pillow is just…yuck hehe

What?! They don’t shower everyday???? That’s so gross to me…

RSS feed for comments on this post.

TrackBack URI

Leave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed:

<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>