You think you already know everything about proper hair washing. You may know everything about it, but most likely, you don’t.
There’s a lot more you could know about it!
I’m gonna take the opportunity today to go over some tips with you, enlighten you, expand your horizons when it comes to washing your hair.
Let’s just dive right into hair washing 101!
Table of Contents
Proper Hair Washing Tips
Water Temperature
What do you think is the best option to wash your hair with?
- cold
- lukewarm
- hot
- extremely hot
Take your pick? What do you think is the best temperature?
I’m gonna give you the answer: warm is the correct answer.
A lot of people want to know “should I be washing my hair with cold water. I heard it makes your hair shinier, I heard it makes your hair healthier?”
I think washing your hair with cold water is such a bad idea. I wouldn’t do it. Unless you want to make yourself miserable in the morning or at night or whenever you end up washing your hair.
Stop washing your hair with cold water!
You need the warm water in order to open up your hair cuticle. You can put your hair under the warm water and it will cleanse your hair.
How Harsh Should You Scrub?
Next let’s talk about how harsh or how gentle you should be washing your hair. Take your guess:
- gently
- not gently
- gentler
- gentlest
If you chose gently, you’d be correct.
A lot of people tangle up their hair when washing it. A lot of people like to go really in and scrub. I know it feels good, but what you’re doing is tangling and matting your hair more than it needs to be tangled or matted.
You don’t need to do that because you will end up roughing up the cuticle way too much. When you rough up the cuticle, you could be losing hair that you don’t need to be losing at that time.
Just go in, side to side motions, not round motions, because this will tangle your hair. Side to side is best and a little bit gentler than maybe you’re wanting to go.
You don’t need to go extremely gently, you don’t need to be like touching a baby’s head. You can go in there but do not do it aggressively with your fingernails. I know it feels great but you’re gonna ruin your hair.
So, gently gently rub your head side to side with the shampoo!
Suds
Let’s get into suds. Do you need them? Are they necessary? What do suds do?
- they’re the thing that washes your hair
- they don’t do anything
- they wash your hair better
If you chose they don’t do anything, you’d be correct. Suds don’t do anything!
They’re just a visual cue that you’re washing your hair. You don’t need suds for any reason. What suds pretty much do is just make you think you’re washing your hair better than you’re actually washing it.
I know a lot of people out there are convinced that if your shampoo does not suds extremely crazy amounts of foam, your hair is not being shampooed properly.
It’s just not true!
A lot of companies put a lot of surfactants in their shampoos in order to make you think that their shampoo is working better than other shampoos.
Surfactants are doing nothing for your hair, it’s just a visual cue that you are shampooing your hair and you are cleaning it.
However even if there wasn’t any surfactants in there and no suds, it would still be doing the same thing. You actually can use shampoo that have absolutely no surfactants in them and they are still doing the job of cleaning your hair.
Suds are not going to harm your hair, except they may harm your thoughts about a certain shampoo. They may make you think one is working better than the other, when in actuality the thing that’s not sudsing is probably doing more good to your hair than the one that is sudsing incredible amounts of suds.
Which Parts of Your Hair Should You Wash?
When you wash your hair, which parts of your hair should you be washing:
- scalp only
- scalp and ends
- ends only
If you chose scalp only, you’d be correct.
Your ends get oily but the oil comes from your scalp. The scalp is the part that produces the oil. Your ends do not produce oil.
When you shampoo your scalp with a nice amount of shampoo, you don’t work down the ends of your hair. Don’t take the end of your hair and rub it. You’re going to ruin your cuticle. It’s not gonna be good for you.
It’s a bad idea! Please don’t do that!
Once you go under the warm water and you rinse your scalp free of shampoo, your ends will then be shampooed by the residue from the scalp. Everything comes from your scalp down, releasing the trapped dirt within your ends.
There’s no need to rub your ends, there’s no need to get onto your ends with shampoo. There’s no point of shampooing your ends. Your ends will get clean by just shampooing your scalp.
How Much Shampoo Should You Use?
If you’re wondering how much shampoo you should be using, that’s a great question.
Most people can use the same amount of shampoo!
We all have pretty much the same head space, unless you have just an abnormally big head or an abnormally small head.
Most of us have the same size head. Similar sizes.
How much shampoo should you be using?
- dime size amount
- 2 dime size amounts
- 3 dime size amounts
If you picked two dime size amounts, you’d be correct.
I like to use one dime size for the front of my head and one dime size for the back of my head.
Make sure you don’t wipe the shampoo away with the ends of your hair when you go to put on your scalp. If you have very long hair, move it around your shoulder, go in from the back.
Focus on parts that got the most oil. Start where you have the most oil secretion.
A lot of people have long hair, they need a lot of shampoo, they buy the gallons of shampoo.
You do not have to be using that much shampoo. That’s crazy!
99% of people can use the exact same amount of shampoo. I can use the same amount of shampoo as a girl with 24 inch long hair.
How Often Should I Be Washing My Hair?
Should you wash your hair
- once a week
- every day
- once a month
- once a year
Pick your answer. What do you think the right answer is?
If you chose any of these answers, you’d be correct.
Why? Because everybody is different.
We live in a wonderfully diverse world and so is your shampooing routine.
I’m not exactly gonna say washing your hair every day is the greatest thing. However, I know that there are people out there who have extremely oily hair. That is usually because they have a dependency on shampoo.
You’ve grown up washing your hair every single day, your parents told you that’s what we’re supposed to do. You’ve been using very harsh chemicals, possibly some not so good drugstore shampoos and your hair’s gotten very dried out. Therefore it’s over producing oils to your scalp.
There are ways to fix this!
I typically like to wash my hair once a week and when my hair gets oily I use a natural bristle brush from the scalp to the ends and I brush it through. You can also use dry shampoo to help combat the oils in your hair.
So if you’ve been washing your hair every day for your whole life, I would probably stop that.
I would discontinue washing every day if possible. There are a lot of YouTube videos about how to train your hair, how to stop washing it so much, how to make your hair stop producing so many oils. I definitely recommend going to YouTube and searching on if you’re interested to learn more about that.
For somebody who has processed, lightened hair, I recommend washing once a week. It will give you the perfect amount of time to have a little bit of oil secretion from your scalp to hydrate your ends.
Once a week seems to be pretty good for most people or twice a week seems to be pretty good for most people also.
Conditioner Use
How long you should be leaving your conditioner on?
- 30 seconds
- 3 minutes
- 10 minutes
- 15 minutes
This will vary per person!
If you want extra hydration, I would definitely leave it on as long as you possibly can in the shower. I don’t think you need to exceed 15 minutes. Yes for a hair mask, but for just plain old conditioner I would go with about 3 minutes.
I like to get in the shower, right away shampoo my hair, right away after that put conditioner on and just leave it on until I’m done with the shower. That may be 3 or 10 minutes, whatever I end up doing that day.
You don’t need to exceed 15 minutes if you don’t feel like it. I really just don’t believe it’s gonna do anything else for your hair, unless you’re using a hair mask that is made to be left on for that long time.
Drying Your Hair
I have a couple things to go over after the shampoo and conditioning process.
When you get out of the shower, do not take that towel and scrub your head with it. Don’t put your head down and rub your ends.
What I would recommend is scrunch the hair in the towel. You can lay the towel over your hands and scrunch the bottom, scrunch the top.
I also wouldn’t put your hair in a turban!
I know it’s tempting but you’re gonna end up getting some tension alopecia if you’re putting your hair up in a turban all the time after washing it, because it’s gonna really pull on those very fragile front pieces of your hair that had just been washed, that had just been warmed up.
When your hair is warmed up, it is in much more fragile and expandable state then when it is cold. I would not recommend putting your hair up in a turban.
Aftercare
One of the most important parts comes after the shampooing process.
Following up with a great hair care routine is essential!
What you’re doing when you shampoo is getting the dirt out of your hair and detangling and adding a bit more health to your hair with whichever product you may be using. But at the end of the day, shampoo and conditioner is only touching your hair for a matter of minutes.
There are definitely benefits to that but there’s not as many as there’s gonna be when using aftercare products, after your shampoo and conditioning process.
This is where it’s gonna vary a lot per person.
If you have dry hair, you want to use some leave-ins, you want to use some oils.
You have curly hair, you want to use some curl products, curl defining products, you want to use some oil, some heat protectant spray if you’re gonna blow dry out or straighten it.
Whatever your hair type or texture is, there are necessary products you should be using in order to keep your hair the healthiest possible.
Always follow up your shampoo and conditioning routine with the proper product or else you’re just gonna let your hair down.
You don’t want to do that!
What Shampoo or Conditioner to Use?
Let’s get into the type of shampoo and conditioner you should be using.
I don’t recommend cheap drugstore shampoos.
I am by no means saying that drugstore shampoos and conditioners are bad. But there are definitely bad ones out there.
If you are paying a very low price for your shampoo, there’s a very high chance there is not high-quality ingredients in that shampoo or conditioner.
The more you pay, to a point, gets you more benefits!
Don’t go out there and spend ten dollars on shampoo. You’re just gonna get a soap bar in a liquid form, which is not gonna be good for your hair. It’s gonna strip you of all your natural essential oils, it’s gonna leave your hair so damaged, without replacing the essentials that your hair needs to grow healthy.
Spending a premium price on shampoo and conditioner is always worth it in my opinion.
It is a great investment and it should last you quite a few months, especially if you are not washing your hair every single day and you are using two dime size amounts.
I hope you found this article informative. Maybe you learned some new things about something that’s very common and you think you may have known everything about.