Is Washing Your Hair Everyday Bad?

Hair trends come in and out like the tide — so quickly, in fact, that it's sometimes tough to keep up. Should you be washing your hair everyday? Or is washing your hair everyday bad? It all comes down to personal preference and, of course, personal hair texture, but is one hair-washing lifestyle better than the other?

Well, as it would turn out, in some cases, it's actually better to skip a day or two between washes. For people accustomed to washing their hair every day, that may sound like something of a travesty — but once your hair adjusts to the new schedule and adjusts its oil production levels accordingly, most find it to actually be more comfortable. As dermatologist Dr. Angela Lamb explained to WebMD, "Shampoo traps oils, so if you do it too frequently, you may dry your hair out, leaving it prone to breakage." Lynne Goldberg further explained to Business Insider, "It's paradoxical, but people who wash their hair a lot to get rid of oil are drying out their scalp and producing more oil."

Also in WebMD, Dr. Caroline Goh mentioned that only a select group of people needs to shampoo daily — "those with very fine hair, someone who exercises a lot (and sweats), or someone living in very humid place." Similarly, someone who has dandruff may also want to shampoo daily — for obvious reasons. Dandruff aside, texture has a lot to do with how often you need to wash your hair — as explained in InStyle, those with finer textures need to calibrate their washings to avoid limp, oily strands, while those with thick and wavy hair can go much longer between washes before starting to look greasy.

On the flip side of things, be careful not to go too long between washes — sometimes, the concept of infrequent hair washing gets so hyped up, that people will go uncomfortably long stretches without washing in the hopes of creating healthier hair. Sure, not washing everyday can cut back on dryness, but it's no miracle cure — in fact, according to TIME, if you wait too long, you might run into problems like fungus and scalp conditions.

Scary fungi aside, there are a few more things to think about when deciding to switch-up your hair-washing game: When you wash, Allure recommends you make sure to focus the lathering at the roots (that way your ends won't get too dried out). Conversely, focus your conditioner on the ends of your hair and away from the scalp. Making these easy changes will help you keep your hair and scalp's respective oil levels more balanced with one another — another way to ease the transition if you're trying to cut back on your daily shampoos.

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