I Dried My Hair With T-Shirts For Two Weeks

I struggle to imagine that anyone else experiences frizz the way that I experience frizz. From three years of bleaching, on top of Hermione Granger levels of bushy hair, my ends aren't exactly the happiest. Learning about drying your hair with T-shirts instead of towels and the supposed benefits for damaged and dry hair, I was keen to experiment with this particular technique. I'm not one to usually fall for trends, but being at my wit's end with my split ends, I was open to trying anything.

While there's different techniques to this type of hair drying, I knew that because I wasn't trying to create or maintain curls with T-shirt drying — also known as plopping — I didn't need to attempt anything special. All I needed to do was replace my towel with a T-shirt upon leaving the shower and hope for the best.

Because I only wash my hair once or twice a week, I spread this experiment over a fortnight. I wanted to be sure this wasn't a one time fix for my frizz and to find out if this would benefit me more as time progressed. Basically, I wanted to know whether to make ditching my towels a permanent decision.

1. First Wash

As you can probably tell, my T-shirt as a towel technique wasn't very strong to begin with. If you like a towel crown and want to recreate that with a T-shirt, be prepared to utilize a couple of hairbands to achieve it.

I'll be honest, using a T-shirt on my head felt weird. It got soaked quickly and it didn't feel like it was doing much drying. I usually only keep a towel on my head for an hour before leaving it to hair dry, which it what I did for this too. The result was a little less frizzy, but I couldn't be sure if I was imagining this progression or not.

2. Second Wash

This time, I kept my T-shirt on my hair for longer and in a much more secure position. Because I felt like I already knew what I was doing and what to expect, the T-shirt didn't feel as strange as it had done previously. When leaving it to air dry later on, I made sure to rinse my hair of excess water using the T-shirt, too.

This time, I felt like my lack of frizz was less of an illusion and more of a reality. A narrative that I wished to remain a part of, thank you very much. Of course, I still felt the need to straighten my hair but while before that would be a necessity in order to leave the house, now it was simply a styling choice.

3. Third Wash

For my third time using this technique, I wanted to see how my hair would hold up overnight. As I would usually, I kept the T-shirt on for an hour or so before ditching it to air dry overnight. I couldn't help but wonder if my pillow cases would affect the frizz the way my towels did, but it was simply going to be a case of wait and see.

Again, my hair looked noticeably less frizzy. Not only less frizzy than my usual strands, but less frizzy than previous days in this experiment. Ecstatic, I was already recommending this hair drying to process to all my similarly static haired friends.

4. Fourth Wash

By my final time doing this, I was a pro. I knew what I was doing and I knew what I was expecting - so why not switch it up one last time? For my fourth time drying with a T-shirt, I decided to incorporate a hairdryer into the mix - knowing full well that hairdryers are my frizz's mortal foe and I hadn't bothered using one in years. If my T-shirt could battle the frizz during air drying, hopefully it could handle the heat.

OK, so my hair was frizzier than it had been all week, but it was still noticeably smaller than it is on the regular. Considering I'd used an actual, real life hairdryer on it too, I was ecstatic with the results.

Gone are my days of scheduling hair washes around my social schedule — I can wash whenever I want, because air drying is no longer my only option. I would recommend this drying technique to everyone I've ever met, but especially those with the volume of bush that my hair likes to reach. Throw out your towels and re-purpose any ex boyfriends' T-shirts that you're specifically avoiding returning to them or throwing away. I, for one, am never touching my hair with a towel again.