Thursday, June 17, 2010

How often?

My hairdresser has been bugging me for about a year to not wash my hair as often as I do.  She says I should ideally only wash it twice a week, but should at least aim for no more than every other day.

I'm a shower every day person, and that includes washing my hair.  This girl's got to be clean.  Actually, I thought that everybody liked to have showers, until a few years ago when I took in a tenant as a favour to a friend.  It didn't work out too well.  To summarize only a small portion of her freakishness, she showered on average once every eight days.  In the four months that she stayed with me, she did her laundry twice and I washed the sheets on her bed (my sheets) three times.  Had I not walked into her room and demanded the sheets, I suspect they'd have gone unwashed the entire time.  Needless to say, I wore a has-mat suit to muck out her room when she left.  However, I've got to say that I really thought she was an anomaly in this world.

Then, I read a post over at Carma Sez that says otherwise.  Apparently, there are people in this world who look for ways to avoid showering as long as possible.    That, I don't understand.  When it comes down to it, I can't be comfortable if I'm not clean; and that includes my hair.

So, it took a lot for my hairdresser to convince me that hair doesn't get all that dirty unless I'm doing some serious sweating, and that I should cut back the number of times that I wash my hair.  I finally broke down and agreed to give it a try, but I don't think it's going very well.  Tuesday night, I tied up my hair in a clip and carefully showered so as not to get it wet.  Yesterday, I had to wear my hair in a ponytail because otherwise it looked limp and lackluster to me.  I felt as though I was walking around with a sign saying that I hadn't washed my hair.

Lord only knows why, but I tried again to not wash my hair tonight.  Once again, I carefully tied up my hair and contorted myself in the shower (I've got a rain-head shower) to keep my head dry.

Then I went outside to water the gardens, leaned over and stuck my head into a peony bush that's about to bloom (and therefore loaded with nectar-loving ants).  Apparently, that's a great way to piss them off, because they very quickly climbed on for the ride and then started to bite.  I managed to shake them out of my clothes, but when I had to pick two of them out of my hair, I ran for the shower and washed them out.

I think... my hair will continue to be washed daily.  If that dries it out, then I think that probably means that I'm meant to have shorter hair.  Is that really so bad?

4 comments:

  1. I wash my hair twice a day!! Once in the a.m. for work, then again after the daily workout!! Clean is the way!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I wash my hair every 3rd day, I shower daily. My husband showers every second day as his skin is very sensitive and he is still very clean. We definitely shower/wash hair too much as by doing it we wash off our own skin's natural defenses.

    ReplyDelete
  3. OK very interesting Janice. I hate showers but I love baths and I take one everyday, sometimes two. I wash my hair every three days unless I get all sweaty and yucky in the heat but that doesn't happen much anymore cause I don't take the heat so well. I have very short hair. And yeah I know the argument about sitting in dirty bathwater but I feel cleaner and more relaxed after a bath :) I think you should wash your hair when you feel like it! Owie to the ants biting your scalp.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I wash my hair two to three times a week depending on the weather and what I'm out doing. But then I'm older, my hair is drier, and daily washings would leave me with straw. I do keep it short and on non-shampoo days wet it enough to kill the bed head and finger style it. We each do what works best for us. If washing once or even twice daily works for you, go for it!

    ReplyDelete