How often should you wash your hair?

Your hair’s natural oils are designed to condition and protect your tresses, so when you shampoo daily, it strips these vital oils away.

It creates a vicious cycle of over-production of oils and a need to shampoo very often. Ideally, to keep your hair healthy, you only need to wash two to three times a week, max.

Don’t overwash coloured hair

This is especially true for coloured hair, which can lose its sheen quickly with too much washing.

The biggest mistake people make is over-washing coloured hair. Buy a good-quality shampoo – and wash it every few days using styling products in between to keep it looking fresh.

Don’t shampoo daily. Simply rinse and condition the hair every other day as shampoo can wash out the colour.

Take into account your hair type and lifestyle choices

Of course, how often you need to wash your locks also depends on the type of hair you have.

The curlier your hair is, the longer you can go between washes. The straighter it is, the faster the oil wicks down, so that can make it oilier faster. If you have superstraight hair, you may not be able to go more than two days without washing.

And lifestyle choices like going to the gym may also affect how often you shampoo your tresses. But even here, there are ways of cutting back – you could try simply rinsing your hair rather than adding in shampoo.

You may not be able to imagine not washing your hair after a workout (we totally get that), but you can can always rinse out sweat without shampooing. A water-only rinse will remove salt and sweat without stripping hair oils.

Invest in some good dry shampoo

And finally if you’re aiming to scale back the amount of times you wash your hair per week, remember dry shampoo is your friend.

Use dry shampoo instead of washing your hair every day. It will help reduce the oil build up in your hair and gives amazing texture. You can also leave dry shampoo in (instead of brushing it out) to give volume.”

As opposed to washing your hair every day, dry shampoo will help to refresh your hair at the roots and the tips whilst helping you to retain all the essential moisture your hair needs.

Avoid hot showers and shampoo your scalp, not your ends

Come shampoo time, many of us reach for a large dollop of the good stuff to scrunch into our hair; but there’s a technique to good hair washing and overdoing things on the product front will do more harm than good.

Healthy, beautiful, shiny hair starts in the shower so make sure to use the right shampoo and conditioner for your hair type and level of damage.

The volume of shampoo you should use depends on the length and thickness of your hair, but a blob the size of a 20p coin is a good start. Longer hair needs a 50p-size dollop.

Aim for the scalp not the ends

It’s not just how much shampoo you use, but where you apply it that counts.

Use shampoo on the scalp only – not on the ends of your hair. The shampoo will rinse down in the shower, but you don’t want to scrub the ends.

Massage your scalp to encourage circulation

Giving your head an invigorating massage as you shampoo is a good way to encourage blood circulation and helps to detoxify the scalp.

Having strong, healthy hair is the best way to make any hair look expensive. A lot of it is about properly shampooing and conditioning and taking care of your scalp – massage it well while washing to get circulation going.

Avoid hot water

Cool off in the shower. Blasting your scalp with extremely hot water will dry out your hair and create tangles that could result in breakage.