How to Wash your Hair
When you look at the direction on the back of the shampoo bottle it says wash, rinse and repeat if necessary and if have questions call the hotline. Ridiculous right? who needs help washing their hair? Well I have news for you. You need help washing your hair! Don't worry, don't panic, you haven't been doing it dreadfully wrong but there are some things that could be doing better.
First let's start with your shampoo. If you color your hair or have thinning or delicate hair or hair that you feel just doesn't do what you want it to do then you need to upgrade your shampoo. No more drugstore shampoo, it's cheap stuff made with sodium laurel sulfate which is equivalent to DAWN dishwasher detergent or TIDE clothing detergent, very soapy to give you all those bubbles, but very drying to your hair, skin and scalp and believe me it is not doing your style any favors. I know you think you are saving so much money by using it but when you consider how much you spend on your color, or how mush you like having hair, and how frustrated you get mid-day because you are once again having a bad hair day it just might be worth it. I'll give you some brand suggestions that range from $18-40 per bottle. It sounds like a lot of money compared to the SUAVE that you have been using but it will last you a lot longer than that cheap bottle, so you can already half the cost because these shampoos are not watered down, they are concentrated so you can use less and get waaaaay more!
1. Take a shower, get in there, get your head wet. If you have color in your hair I recommend you use a cooler temperature water than the scalding hot water that my skin likes.
2. Take your brand new fancy shampoo bottle and distribute a small amount in the palm of your left hand. If you have chin length or shorter hair you will want to use a dime sized or smaller amount. If your hair is shoulder to chin length you will want to use a full dime, more like a rounded marble size. If your hair is longer than shoulder length you can use a flat quarter sized amount. Start with a very small amount, remember you can always repeat later!
3. With the appropriate sized amount of shampoo in your left hand you're going to start the most important and most missed step of shampooing. Take your right hand and put in in the palm of your left hand with the shampoo, rub that shampoo around in your palm like your washing the palms of your hands with it, this is called emulsifying! I can't believe more people don't know about it. emulsify that shampoo until it is spread like a lotion all over both of your palms, then...
4. Apply the palms of your hands to the top, back and ends of your hair to evenly distribute the suds (it will most likely be a lot less sudsy than your previous shampoo) . rub your palms together again and go back to the top of your head. Use your fingertips to massage your scalp fairly aggressively, then use those fingertips to scrub the middle back and finally your ends. This should last about a minute or so depending on how long it has been since have last washed. Rinse with a warm to cool water, again avoiding hot water if you have color in your hair.
5. If you are an infrequent washer or you just want to enjoy the experience again then repeat process. Viola. you are now a professional shampooer.
I know it doesn't seem like a big difference but the simple act of emulsifying activates the lovely ingredients that you paid for in your new fancy bottle of shampoo. Now tell me this method isn't better than just plopping a glob of cheap shampoo on your head and improperly rinsing leaving itchiness, dryness, or limpness where the glob was applied. Also on a side note. You do not need to wash everyday or even every other day. I typically wash my hair 2-3 times per week but get it wet and condition it everyday. Although I know some people who love that "dirty hair" feeling who will go 8-9 days without wetting or shampooing, hence dry shampoo but I'll cover that in a different post.
