How To: Train Your Hair To Go Longer Between Washes

Why would you want to go longer between washing your hair? Well that is because over washing your hair strips the essential oils, which causes it to overproduce oil to try and replace the stripped oil, making it look greasy faster. It also dries out your ends, especially on long hair. If you claim you have to wash your hair everyday because it gets too greasy looking, you are just perpetuating it. Don't feel bad, it happens to the best of us. I was told myself by an instructor back in beauty school that I was "a chronic over shampooer." I have had long hair for almost my entire life, and decided that I needed to change my life to save my hairs ends, and boy am I glad I did. You can read more on why you should skip everyday shampooing in my article Why I Don't Wash My Hair Everyday (And Why You Shouldn't Either.) So how do you train your hair to be able to go 3, 4, or 5 days between washing and stopping it from getting greasy? Well, read on to find out.

For first 3 months, the very first thing you need to do is to stop washing your hair everyday. DUH. No but seriously, start washing your hair every other day. Use dry shampoo in between washing if it is too greasy to be wearable. Dry shampoo is more of a masking effect than a stripping effect regular shampoo has on your hair. It has the powder that absorbs excess oil/moisture, but it isn't being washed away. Dry shampoo will become your best friend during these 3 months. You are going to do this every other day shampooing for the first 3 months. The first 3 months will be the hardest for you because you are breaking the habit of your daily shampooing. You won't see immediate changes which will frustrate you into wanting to quit, but just get through these months and you won't be sorry. Your mantra will be DRY SHAMPOO, DRY SHAMPOO, DRY SHAMPOO.

After 3 months, you will start to notice your second day hair looking cleaner in the mornings as it slowly stops overproducing oil, and becomes regular production level again. You can now move on to washing your hair every 2 days for the next 2 months. You will still be rather dependent on dry shampoo to look presentable for school and work.

At 5 months total, you will now be at washing your hair every 3 days. You will wash your hair every 3 days for an additional 3 months. If you'd like you can do a month and a half at every 3 days, and the latter month and a half at 4 days. It is all preference with how many days your eventual goal is. Your hair will be noticeably less oily in the mornings, but you still need to stay regular with your hair washing schedule.

After 8 months since you started going longer between washing your hair, you will see this incredible transformation your hair has undergone. Your ends will be so much healthier, and you will notice your hair stays cleaner, softer, and shinier longer. Every 3 days is a good amount of time to go between washing your hair. At every 3 days that is basically washing your hair twice a week. You can go further if you so choose based off your personal preference. I think that really depends on your hair type and texture. If you have very fine and soft hair, I wouldn't go much longer than 3 or 4 days. If you have thicker and curly hair that has more texture, you can go longer between washes, My hair was actually incredibly damaged before I started going longer between washes, and this has helped it heal by keeping my strands lubricated and preventing more breakage.

PRO TIP: Comb your hair with a boar bristle brush to distribute your natural oils from the scalp further down the air strand to help lubricate and soften your hair.

I will be publishing an article on Dry Shampoo Tips soon to help you get through the first 3 months in your new hair journey. Subscribe to my website to be notified when new articles go live! Also please check out my GoFundMe page to help me get to New York for Generation Beauty here: