Updos hiding the greasies?

[MusicalSpoons]

This is an alien concept to me, but one I keep hearing and seeing - 'you can hide greasy roots by putting your hair up'. How?! How does that even work?

I got to a point with a previous shampoo (which sadly irritated my scalp over time) where my third day hair would look fairly clean and fresh if I were to wear it down, but as I don't wear it down I couldn't take advantage of it; when I pull my hair back to put it up, it exposes the greasy sides even though the hair underneath might not be too greasy. I've known people to put their hair into a French plait to disguise oiliness, yet doing that on my hair makes it look stringy at the roots so it's even more obvious - it's far worse than putting oily hair in a bun.

I've puzzled over this for some time now and just cannot figure it out :confused:

[MoonRabbit]

Whenever my hair is really dirty I have to brush it back and up. Once everything is brushed into position it no longer looks like dirty hair but rather a nice shiny sleek updo.

[lucid]

I can't hide it. I think it depends on color and texture. My hair gets a lot darker when it's greasy, and it's noticeable. And my 1a hair just looks extremely limp and nasty when it's greasy. It looks better when it's up, but it still looks gross, not shiny and sleek like in a good way. It's obvious that its dirty hair.

I think dark hair tolerate more greasyness before it looks gross. Black hair the most.

[CopperButterfly]

I'm like you, a French braid would be the worst for showing how greasy my hair looks, and leaving it down hides it better than putting it up.

[akurah]

I think that rule really only applies to darker hair, since greasiness does darken the hair’s appearance, so it’s less obvious. When my hair is too greasy it’s obvious if I wear it down because it can look stringy, but you can’t really tell if I wear it up. I don’t think it would do the same with lighter hair because it’s more obvious that it’s darker than usual.

[TatsuOni]

It works in my black, straight and naturally shiny hair. It also works when I have my light brown roots as they just get darker and blend in better with the black. I actually get lots of compliments on how nice and shiny my hair is, when it's actually just greasy.

I think that it's a lot harder to pull of with light hair or hair that's not "slicked" also when freshly washed.

[spidermom]

Putting my hair up doesn't hide that it's greasy. The strands separate and look dull.

[samanthaa]

I wonder if it depends on thickness too. My thin hair cannot be worn down once it starts to get greasy. It looks better (not *hidden* but better) up.

However, I imagine if you have thick hair and it's the underside getting greasy, the top would look best down and when pulled back would expose the greasy underside.

Just my two cents.

[nikittyy]

I used to be perplexed by this as well, however I think I have got it down. I typically go a week without washing my hair, and Sundays are my wash day. I wear my hair down Monday-Wednesday to make the most of the time where it's not visibly greasy, and since the straightening I do on Sunday night lasts throughout that time as long as I wrap my hair in a scarf at night.

After that, Thursday-Sunday are my work days, where I wear my hair in a bun. At that point in the week it's usually visibly greasy, and I can usually get away with Thursday just being an updo with zero product. However, Friday-Sunday I usually blast the parts of my hair that get the oiliest (front and roots) with Batiste dry shampoo, work it through with my fingers and then just put my hair up like normal. It works pretty well to hide the grease. And I find when I do french or dutch braids, the oiliness kind of works to my advantage for some weird reason because it seems to make the braids stay and look better.

[lapushka]

Depends just on how oily it is, if it needs a wash, no updo is going to save it. Sorry. :flower:

[Doreen]

It might also depend on how coarse your hair is. I have noticed that my hair doesn't tend to clump together with the oil as much as my sister's hair, which is much finer. It still clumps but the clumps have a smaller amount of hair in them with my coarser hair. Sometimes if I am very lazy and want to stretch another day before washing my whole head, I just wash the front section of my hair (where bangs would be) and then when I do a low bun, that section covers the worst of the oily bits.

[lithostoic]

I like doing two flat twists, like pigtails. Or I Dutch braid only the very top section and pull the whole thing into a ponytail or bun.

[Rebeccalaurenxx]

I honestly dont know! I think it really depends on how greasy you are.
My hair looks ok when its dirty and up, but you see scalp.
I have alopecia above my ears so no matter what, theres scalp. I have gotten over it, but I wear my hair down more often.

[Estrid]

Same here, I've never really understood how it could work for some to hide greasiness just by putting it up, for me that really enhance that my hair is greasy since it will show off more of the hair close to my scalp. No, having my hair down makes my length (and the fact that my hair is naturally quite poofy) disguise the greasiness underneath :p

[JuniperTree]

I have quite coarse, thick dark hair and I find that putting it up is the only way I can hide dirty hair. I tend to do dutch braids in a crown or something so there isn't too much root showing above my face. If I have it down while great it's really obvious because my roots go flat and the rest of my hair goes Big to compensate

[Nini]

I wear my hair bunned. The texture and color changes throughout the cycle, but it’s not like someone would point their finger at me and shout dirty ;) Especially since so many use all kinds of products to achieve the same kind of look.

Using a fine tooth comb is a necessity to smooth it down.

At some point you just gotta decide what you want and then stick with it :)

[elfynity]

My hair is tawny colour and the only reason it looks better up when it is greasy is because if it is down and greasy, a whole bunch of strands will clump together and look like pieces of oily strings, it's better to just brush it all flat and back and into a bun so it at least is uniform and not stringy. I also might wear a head band around my fringe line if i feel it looks too oily.

[lapushka]

I wear my hair bunned when I'm up, and down when I go to sleep.

I would say I get a little oily around Thursday (just maybe a few mm on the root), some more around Friday, and Saturday is about half an inch of oil, but my sebum is a little waxy. Used to be almost liquid oil when I was a teen, and when you have that, there's no hiding that! But the kind of "waxy" coating I have with a bun is do-able.

It all depends on what you got going on.

But a regular bun should work, if your oil permits it.

[illicitlizard]

I kinda agree that greasy hair looks better up than down, but it certainly doesn't hide the greasiness (especially if your hair is on the lighter side)! IME the thing that hides grease the best is darker hair. I was able to go way longer looking acceptable with rank hair when I was a proper dark brunette.

[Alissalocks]

Must be the black, like TatsuOni mentions, I also can hide greasy hair for days just by milkmaids and then pinning them over my head, crown braid style. I also have had compliments about how "shiny " my hair is while braided and greasy.

Once I forgot an errand and had just *saturated* my hair with ~4 palmful of scented oils and braided it. The it remembered, oh ^%#| I still need to run out! Oh well I'll just do that one thing, and deal with it. I was so self conscious, I told my checker I had just oiled my hair. Sh told me I smelled delicious :laugh: !!! I didn't even think about smell, just looking oily! Yay essential oils!

[TarsusIV]

I can hide mine decently well for a few days by putting it up in either a ponytail or a bun, but I have dark hair. In case of sudden emergency, a little dry shampoo helps, or pulling the hair back relatively tight and smoothing it down to make it look like I wanted it smooth and shiny.

[Arciela]

I can't hide mine at all, it looks shiny and super oily and gets worse when I put it up :lol:

[Corvana]

I know I can hide it because my hair is darker, and because I avoid parting my hair as much as I can. If I'm going out, it's a bun only and I make sure to smooth out my hair more than I would with cleaner hair. When my hair is freshly washed I don't bother brushing it to bun it, and let it look messy.

That's my "tell" really, for how clean my hair is :laugh:. If it's kinda messy, it's clean, and if it's smooth and polished then it's dirty.

I'd neeeeeeever do a dutch or french braid on dirty hair, and then go somewhere or something. I get really bad scalp cleavage that way and it's super obvious. Anything that causes my hair to part at the scalp is to be avoided lol.

[MusicalSpoons]

Fascinating! Thank you all for your various responses - it seems mostly to depend on colour and fineness/coarseness, by the sound of it.

My hair is practically always bunned with very few exceptions, but it is very obvious when it needs a wash - and smoothing it back doesn't really help because then it's completely flat. There's not a huge amount of volume when it's clean but the difference is still noticeable.

I've tried looser buns to bring the hair away from my scalp a bit, but I end up touching it more to tuck away stray hairs and eventually end up redoing it, and it gets just as greasy :shrug: I suppose it also doesn't help that I sleep on my sides, plus I usually have to have a lie down in the afternoons - the sides don't stand much chance of staying clean for long really! :laugh:

[Zesty]

My technique is usually to do a low ish and loose ish updo of some sort, like a folded braid or figure 8. That way the less greasy top layer is covering the temples and such where I get most greasy. :shrug: I don't think I'm fooling anyone too much but at least it shaves a day or two off the look as opposed to a high bun. Combing it to make it look "sleek" or doing a French braid or other sectioned hairstyle would backfire spectacularly.

[Joules]

Two Dutch braids. Either twin if I'm just going for a walk, or two diagonal braids merging into one side-braid if I want to look more serious. French braids don't hide the greasiness, because hair kinda needs to go up a bit over a braid, if that makes sense. In the case with Dutch braids hair is lying flat over the scalp and braids sit on top of it, that's what makes them work better. Well, kinda. I think you can always tell when someone hasn't washed their hair in a while, at least I feel like people can.

I also love doing Dutch braids of greasy hair because it's the only way I can do them, when my hair is freshly washed it's so poofy and unruly even simple buns and English braids are a struggle :D

[TreesOfEternity]

I just make it sleek and do a low bun, but if I have to look presentable I use a satin scarf as a cute headband to hide it a little better haha.

Edit: something like this but with the length on a bun https://i.ytimg.com/vi/y4A-0dJqKik/maxresdefault.jpg