Will this damage my hair in the long run

[GhostBuster]

I don't know all that much about hair treatment and things like that.
Can you give me some advice?

I have thin/medium hair (as in thickness).. but, it frizzes out. Thus, the "volume" of my hair makes it appear as it it were thicker. It's really quite gross. And it tickles my face and neck if I leave my hair out. Similar to this: http://blog.ivman.com/wp-content/BadHairDayFriz.jpg (Gross, huh?)

But.. That was ages ago. I figured out how to completely FIX this problem.
I stopped washing my hair (often) and brushing it.

I only wash my hair once every week or once every two weeks.
It takes like 5-6 days for my hair to get even the slightest bit "oily".
I comb or finger through my hair everyday.

By not washing my hair often and not using a brush, I found that my frizzy, disgusting, dried out hair got A LOT BETTER. It's flat, easy to manage, stays together, no fly-aways. NO FRIZZ! And, oddly enough, I don't smell either. My hair looks completely normal and healthy.

My question is.. Will not washing my hair cause damage to it in the long run?

I always keep my hair in a pony tail.. and when I take my hair tie out, a bunch of hair comes out with it. Am I putting it on too tightly.. or is it something else?

I'm a girl - if that's anything..

[Mairéad]

The opposite! The less you wash your hair, the better! What may be a point of concern is keeping it in a pony tail often, and secured at the same location. Switch up hair styles and make sure to use hair friendly holders. No metal snagly bits.

[julliams]

Hey there and welcome to LHC. The hair you show in the photo is wavy or curly hair that has been brushed out. I suspect you have some wave or curl to your hair. Perhaps you were straighter as a child?? I know I was and when my hair became "frizzy" as a teen I thought there was something wrong with my hair and I turned to straighteners to make it "behave". What I actually had was wavy hair - I just didn't know it.

I know that some people follow the Water Only method of cleansing and there are threads for this (WO) but I personally need to keep my scalp clean using shampoo and conditioner.

There are a few things you can try such as Conditioner Only where you wash your hair using a silicone-free conditioner, sometimes even watered down. There are threads for this too.

I suggest that you do some reading here, there is much to learn and then try doing only one thing at a time. The temptation will be to try everything you read about, but you may find that it makes your hair worse if you overdo it.

My first suggestion for you would be to think about how you handle your hair after you wash it. If you have wavy hair, you want to do all your detangling in the shower with the conditioner on. Then rinse it out, blot your hair with your towel to get the excess water out, then put in some kind of leave-in or gel and scrunch the ends with your hands. You tip your head to one side, take palmfuls of hair and scrunch your hands whilst lifting them towards your scalp. This encourages any kind of curl or wave that you might have. Then you need and I mean NEED to leave it alone. As it's drying it's going to look frizzy and you are going to want to put your hands in it, but trust me just LEAVE IT ALONE!! Once it is totally dry, you are going to see that it is not so frizzy and hopefully you will have some lovely waves.

You can take a look at my album here http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/album.php?albumid=9430 and you can see as you travel down the page, my hair is much more wavy now that I have length and know how to handle it. In the beginning it was much more poofy and I really didn't know what I was doing when I was drying it.

The next thing I would is start to get some weekly moisture treatments happening. You can just use conditioner and put it on your hair, leaving it for an hour. Or there are some really nice home-made ones called SMT that are great.

I found that weekly treatments made a big difference to my hair and helped to have it sit better.

[Amber_Maiden]

The less you wash your hair the better! :D

[Lostsoule77]

Quite the opposite actually. Stretching washes is better for your hair than washing daily. As Mairead said, you probably want to vary your style day to day. Wearing a hair tie in the same spot daily can cause breakage. There are tons of resources on this site and it's a good idea to look through them a bit. :)

http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/showthread.php?t=32573 This is probably the best place to start. :) Good luck.

[Dorothy]

The pony tail, however, is going to be damaging your hair. Some hair ties are better than others, but bunning your hair keeps it safer, and the less twisting, the better. There's a list somewhere here of buns by amount of twisting required. You can wear a pony sometimes, but it will hurt your hair to wear it the same way all the time.

[kidari]

In general the less you wash your hair the better it is for it. I would advise not to wear it in the same style all the time as this will cause damage in the same spots over time. When you do wear a ponytail make sure to avoid ones with metal bands but definitely look into learning new hair-friendly styles and protective updos that you can add to your repertoire. Sometimes I find that wearing a hairstyle on different spots on the head helps prevent a sore scalp as well- I may start off my day wearing a bun on top of my head and then later take it down and keep it in a low braid or braided bun.

[Madora]

Putting your hair in a ponytail every day will eventually erode the hairs that are constantly being subjected to the elastic. They will weaken and break, and eventually there will be hair loss..not only at the ponytail site itself, but there might be damage (traction alopecia) on the sides as the result of the hair being pulled back.

For the sake of your hair, learn other styles. There are a lot of different styles to choose from in the Hairstyling area of the Articles (see grey menu bar, above).

[jacqueline101]

The less you wash it the better and change hair styles so you're breaking hairs.

[QueenOfTheSkye]

Not washing is GREAT, and it's so lucky that it lasts so long without smelling/looking nasty. I'd advise that you switch up your hairstyles some (I wore a ponytail every day for a few years and i have layers literally MADE of breakage from it... :()

[nightwish90]

i'm not sure if it's better. for me greasy hair falls our much more than fresh hair, don't know why but when it gets greasy it's like i fear to get bald. anyone feeling the same?

[dwell_in_safety]

Well, if anecdotes mean anything, I've not used shampoo on my hair in months, and I only use a cone-free conditioner to wash it less often than once a week. It looks great. :D

The frizziness I've always battled went away after about a week of stopping shampoo use. It took a full two months for my hair to really look great, but it was worth it.

[GhostBuster]

Thank you all so much for your advice! :)

Re: different hair styles
If I leave my hair out (no hair ties.. nothing) - will that be okay/better for me?

[patienceneeded]

I think the general consensus here is that leaving hair down will cause some damage, especially as you hair gains enough length to get caught up on/in all sorts of things. The longer bits of your hair are quite elderly and need gentle care and protection or they will sustain damage. Some people are able to wear their hair loose quite often, with minimal damage, others have to wear their hair up all the time. There are lots of hair-friendly ways to wear your hair up to protect the length, this site has loads of information on that. You can wear it down too, it really depends on your own hair and its ability to resist damage. Having a few styles you can do that are non-damaging and "hair-friendly" would be best. I personally love hairforks and hairsticks, but there are lots of things you can use.

[GhostBuster]

i'm not sure if it's better. for me greasy hair falls our much more than fresh hair, don't know why but when it gets greasy it's like i fear to get bald. anyone feeling the same?
I heard somewhere that it's "normal" for you to lose 80-100 strands of hair on a daily basis.. is that even true?

Personally, the amount of hair fall that I get is pretty much the same whether it's fresh or greasy (as you put it). If anything, I feel like my hair is a lot weaker after I wash it.. (Perhaps the shampoo+conditioner strips away the nutrients from my hair)


I think the general consensus here is that leaving hair down will cause some damage, especially as you hair gains enough length to get caught up on/in all sorts of things.
My hair is shoulder length.. does that mean I wouldn't get "as much" damage?

[patienceneeded]

I heard somewhere that it's "normal" for you to lose 80-100 strands of hair on a daily basis.. is that even true?

Personally, the amount of hair fall that I get is pretty much the same whether it's fresh or greasy (as you put it). If anything, I feel like my hair is a lot weaker after I wash it.. (Perhaps the shampoo+conditioner strips away the nutrients from my hair)


My hair is shoulder length.. does that mean I wouldn't get "as much" damage?

80-100 hairs is the normal average. Some lose more or less, nothing wrong with that. I also lose the same amount of hair no matter what, so I consider that MY normal.

I think shoulder-length hair sustains less damage, as it isn't long enough to get caught up on stuff (Like the strap on your purse). As your hair gains length you'll notice all sorts of things your hair rubs against (damaging it) or gets hooked on. When my hair was at shoulder I rarely wore it up, but my hair was thick enough that the only style I COULD do at that length was a ponytail...so I wore it down. Now that my hair his my bra strap It gets caught on everything, and rubbed against the backs of chairs...so I wear it up most of the time and sleep with it braided.

[nightwish90]

it's weird... for me it just falls out like hell when it's greasy, i'm also sure more than 100 hairs per day as when i gently detangle my hair with my fingers and gently pull out the hairs i get 10(or even more) hairs at a time in my hand. maybe i'm weird, i but i don't really get it why this happens to me.:confused:

[catamonica]

Last summer I wore a pony tail every day. But now I bun it. Its much better for your hair. No split ends. Try miniced onion in your shampoo. It makes the hair thicker. Also olive oil, a cap or two in your shampoo & conditioner makes it soft.

[nightwish90]

i usually avoid to pony tail my hair or anything cause i'm afraid to brake it out. i usually let my hair free. and when i let it greasy, usually i'm alone at home or with my relatives and i only bind it in a loose tail at the back of my head. so i don't think it's because of the damage. but thanks for the tips. ;) i was asking myself though if the excess of greasyness could suffocate my hair follicule? is somehting like this possible? how could i know?

[spike316]

it's weird... for me it just falls out like hell when it's greasy, i'm also sure more than 100 hairs per day as when i gently detangle my hair with my fingers and gently pull out the hairs i get 10(or even more) hairs at a time in my hand. maybe i'm weird, i but i don't really get it why this happens to me.:confused:

Sounds like a fungus to me. Does your scalp itch at all when you try to stretch washes? If so you might want to look into tea tree, castor oil, or monistat to help with that. ^_^

[nightwish90]

you mean the distance between washes? if yes, than it itches a little bit but not to the extent that it's disturbing. i don't know actually never thought of it... i thought a little bit itching when the scalp is not clean should be normal? or is it not the same for you? how could i know if i really have fungus?(other than going to dermatologist) are there any other signs or symptoms that can easily be recognised?

[nightwish90]

i suspect i suffer from Seborrhoeic dermatitis? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seborrhoeic_dermatitis#Hair_loss my hair loss isn't local, but diffuse. i have dandruff and if i touch my scalp now it feels kind of irritated, though this is the first time i noticed it. maybe i ignored it cause i thought it's normal. i really have the symptoms listed there and i'm very prone to yeast infection... but i've never thought of it... so i have to adress my hair loss from this point....thank you for your help

[GhostBuster]

Thanks for the help everyone!


you mean the distance between washes? if yes, than it itches a little bit but not to the extent that it's disturbing. i don't know actually never thought of it... i thought a little bit itching when the scalp is not clean should be normal? or is it not the same for you? how could i know if i really have fungus?(other than going to dermatologist) are there any other signs or symptoms that can easily be recognised?
Look up "folliculitis" - maybe you have that..
But, you should get it professionally checked out just to make sure.

[nightwish90]

well, my scalp doesn't look thaaaat bad. i just have some dandruff and i have spots where it feels sore, most on the crown. it's itchy when it's greasy and then it falls more hair out too. my brother was diagnosed with it, and i've read it runs in families... :( so it's possible that i have it too. i've never came to this idea before. i got so used to my scalp that i absolutely ignored it ! maybe this is the point where i should firstly adress the problem with "hair falling out too much". going no poo should be a bad idea at this point, eh? next time i'll try to rinse it with vinegar anyway... anyone cured this seborrheicc dermatitis?

[spidermom]

I have a suggestion - don't brush out your curls! When it's wet, try running a little gel or styling cream through your hair with your fingers and let your hair do its own thing. I have the impression that it's quite curly.