Researcher: That’s how often you should be washing your hair

Maybe it’s part of your daily routine, maybe you do it sometime a week? It is hard to avoid washing hair as a human being in modern society.

But how many times does one have to lather the nearly 100,000 hair follicles in the scalp before they become for mostly? Are there general and scientific guidelines in the first place?

According to Jørgen Serup, the answer is yes. He is a Professor and Senior Physician in the Department of Dermatology at Bispebjerg Hospital in Denmark and an expert in the skin and its insides.

He stresses that, of course, there is no one-size-fits-all model, but there are generally two factors to consider:

One has to do with how often it is necessary based on a purely medical or biological need as we wish to avoid unpleasant side effects, such as fungal infections.

The second relates to a cosmetic need, which is that we would like to maintain a certain cleanliness for the sake of our self-esteem and, for example, to smell a certain way.

Too little can cause problems, too

If you don’t care about the appearance of your curls, it’s surprising how rare it is to touch shampoo from a more medical perspective.

In fact, you probably only need to wash your hair once a month or every 14 days to keep it clean, for example, without the smell of old sebum, he says.

If you wash your hair less often than that, the sebum that’s constantly being produced by the sebaceous glands adjacent to your follicles, according to the professor, will eventually start to go rancid and acidic – like butter that’s been left out for too long.

Do not wash over it

At the other end of the scale, washing your hair too often can end up stripping the grease from your hair and scalp. It can cause problems with itching, eczema, redness and small visible scales.

– We are constantly working on forming new skin cells that fall off like scales. The sebum on the scalp usually ensures that the scales are invisible and acts as a natural moisturizing lotion for the body, explains the professor.

Therefore, he also cautions against daily hair washing, although he admits that “what people want to do with their hair is very individual.”

– If we were to find an average, it would probably be a maximum of twice a week – and preferably only once, if you can stick to it. If you wash more than that, you cross the threshold where your scalp and hair start to get damaged because of it, and you can get eczema, among other things.