You're Probably Not Shampooing Correctly

Even though we've been shampooing our own hair for most of our lives, I often find that many of my friends and clients aren't doing it right. A good shampoo is more important than you might think, and if you do it wrong, you can even damage your hair! Here are my tips for the most efficient shampooing job resulting in the squeakiest clean and healthiest of hair!

Find the right shampoo for you. Always consult with your stylist about this before buying shampoo. You might need shampoo for color treated hair, you might need it for volume, dry hair, flaky scalp or for just plain normal everyday cleaning. The first step is to be using the right product and your stylist will help you figure out what your shampooing needs are.

Don't shampoo too often. If you are in the habit of shampooing every day, it's likely that your scalp is working over time to produce the natural oils that are being stripped away when you wash your hair. This is one reason why you might feel like your hair is dirty the next day. Try to skip a day and once your hair is used to that, you can start shampooing ever two days or more. If you hate oily looking hair, you can use dry shampoo on your roots and it will look good as new! Another trick is to just shampoo your bangs (if you have them) and put the rest of that dirty hair up in a cute topknot or pony. I only shampoo every 5 days thanks to dry shampoo. It's changed my life.

Focus on your scalp. Shampoo can really dry out your hair, so instead of scrubbing roots to ends, I scrub roots only and let the shampoo do its job cleaning the rest when it's being rinsed out. My hair is naturally brittle, and with highlights on top of that, I want to avoid any extra drying out that I can.

Repeat if necessary. It's not really necessary to use handfuls of shampoo to get it clean. I suggest doing a good scrub with just a quarter size amount of shampoo for round one. You wont get a good lather, but you'll loosen up all the dirt, oil and product that's building up. After rinsing, repeat with another quarter size and it should lather right up! This foamy, soapy-ness is how you know your hair is clean.