5 tips for spacing out your hair washes – LAO Care

It is estimated that nearly 40%* of the French population has oily-prone hair... and this figure keeps rising because of the intensification of harmful external factors, such as growing air pollution. Pollution, along with UVA rays in particular, creates oxidative stress on our hair fiber, damaging it day after day.

We also know how tiresome it is to have to wash your hair every day, or to wake up the day after washing with heavy, shiny roots. It can even make you lose confidence, because it makes you feel dirty, as if you hadn't done what you should have for your hygiene.

And yet! Shiny-looking hair doesn't necessarily have anything to do with hygiene. We're going to explain why, and above all give you 5 tips for keeping your hair clean for longer.

The causes

As we mentioned in the intro, our hair and scalp are victims every day of the damage linked to pollution and UV rays... but there are many other causes! The oily effect on hair can, for example, be amplified by perspiration, if you sleep in an overheated bedroom, or if you work out very regularly.

Also, choosing the wrong care products, ones that are too heavy, can give an oily effect as early as the day after washing, or even as soon as your hair is dry.

1) Don't fiddle with your hair

Who doesn't have that little habit of running a hand through their hair several times a day, to clear their field of vision, or as a nervous reflex? This gesture seems harmless.. but not for oily hair!

Indeed, your skin is covered with a thin film of sebum, and by touching your hair, you transfer that sebum onto it and end up with an oily strand!

By the way, if the skin on your forehead tends to be oily, this can also create excess sebum on the hair that is in contact with it!

2) Tie your hair up... but not too tight

If you're always touching your hair, it may be time to figure out whether it's because it bothers you falling in front of your face, or out of nervousness. Either way, you can get hair out of your face by doing a very simple hairstyle that only includes the front strands! A barrette and you're done!

Don't tie your hair too tightly, as this will press it against your scalp and encourage the transfer of oil from the scalp or forehead!

3) Choose a good shampoo without sulfates or silicones

We often make the mistake of choosing our shampoo based on our lengths, when it should be chosen first and foremost according to the needs of your scalp! For example, if you have oily roots but dry lengths, go for a purifying shampoo and pair it with a targeted treatment for the lengths, one that contains coating active ingredients.

For example, the Purifying Shampoo by LAO with organic nettle hydrosol will be perfect for oily-prone hair. It can be paired with our Conditioner, which is a perfect detangling care product for fine or normal hair that struggles with knots!

So avoid shampoos containing oil, and choose shampoos containing nettle, long known for its sebum-regulating properties, or sage, for example! That way, the shampoo will wash without leaving any residue on the hair!

Besides their harmful effect on the environment, sulfates and silicones are best avoided for oily-prone hair. Sulfates are cleansing agents found in large quantities in often low-end shampoos, because they are cheap and lather a lot. However, they can be too stripping for your scalp, which, when irritated, will produce more sebum to compensate.

You can spot sulfates in the ingredient list of your shampoo under the names: Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (SLS), Sodium Lauret Sulfate...

Silicones (and their derivatives, the quats) are molecules added to care products and shampoos for their "coating" function; that is, they coat your hair to discipline the fiber. This makes it temporarily softer, and possibly shiny. However, in addition to being polluting, silicones can be too heavy for fine or oily-prone hair, and residue can build up.. giving you the impression, from the 2nd day after washing, that you need to wash your hair again!

4) Wash your hairbrush regularly

The hairbrush is a real nest of bacteria, sebum and dust... and yet many of us forget to wash it regularly! While a stroke of the brush helps detangle and spread sebum along the lengths, the sebum builds up in the pins or bristles... and immediately gives you an oily effect the next time you brush clean hair!

By the way, we recommend you choose bamboo or wooden brushes, which are gentler on the hair fiber and create less static electricity. Indeed, wood and bamboo both have antistatic properties!

5) Don't space out your washes too much!

Yes, we've always been told that you should space out your washes as much as possible, that it was a way to train your scalp so that it gets oily less quickly. In our view, it really depends on your daily life and your habits, as mentioned in the other tips! But it's still advice worth trying to follow.

However, it is very bad for an oily scalp to wait too long between washes. Indeed, sebum has an acidic pH, often a little more so than skin, which is itself acidic. The accumulation of sebum will suffocate the hair roots and can damage the scalp, resulting in itching, pimples, scabs.. as shown by the many people who tried "sebum treatments" during lockdown in 2020!

A word on solid shampoos

Solid shampoos... it's all or nothing! You should know that, because there is no water in the composition of solid shampoos, formulators have to start from a fatty base to hold the solid consistency. That's why solid shampoos are mostly made up of a lot of plant butters and oils. You may have guessed if you read point #2: these oils risk staying on your hair fiber even after rinsing, and quickly giving it an oily look!

On top of that, solid shampoos very often contain a high concentration of cleansing agents, the vast majority being Sodium Cocoyl Isethionate (SCI), which at a high dose can be irritating, in addition to creating carcinogenic by-products during its manufacture (ethoxylation reaction).

If you've made it this far, we can only recommend that you try the LAO care shampoo with nettle hydrosol, which also contains gentle, sulfate-free cleansing agents. It's the brand's best seller and its reviews are glowing!