Shampooing hair is often a daunting and inevitable task in the life of any human being. At times you may find yourself wondering how long you can get ‘away’ with not shampooing your hair.
Frequently we will have customers in our salon that ask what is normal and how long is ‘ok’ to go without shampooing. What they typically find with that question is that nearly all of our salon professionals do NOT shampoo daily. In fact, the average salon professional at Seven Salon shampoos only 1.76 times per week. If that makes you cringe, what is even more incredible is that the record for not shampooing the longest amount of time at our salon is 23 days. This doesn’t always mean that they aren’t getting their hair wet, using re-styling products, or other tricks to get them through. With this information, we want to give you a little more insight into this long held tradition.
Seven Salon customer, and former East Coast Stylist from 1968-1978 Donna Mills reminisces frequently with Seven Salon co-owner Shannon Stickman while getting her hair done. She had the opportunity to clean and style the wiglet for Phyllis Diller and also styled a ‘fall’ for Lainie Kazan!! In a recent conversation, Donna mentions how all of the styles were highly sprayed and ‘lacquered’, and the ladies then shampooed only about once a week. What was popular was for them to wear silk caps or used silk pillowcases to help retain their ‘style’ between weekly appointments. She also added that as styles changed and hair became longer, it was common to use a small amount of baby powder to absorb the excess oil in the hair, rub it through the hair, and then tip you head upside down and brush until it was gone. This, in turn, made the hair lightweight again and removed oil and dirt. The shorter styles would just need re-misting and blown dry to put the style back in place.
Not much has truly changed within the industry of styling. We understand that frequent shampooing can over dry the hair and the scalp, which then causes the scalp to produce more sebum (or oil) to keep it at a healthy balance after the natural oils have been taken by the shampoo.
The more you begin to let you hair rest from shampooing, you will begin to experience less oil, better styling and longer lasting hold. You may also see breakage and damage begin to diminish. The hardest part to get through is the ‘feeling’ of being not shampooed when you are used to that fresh feeling.
How can you get that fresh feeling when you aren’t shampooing? Product, believe it or not! Seven Salon professional Blake Rave insists that ‘Dry Shampoo is the duct tape of beauty products’. A nearly essential part of refreshing the style, eliminating dirt and oil, and bringing the hair back to life. Many of our salon pros also utilize a number of products to assist in restlying such as Tigi Bed Head Spoil Me, Tigi Catwalk Salt Spray, or Catwalk Fast Fixx spray.
Seven Salon professional Jamie Knott used to shampoo daily, but now is a twice a week shampoo-er. “This helps keep my fashion color stay longer for me”. Jamie loves wearing red, purple and even blue haircolor. On the same note, Seven Salon professional Brianne mentions that having extensions also helps her to go longer between shampoos.
When asked if the stylists wanted to go even longer, most have them said yes and even have tried to extend it past a week, generally. Haircolor also was a factor for a few for how long they could go. Most would also wear it several different ways to get through the week eventually ending up with their hair in an ‘up’ style, even perhaps styled with a scarf or head bands to assist in disguising where they are at in the process of not shampooing or, as stylist Ashley puts it, ‘pair it with a nice headband if things are getting a little wonky’. Seven Salon professional Arielle coined the word ‘co-wash’ which is actually only conditioning upon wetting hair, hence extending the life of the shampoo.
Co owners Nikki and Shannon each go about 3-4 days between shampoos, timing it with their busy schedules. ‘Its important to get past that stage of feeling dirty, I remember going 7 days once just to test a shampoo ‘lightness’ factor and discovered I was liking my hair better and better.’ Stickman states.
One of our stylists, Ashley C., a workout fanatic, sweats each day during workout and still maintains a once a week shampoo. In her eyes, its all about the dry shampoo. Manager Katie also brings up a good point that sleeping with a satin pillow case, just like in the 60s and 70s is always great to maintain a style and avoid touching the hair too much with your hands. Even with ethnic hair, it is a healthy decision to refrain from shampooing too often. Seven Salon stylist Destinee shampoos only when it gets too oily and then she will curl or wave her ethnic hair to elongate the style or do braid crowns and buns.
So if you still aren’t convinced after the pros have spoken, we suggest you experiment!! Let us know your results! Feel free to facebook message our salon page or email us at sevensalon@hotmail.com.
Written by Shannon Stickman
Co Creator Of Seven Salon
