Just how often should you wash your natural hair?

How often natural hair needs to be washed varies from person to person. It depends on these factors:

-The amount of oil your scalp produces
-Your hair density and texture
-Hair porosity
-The styles you like to wear
-The length of your hair (shorter hair is no doubt easier to wash more frequently)
-The number of hair products that you use and the way that your hair reacts to products (if you use lots of styling products you will definitely need to wash your hair more frequently than someone who uses hair styling products minimally).

The above factors contribute to the decision as to how often washing is best for you. Aside from your usual schedule there may be some indicators that you are not aware of that are signals that a wash day is in order:

-Your hair doesn’t seem to get moisturized no matter what you do or put on it.
-In the above case more than likely you have product buildup which is creating a barrier so that your hair cannot receive the moisture you are attempting to put into it. Try using a clarifying shampoo.
-Tangles in your hair are getting out of control.
-Difficulty managing and manipulating your hair (water helps in the elasticity department).
-Weighed down hair
-Your curl definition is lacklustre

My personal experience
I will say that, in my personal experience, at least once a week is absolutely necessary. This is true because my hair tangles more and more as time goes by without washing it. So, in essence, the drier my 3c hair gets, the more difficult it is to manage.

In order to decrease tangles, believe it or not, the best thing to do is to increase the hair’s moisture level by completely immersing it with water and washing it. Notice that I recommend complete immersion and thorough washing. To explain, when I began to stretch the time between washings by employing twist outs which require lightly misting hair with water for moisture I noticed an increase in the number of split ends that occurred.

My hair’s moisture level was too low for my hair to be manipulated. Translation? The lack of moisture contributed to dry hair that was inclined to tangle and that meant more knots than usual. That, in turn, meant more knotty and split ends that I had to cut off with the scissors.

All curly hair type DESPERATELY need moisture and lots of it.

So if you are experiencing lots of problems with managing your curls, consider washing your hair more frequently. The answer just might be as simple as that!

This article first appeared on curlynikki.com.