I wash my hair about every other day depending on if I have a permanent or the style I am wearing. My grandmother had very long hair and didn't wash it. She used a very fine tooth comb and combed it every time she took the braids down. I think that was a hold over from the days when she was younger and they didn't have facilities to bathe in the winter time.

I wash my hair every day or two. I've tried to go longer so it will stop producing the oils so fast that the shampoo strips out, but it just doesn't seem to work with my hair. I have thin, fine, long hair, and it look terrible if I go more than two days without shampooing. I feel gross too. But I agree with the others, that if these women are using baking soda, vinegar, or other things, they are still washing their hair, just with more natural products than shampoo.

Well, I am guessing my scalp will never "calm down" then. LOL

I read the article the other day and sent it to my granddaughter, who told me recently that she and her friends (high school seniors) have stopped washing their hair every day.

I had told her when I was her age women washed their hair once a week, and sometimes used it as an excuse to turn down a date. ("I have to wash my hair.") I was amused to see this mentioned in the article.

I said during that time (1950s to 1960s) women often went to a salon (we called it a "beauty parlor") to get their hair washed and styled once a week. Then they tried hard to keep their hair looking styled all week. I remember satin pillowcases, etc. And I also told my granddaughter a lot of older women walked around in curlers all day. Pink curlers.

I can skip washing my hair a day in winter, but come summer I'll be shampooing with every shower--and that means twice a day on hot days.

Back in the day (aren't you tired of hearing that?) we washed our hair with Octagon soap, and rinsed with vinegar. We made a lather with the soap; never rubbed the soap on our hair.

I don't remember that any of us had anything but nice shiny, clean hair. In the Summer, if we were lucky to have a hard rain, we used rain water to wash our hair with.

And then came Shampoo, and we fell for the hype.

Sue

I wash my hair about once a week. The day I wash my hair, it feels dry and fly-away-though I do use conditioner. The next day it fells clean but much softer and easy to manage. By the sixth or seventh day it starts getting limp and a bit greasy, sometimes my scalp will itch. All signs it's time for another shampoo. When I was a teen I wasahed my hair every other day.

People get marketed into believing they need all these specialized cleaners for everything. You have to have a proper PH shampoo with conditioner formulated for your particular hair, texture, color and more. It's a great example of how brainwashed society is and how effective TV advertising is too.

Certainly someone working hard, sweating constantly and the like needs more attention than someone at a desk all day in a climate controlled office. But it's interesting, if not entertaining to see people when I see people (and I'm not talking about any posters here) so worried about hair or something else, some of whom probably wash their hair more often than they wash their hands! I'm glad I'm out of the office work. Some of those people were flat out pigs.

Every second day but more often if I am sweating from physical exertion (and that's not often!! LOL!). If I leave it any more than two days, my scalp itches and I feel uncomfortable.

I wash my hair every third day. I have curly hair and if I washed it every day - it breaks terribly - no matter what products I use.

I do wash it more in the summer if I am dirty/sweaty. I also wash it every day when I am working in the harvest fields in the fall - I have chunks of corn it it, LOL!

Sampoo. Me? I rinse my hair each time I shower using nothing more than the warm to hot water from the shower head. I do that first, and then proceed with my shower. I shampoo whenever it feels that my hair is getting too dirty or greasy, otherwise, its a water rinse only - enough to wash the sweat out. By that schedule, I shampoo maybe one to two tmes a week. A lot depends on my activity and the air ambient temperature. Anything that promotes sweating will hasten the need to shampoo.

Immediately following a shampoo and shower, I revitalize my hair with dab of Brycreem thoroughly combed in. (I know - Brylcreem - Old fashioned, but it works wonders for me and it is applied only once after shampooing. I produce enough scalp oils thereafter to handle the frizzes.)

Depends on if I am here in ND or in CA. Most of the time once maybe twice a week. I have good quality of hair, but it does get oily if I don't do it at least the once a week. My grandma always used either lemon or vinegar for a rinse and bluing. She had the prettiest white long hair--just glisten. Rolled it in rags too, If I did that, it would look like I stuck my finger in a socket.

I have very different feelings about this. I wash my hair to get rid of the oil, I want it stripped, I want it shiny and light. I don't use conditions unless I have a perm, conditioners coats your hair with the same stuff you just washed off. I don't like the clumpy way the celebs wear their hair, it looks dirty. All of my life the stylist have complimented me on the body my hair has and how it shines and behaves.

I agree people buy into the hype, another name for it is brain washing.

Usually about a week, maybe up till 10 days, if the head doesn't signal the need for quite a lot of scratching.

Hadn't found a way to get the hind leg to do the scratching, as the dogs and cats do, even when I was younger ... and certainly not, now!

Liquid shampoo on to hand, share with other hand, vigorous rubbing/scratching with fingernails, 2 soapings, then good rinse with water, then add conditioner about 1 min., then rinse with water.

It is soft and light for a day or so, tends to blow more in the wind.

Have about a pint of shampoo ... much more partner conditioner, same sized bottle, bought together some time ago. Probably enough to last me through the rest of life ... haven't given thought as to whom to bequeath it.

Should try some vinegar in the rinse water: thanks for the suggestion, folks. Will need to be careful not to soak the tongue in it ... no need of vinegary comments around here.

o j

When i have hair i was h it every other day,if i let it go longer than that you could fry eggs on it,as it gets soooooooooooo oily.Besides i don't like the feeling of unclean hair.

When we were kids we didn't have running water,unless we ran to the spring to get it.So back then mom washed our hair once a week.Also when it rained we go out and stand in the yard with our bar of ivory soap and wash our hair in the rain,and use vinegar in the rinse water.to cut the soap scum.
Kathi

My hair is so long and thick, it takes 30+ minutes to shampoo.

I can't imagine any head of hair so long that it takes a half-hour to get it clean. Rosemary, are you Crystal Gayle, by any chance? :-)

{{!gwi}}

I've always had thick hair, and it takes an age to dry. I shampoo about every five or six days -- one lather; conditioner once in a while; dab of setting cream while hair is damp...then the long chore of drying.

I never shampoo in the shower; don't like to feel hair on me, and I like to try to keep the hair out of the drain, which I can do using the sink. (Love the deep sinks in our bathroom -- and that he cleans his and I clean mine!)

I think you can use anything to shampoo (anything that's not Tide!). You want a good conditioner though.

It does take a solid 30 minutes to shampoo and condition. Every single time I get my hair cut (which isn't often these days), the hairstylist goes on and on about how I have more hair than anyone she's ever seen. It's extremely thick, extremely coarse and I have enough hair for five people. And now it's quite long (about a foot past my shoulders).

Plus, we have these water-saving shower heads that only do 2.5 gallons per minute, so I have to stand and wait for that little bit of water to saturate my hair. It takes quite a while just to get my hair wet.

I've put my hair in a pony tail while it's drying and the next day, I'll take out of the pony tail and it's still damp. Crazy.

I'm a clean freak, and I washed my hair everyday for years. But my curly hair was dry and frizzy. A stylist told me I should go to every three days, and she was 100% correct. My hair went from dull and frizzy to shiny and much more manageable. The change was really dramatic.

My daughter had her long hair done in corn rows. Remember how Bo Derek looked in Ten? She kept them clean by rinsing in the shower every day. She got the corn rows undone when they started getting frizzy.

I wash my hair any day that I plan on leaving the house. I have very fine, thin, straight hair and I use a curling iron to set it. Even though it is short, I have to use hair spray to keep it where it belongs and not in my eyes. as any little breeze will totally rearrange it. Once my hair has been sprayed, it has to be washed before I can use the curling iron on it again.

I have always had a hair style that can blow in the wind, when I go inside I can comb it and it looks good. Sometimes I can run my fingers through it and it's fine. I try spray every once in awhile, but 2 or 3 times and I am sick of the stiff stuff. When the wind blows it with hair spray it sticks up every which way.

This is an interesting post. Lately I have had a battle with oil on my scalp and face. I have always washed my hair once a day. I am 57 now and I don't know what is going on. I tried cutting back on the shampooing because I thought that I was over shampooing(I then scratched myself like an old abandoned dog left on the side of the road gave that idea up!) I Now need to shampoo twice daily because of all the oil my scalp produces. ARGH. I have asked my dr. if it is one my meds that I am on that causes this oil and he tells me he doesn't know. I am at a quandry. I could run a small town on the oil I produce. LOL. So, until I find an answer, I shampoo, dry, shampoo, dry. Any ideas or suggestions?

One of the PPI's made my head itch something awful, another one made me feel like I had been rolling in insulation. When I quit taking them, the itching stopped. As I got older I developed a skin problem starting on my head. So be sure the problem is not a skin problem, the shampooing may make it worse. The problem on my head was creeping down onto my face and the dermatologist told me to use moisturizer on it, dryness makes it worse. He also gave me some samples of Elidel or something like that. Yikes, people who use that have higher instances of lymphoma.

I wash my hair almost everyday, but I never use conditioner. Somedays if I am not going anywhere, I will just rinse my hair with warm water and style as usual.

I wash my hair every other day. I have extremely thick wavy hair, and it just wont look good or cooperate if I do it less often. It gets ugly waves that won't settle down until I wash it. I also need to use conditioner or else I have terrible tangles.

I wash my hair either everyday or every other. More than two days and my head is a greasy, itchy mess. I really don't believe that some of those women who don't wash their hair with anything at all, do not smell funky.

I wash my hair maybe every 5-6 days, slightly more often in the summer. As another poster said, I will rinse it if I've gotten very sweaty. I also have very heavy hair (like the OP, if I wash it and put it in a ponytail, it will still be damp the next day). It's always been dry, and now that I'm older, it tends to frizz, so I like having the extra oils in my hair. (It's not greasy at all, it's just not dry.)

When I was younger, I washed my hair every day for a short time, but pretty quickly settled down to every third day or so. And strangers used to stop me on the street fairly often to compliment me on my hair. (No more, sadly:)

I think that article is misleading, though. They're not talking about cleaning the hair, just about cleaning it with shampoo.

I usually wash my hair every day. I have thin, fine hair and on the second day it is so oily I can't stand it!

My daughter, on the other hand, inherited the thick hair on my husband's side of the family. She only has to shampoo once a week or so. It takes forever to dry.

I have long hair and I wash it once a week usually. I often do a vinegar rinse in the summer months because it brings out natural highlights if you let you hair dry outside. Rain water used to be the best conditioner for the silkiest hair ever but I haven't used that in years now. I also never use a hair dryer, curling iron, colours etc. I was a hair dresser when I was younger, we way over do our hair and skin. With my skin....I never use soap on my face and seldom wear make up.

I have psoriasis on my head so I have to wash it every single day. I use a good conditioner after every shampoo. About 3 times a week I satuate my head with olive oil, put a shower cap on and wear it most of the day. That helps with the scaling that psoriasis causes and is soothing to a tender scalp.

Deb

Shampooing my hair is just part of my daily bath. I do keep my hair short and don't even bother to blow it dry unless I am in a big hurry to go somewhere. Usually I just moosh it around with my fingers and it's done....Now with my bald head beginning to be covered with hair, I still do it. My life style is such that I feel the need to do it everyday. By the time I do all my chores, work in the garden or just pick the veggies, etc etc I'm all sweaty and it seems like since chemo that sweating part is worse than ever.

Dirty hair stinks.
Maybe not if you don't work hard but I do and I sweat so I have to wash my hair every day.

Lori

The method described in rosemaryt's linked article of diluted baking soda followed by a diluted apple cider vinegar rinse sounds workable.

Not for me, though. I color my hair, so that might alter the dye color or strip it. I use shampoo and conditioner specifically made to protect the hair color.

I have an old book called A Girl of the Limberlost, historical fiction that tells the life of a midwestern girl in about 1900 or so. It is described as common practice that she only washes her hair about once a month, using a harsh bar soap because that is all they have. She brushes her hair a hundred strokes every night to distribute the scalp oil to her dried-out hair.

I need to shampoo every morning to get my brain started. If I don't begin the morning with water running over my head, I feel foggy all day.

Well, jupidupi, thanks for reviving this blast from the past! I looked at my response from ten years ago. I contemplated the baking soda wash. Well, I did it. I use only baking soda and water. I don't remember exactly when I began, but I'll venture to say that it's been at least three years. And I'm happy with my hair. I don't use vinegar or anything else as a rinse.

I wash my hair every other day. On weekends, I *might* wash my hair depending on whether or not I'm going anywhere. If not, then I let it go until Monday morning before I go to work. The more you shampoo your hair, the more damage it does to your hair. 3x a week is more than I should be washing it, but I sweat a lot at work so I feel I have to wash it at least that often. I deep moisturize once a week.

I wash my hair every day. I live in Texas and bicycle often and get hot and sweaty.

Couldn't get the article so I don't know if they covered this. Historically people didn't start washing their hair until the late 17th century and that would have been well to do people who washed regularly. You have to go without washing it for weeks before it recovers from our modern rituals. It is hard to believe that people who routinely got lice and fleas did not wash their hair but they did not.

Every day. I walk 15000+ steps daily and sweat a lot. I think it is quite disgusting to not wash your hair if you sweat a lot. After all,even though we say we are washing our hair, the way i see it is I am washing my scalp. The hair just gets clean too. Your scalp is skin which sheds dead cells and sweats. Is there another part of the body that is okay not to wash when it gets sweaty and gross? Not for me. Ew. I guess if you don't get sweaty or go out daily it's not as necessary. If for some reason I have to skip washing my hair, say if I dont have time,I feel absolutely grimy and smelly and completely out of sorts until I can get in the shower and wash it. And if I had a bad day, the act of washing my hair does wonders for my spirits. I dont know why. But it helps me feel better. And don't get me started on dry shampoo. The idea of it is gross to me.

I have found that the best shampoo for oily hair is Suave Daily Clarifying. It contains citric acid that cuts the grease. I imagine there are other brands of clarifying shampoos out there, though as the ad says, why pay more?

I go to the hairdresser once a week. I cannot move fast enough to work up a sweat, and due to breathing issues, I do not stay out in the heat - very hard to breath. So no sweaty hair for me. My hair is neither dry nor oily - just in-between and healthy.

There was a time in my life when I washed my hair daily - swimming in the ocean makes ones hair nasty, or just sweating when gardening.

I'm old enough to remember when no one washed her hair more often than weekly, unless she had a standing appointment at the hair dresser. There were no such things as portable hair dryers. Remember when those hat box ones came out that had the hoses and a huge plastic bonnet? I think I was probably in my early teens. These things revolutionized how often women washed their hair. They just brushed it and sometimes took a bit of witch hazel on a cotton puff and used it on their scalp if it was oily. Before that, one washed their hair in the evening, set it in rollers and went to bed when it was still damp. One hoped for the best that it was dry in the AM and a roller had not gone haywire and one ended up with a crazy curl somewhere!

Since I have had a shower I have always washed my hair when showering. When my skin started cracking and itching because it was too dry my doctor told me not to take so many showers. Since I stopped showering every day my hair is in a much better condition and has more body. As it was explained to me that conditioners do not take the place of the natural oils generated by the scalp. The add on, rinse off conditioners left a film on my hair that was flattening the strands.

I also really love the Suave Daily Clarifying shampoo, it's dirt cheap and doesn't harm my very delicate fine hair. I just stumbled upon it too. I had bought it for my husband and he didn't use it so I had this huge bottle and used it and was surprised at how well it did for my fine hair and plus, it doesn't make my scalp itch, that has become an issue for me. I also found a conditioner that I love, it's Martix Biolage, the detangling one. Finally, a conditioner that doesn't make my scalp itch AND actually takes the tangles out of my insanely tangle prone hair. I used to shampoo daily because I styled my hair every day. Now, I just put it in a ponytail and call it done. I wash my hair about every third day now. I'd be very afraid to put baking soda in my fragile hair...I'm sure it would destroy it. I once (ONE TIME) used Dr. Bronner's liquid Castile to wash my hair and it damaged it so badly that it had to grow out before it was normal again. UGH! I'm lucky that I have hair, don't get me wrong, but my hair is very weird! My scalp is also very oily...so I cannot go very long without washing. Three days is pushing it and I can only pull it off because I wear it in a ponytail. I also can't stand the smell of stinky hair...UGH! It gets stinky after a couple days. That's when I know it's time to wash!

I quit using shampoo 3 years ago and now use baking soda and use a cider vinegar rinse when it needs it. Google no-poo and you'll see blogs about it.

I know Rob333 as does another member, Carol in California? Lindsey? does the same thing. My hair doesn't get washed every day and doesn't get greasy like it did when using shampoo. Every second day or sometimes 3rd day I'll wash it.

Why do women maintain all this hair on our heads? the stuff that absorbs all that sweat and dirt and needs to be washed. Why don't we keep it clipped short or even shave it off? Most men don't keep long hair on their faces or their heads. Many men shave all the hair off their heads and faces.

Because we are vain. Because we are brainwashed into believing what "they" say is attractive.

I tried the "no-poo" for a while but missed the suds from shampoo. I wash my hair 3 times a week sometimes 4.

Most women like having hair. And the rest of me gets dirty and sweaty too. If I am gonna be in the shower daily anyway, washing my hair is hardly an extra burden. Why live in a house or apartment that has to be cleaned? Why not just live outside so as not to be bothered? Why do we wear clothes? We all know what's under there anyway and they have to be *gasp* WASHED when they get dirty.

Men and women are vain. Lots of men who shave their heads do so because they are balding and they think it looks better to have no hair than having some hair. Ask them and many will wish for a full head of hair to maintain. And many women shave or wax hair off their faces too I am told. All 3 of my brothers shave their heads because they were losing their hair. They shave both their head and face daily to maintain that look. It takes longer to do that than washing and drying my hair. A lot longer.

When I was a teenager I had long straight hair (hippie style). I showered and washed my hair every night. I worked at a hot dirty factory where the older women all went once a week and had their hair styled, teased and lacquered up so hard that it lasted all week without a wash or a comb out or anything. Yet here they accused me of being a dirty hippie. Go figure.

I also discovered Suave Daily Clarifying Shampoo and love it. I have very oily hair and need something that gets it out. I can't stand the thoughts of going without shampooing my hair at least every other day.

ritaweeda, I heard someone call that style they wore a "tease and freeze" recently. It amuses me to no end. I adopted football helmet hair after Steel Magnolias came out, but I like their comment so much more, I think that's gonna stick with me a while.