Because I Said So! by Ken Jennings

Because I Said So! by Ken Jennings

Author:Ken Jennings
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Scribner


MOSTLY TRUE.

“Make sure you shampoo every day!”

My mom counted herself lucky if we washed our hair once a week (usually on Saturday night, Little House on the Prairie–style!), but today more and more people lather up with shampoo daily. In turn-of-the-century America, the average hair-washing frequency was once a month—not that modern detergent-based shampoos had even been invented yet. The earliest “shampoos” were soap-based scalp massages prepared by hair salons. (The word “shampoo” even comes from the Hindi champo, meaning “to massage.”) But in May 1908, a New York Times beauty column recommended shampooing twice as often, every two weeks! This kicked off a century-long arms race of escalating hair-washing frequency. Today, according to a Procter & Gamble survey, Americans wash their hair 4.59 times every week, twice as often as people do in Spain or Italy.

Most dermatologists and stylists say that’s too often. “Hair is a fiber,” one dermatologist and hair research specialist told WebMD. “Think of a wool fiber: the more you wash it, the worse it’s going to look. There’s no need to wash your hair every day.” The right frequency is going to vary based on your hair type and style, as well as by the type of shampoo you use, but two or three times a week is the average that doctors recommend. The oil-producing sebaceous glands in your scalp learn to compensate for your hair-care routine. If you’re stripping away sebum (one of the few bodily secretions less gross than its name, by the way—it’s just hair oil) on a daily basis, your body will just compensate by making more.

Shampoo companies, of course, want you to wash your hair every day. That way they move more product. A 2005 Dove study aimed at persuading women to lather up more revealed the shocking fact that 60 percent of women don’t shampoo every day, in hopes of protecting their hair! Scandalous. On the other side of the spectrum is the “No ’Poo” movement, which cuts out commercial shampoos altogether (mostly to avoid additives like sulfates) in favor of a more natural approach, like baking soda and vinegar rinses. (If you combine the two, you get the look that salon stylists refer to as “science fair volcano.”)

If you must shampoo the full 365 times a year, dermatologists recommend sticking to a lightweight shampoo marked for everyday use. And don’t listen for the squeak of freshly rinsed hair as a sign of cleanliness, a noise my mom always insisted on. Hair only squeaks for two reasons: when you’ve washed it too much (and stripped it of so much natural oil that it might turn brittle and dry) or way too little (and there’s a family of mice living in it).



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