The Shampoo You Need In Your Shower Now
The hair-washing mantra these days is less is more. The longer you can stretch time between sudsings, the healthier your hair. Right? Not quite.
The general thinking is that by limiting cleansing you’re not stripping oil or color molecules as regularly—and you're avoiding damp-to-dry heat styling on a daily basis. However, not shampooing at least two to three times a week has a downside too.
As I wrote here, allowing products (dry shampoo, blowout cream, hairspray, even heavy conditioners) to build up on your hair, week after week, can cause breakage, hair loss and even inhibit future growth. Not to mention it’s pretty gross. NYC colorist Joel Warren once told me for a Women’s Health article that he had a client that went so long between shampoos, when his assistant washed her hair before a color service, it would stink up the whole salon.
Similarly, another pro revealed that he had a client who rinsed with water, skipped shampoo and used a drugstore conditioner for months and months, convinced she was deeply nourishing her hair. Then it started to break off. He said the conditioner buildup on her hair grew so heavy, it literally weighed down her strands and caused them to split.
The solution in both cases was the same: a clarifying shampoo. Like going to the dentist every six months to get rid of plaque, using a clarifier at least once a month helps to ensure buildup does no damage to your ’do (especially important for infrequent washers). I also like to think of clarifiers as the hair version of a peel: By regularly getting rid of buildup, you're enabling whatever treatment you apply next (e.g. for skin, an anti-aging cream; for hair, a deep conditioner) to penetrate deeper and more evenly—and to work more effectively.
Finally, the deep-cleaning formulas now are sexier than they were when we used them to remove chlorine or Aqua Net in the '80s. I'm obsessed with Christophe Robin’s Purifying Scrub with Sea Salt. It’s like a body scrub that foams up the second you mix it with water, invigorating your scalp and dissolving heavy buildup quickly without compromising your color. Oribe The Cleanse Clarifying Shampoo squirts out like mousse and contains deep-cleaning volcanic ash. And Fekkai’s Apple Cider Shampoo is not that new, but it smells like fresh Granny Smith Apples (and so will your whole bathroom)—and it's safe for color-treated hair.
