The Minimalist Way of Keeping Hair Clean

We have talked about overwashing your hair and the ‘No Poo’ Movement. But let’s assume you live in a hot humid climate, or are someone who hits the gym regularly feels just way too sweaty for dry shampoo. How can you get away with not washing your hair? Well, you rinse it.

Most people feel that they need to wash their hair after a day of sweating. I know that here in Malaysia, just walking a few blocks is enough to have sweat trickling down my face and back. Sweating is your body’s natural way of cooling you down and a fact of life. We are not going to get into the different sweat glands and types of sweat or body odour here. The fact is that sweat is mostly water, salt, protein, urea, and ammonia. So if you think about it, to get rid of sweat, all you need to do, is hop in the shower and use water to rinse all the sweat out of your hair.

The best way to do this is, is with cold or lukewarm water. I always like to start with warm water for my body and then gradually turn off the hot water so that I get used to the cold. Cold water will wash away most dirt, lifted dead skin cells, odours, and sweat off your hair, but it won’t dissolve oils like warm water will. Which is what you want, you don’t want to end up with wet/oily hair after a hair rinse.

Rinse your hair under cool water, and gently run your fingers through your hair and across your scalp to get the water to all areas of your scalp. But don’t massage your head, you lift your hair so that the water can hit your scalp. Sweat is water-based, so rinsing your hair and scalp with water does a good job of removing it on its own. If you keep the water cool and scrubbing to a minimum, you won’t wash away your natural hair oils or mess up your scalp’s oil production.

Then dry and style as usual. Rinsing your hair with water will save you time and money in the long run. So give it a try.