I have a new temporary substitute hair stylist who is trying to convince me that I shouldn't wash my hair every day.
This is like telling a 58-year-old woman that she should give up a lifetime addiction to mayonnaise and switch to gluten-free vegan soy Tofu Whip. Don't even.
Temporary Substitute Hair Stylist says daily shampooing is bad. It's bad for my hair, bad for my own personal happiness, and it dates me. It's also bad for the environment, so it is frowned upon in my home state. You can take the girl out of Ohio, but you can't force her to be a water conservationist and even California won't come into my bathroom. I don't think.
I have washed my hair every day for approximately 48 years, with a handful of exceptions. In the 1970s, it was what girls did. Through long straight hair to pixie cuts and everything in between, my daily morning routine started with taking a shower and washing my hair. Part of the reason back then was I was in adolescence and the hormone tornado that was going on in my body was producing enough oil in my hair to deep-fry candy bars for entire Midwestern states.
So I washed my hair and I washed it again. And again and again until it became just what I do.
In fact, now I do it so automatically, that on the days I'm getting my hair cut and colored, when I'm not supposed to wash my hair, I will write in big red letters on my list of things to do today DON'T WASH HAIR. I could be repeating the phrase aloud - don't wash hair don't wash hair don't wash hair - and I'd be on the repeat part of lather, rinse and repeat before I realized what I was doing.
Here's why that's bad: Your body naturally produces oil to replace the oil that you was away, so the more you wash it, the more your body produces oil. It's kind of like the bread guy at my favorite restaurant. He puts a pretzel roll and a piece of croissant bread on my plate and if I eat them both, I get two more. If I eat one, I get one more. He's like a machine. A smiling, tong-wielding bread distribution machine with Buddy Holly glasses, who floats around the dining room looking for blank spaces on bread plates. The only way to stop him from giving me more bread is to leave the bread there. Therefore, the only way to get out of the restaurant without slipping into a carb coma is to leave to waste two perfectly good, delicious pieces of bread. And I think we all know me enough by now to know how unlikely that is. I might not be the best conservationist of water, but there are children starving in gluten-free households and I'm not going to have that on my conscience.
How does this relate to my hair? I forget. But the point is I know I should stop the daily shampoos. Temporary Substitute Hair Stylist says all the young girls are doing it now. She may have been surprised at how uninterested I was in doing what all the young girls are doing now. (Does she even know how old I am? She's got to. I look like I'm 85 when I'm smocked and in that bad lighting.) Some of us are still clinging to the '70s like it's a life raft on the S. S. Minnow and we're the eighth cast member without a character name yet. I'm having a hard time committing to training my pituitary glands to slow down production in the main oil plant. The demand is going to drop, but not until there's a backup of supply. The entire economy of my scalp will be in turmoil. And it's not going to be pretty. More importantly, nor am I.
I know what I'm in for. The few times I skipped washing my hair for the day were no picnic. I had allergy testing on my back last year and had to go five days without taking a bath or shower. I got to the third day of sponge baths, cried out "I surrender!" and bent my head over the sink and washed my hair. It didn't go well. I don't know how to wash my hair in a sink, since I'm also addicted to taking a shower every day.
Don't even.
