Hair Cleaned Too Deeply

Lathering long hair
Photo: Andriano Cz/Shutterstock
Q: I typically wash my hair daily, but I recently missed a day, and when I took my shower and lathered my hair twice to make sure to get it fully clean, I noticed that the hair felt stringy and tangled. Why would this happen?
 
A: It's most likely that this "stringy, tangled" feeling was a result of the hair being cleaned so deeply.
 
If the shampoo stripped out all the oils of the hair, the result would be the hair feeling rougher on the surface of the strand, and therefore snagging on the skin of the hands and fingers.
 
The key to cleansing the hair properly is to simply shampoo the hair only when it seems dirty. It isn't necessary to wash the hair every day, and when you miss a day between shampoos, you don't necessarily need to double up on the shampooing process afterward. When clean, the hair should feel clean but not quite "squeaky".
 
You can actually accomplish sufficient cleansing from daily use of a rinse-through conditioner, since conditioners are generally still sufficiently alkaline to remove oils and dirt from the hair.
 
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See also:
 
How to shampoo your hair
 
How to limit the detangling work after shampooing your hair
 
How to get rid of tangled hair
 
Fragile wet hair