Hair Myths
10 of the Most-Googled Hair Questions, Answered by a Hairstylist
If you’ve ever typed a hair question into Google at midnight, you’re definitely not alone.
There is a LOT of hair advice online, and unfortunately, not all of it is accurate. One person tells you to stop washing your hair. Someone else swears rosemary oil will make it grow three inches by Tuesday. Then somebody on TikTok tells you that frizz means your hair is damaged.
So I thought it would be fun to take some of the most commonly searched hair questions and answer them the same way I would if you asked me while sitting in my chair.
Some of the answers might surprise you.
- Why is my hair falling out so much?
First, we need to identify what the actual hair loss is. There is a difference between shedding, breaking and true hair loss.
Normal shedding is about 50–100 hairs a day on average. If you have excessive shedding, it could be a process called telogen effluvium. This is where more hair follicles shift into the resting or shedding phase.
This is commonly triggered by childbirth, substantial changes in diet and weight, surgery, severe illness or fever, and major emotional or physiological stress.
Something people don’t always realize is that you usually don’t see this shedding until a few months after the trigger. So when someone tells me their hair suddenly started shedding, what was happening in their life several months ago can be important.
Of course, excessive shedding isn’t always telogen effluvium. Hair loss has many possible causes, which is why figuring out what kind of hair loss we’re looking at is so important before deciding what to do about it.
- How can I make my hair grow faster?
Your hair grows an average of about one centimeter a month, but your individual growth rate is influenced by things like genetics, age and your overall health.
Unfortunately, there isn’t a shampoo, oil or supplement that can override your natural growth rate and suddenly make your hair grow twice as fast.
What we can do is make sure your body and scalp have what they need to support normal, healthy growth. Nutritional deficiencies, illness, hormones and not eating enough protein or calories can interfere with normal hair growth.
We can also protect the hair you’re already growing from unnecessary breakage.
That’s an important distinction because growing hair and retaining length are two different things.
And taking extra vitamins doesn’t automatically mean extra hair. If you have a deficiency, correcting that deficiency may help. But more isn’t always better.
- How often should I actually wash my hair?
There really isn’t one perfect washing schedule for everyone.
How often you need to shampoo depends on your scalp, your hair texture, how much oil you produce, how active you are and how much product you use.
Someone with an oily scalp may need to shampoo every day, while someone with coarse or curly hair may be able to go considerably longer between washes.
Shampoo is there to remove excess oil, dead skin, sweat and product buildup from your scalp and hair.
Dry shampoo can temporarily absorb some of that oil, but it isn’t actually cleaning your scalp.
So instead of forcing yourself to follow a rule that says you should wash every three days, once a week or whatever you’ve heard online:
Your scalp doesn’t own a calendar. Wash it when it needs to be washed.
- Can I train my hair to be less oily?
Not really.
There isn’t good evidence that purposely going longer between shampoos trains your scalp to stop producing as much oil.
The oil on your scalp is called sebum, and it’s produced by sebaceous glands. How much you produce is influenced by things like your biology and hormones.
Going longer without washing might change how accustomed you are to your hair feeling oily, but that’s not the same thing as retraining those glands to produce less oil.
If you naturally have an oily scalp, washing more frequently isn’t automatically bad for your hair. You just want to make sure you’re using products that make sense for your scalp and hair type.
- Why is my hair so frizzy, especially when it’s humid?
First, frizz doesn’t automatically mean your hair is damaged.
Your hair actually interacts with moisture in the environment, which is why you can style your hair beautifully inside, walk outside into Alabama humidity and suddenly have a completely different head of hair.
Humidity can affect interactions within the hair fiber that help determine its shape.
Your natural texture, porosity, chemical history and the overall condition of your hair can all influence how dramatically your hair responds to that moisture.
This is also why two people can walk outside in the exact same Alabama weather and have completely different reactions.
The humidity is the same.
Their hair isn’t.
- Can damaged hair actually be repaired?
Yes and no, and this is where the word repair gets a little confusing.
The hair you can see outside of your scalp isn’t living tissue, so it can’t heal itself the way your skin can.
Once the actual structure of a strand has been damaged, we can’t magically turn that strand back into completely untouched virgin hair.
What we can do is improve the condition and physical properties of damaged hair.
Certain treatments and conditioning ingredients can reduce friction, improve strength and manageability, smooth damaged areas and help protect the hair from additional damage.
So when a hair product says it “repairs” damaged hair, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s lying.
We just need to understand what repair actually means when we’re talking about a hair fiber.
- Does cutting your hair make it grow faster?
No.
Your hair grows from follicles inside your scalp. Your scissors are cutting the opposite end of the hair, so trimming your ends can’t tell the follicle to suddenly start producing hair faster.
Regular haircuts can, however, help you retain length.
Removing splitting and heavily weathered ends can help prevent additional breakage, which is why someone may feel like their hair “grows better” when they’re getting regular trims.
A simple way to remember it:
Growth happens at the scalp. Length retention happens at the ends.
- Is it better to color your hair when it’s dirty or clean?
You do not need to arrive at your color appointment with extremely dirty hair.
The idea that dirty hair automatically takes color better is a myth.
Having some natural oil on your scalp may make certain color services more comfortable, but that’s different from the color actually working better because your hair is dirty.
Heavy amounts of dry shampoo, oils and styling-product buildup aren’t doing your stylist any favors either.
This can also depend on the color service I’m doing and the manufacturer’s instructions for the products being used.
If you’re ever unsure, just ask your stylist how they want you to come in for your particular service.
- Why does my hair color or toner fade so fast?
All artificial hair color fades to some degree.
Every time you wash your hair, some dye molecules can gradually leave the hair. UV exposure, heat, your hair’s condition and porosity, the products you’re using, your routine and even the shade itself can affect how your color changes over time.
Previously lightened or highly porous hair can also behave differently because the structure of that hair has already been altered.
Toners are especially important to understand because they’re often being used to adjust the tone of previously lightened hair.
If I lighten your hair and then tone that yellow to a beautiful beige, the underlying lightened hair hasn’t disappeared.
As that artificial tone gradually fades, you’re going to start seeing more of that underlying warmth again.
Basically, toner isn’t a tattoo for your hair.
- How do I know if I have dandruff, dry scalp or product buildup?
This is one of those situations where seeing flakes doesn’t automatically tell us what’s causing them.
Dry scalp can happen when the skin on your scalp is lacking moisture and may cause itching and flaking.
Dandruff is different. It’s commonly associated with seborrheic dermatitis, and factors including oil production and a yeast called Malassezia are involved. That’s also why actual dandruff may respond to medicated shampoos containing specific active ingredients.
Then there’s product buildup.
Dry shampoo, oils and styling products can accumulate on the scalp and hair, especially when they aren’t being properly cleansed away.
The tricky part is that several scalp conditions can look similar. Psoriasis, contact dermatitis and other conditions can also cause itching, redness or flaking.
As a Certified Hair Loss Specialist and licensed cosmetologist, I can look at the scalp, ask questions and help identify what we may be seeing from a hair-and-scalp-care perspective.
But if something looks like it needs medical attention, I’m going to recommend seeing a dermatologist rather than pretending I can diagnose something outside my scope.
And I think that’s important.
Sometimes the best thing your hairstylist can tell you is, “I think we need another professional involved here.”
Hair doesn’t have to be so confusing.
One of my favorite things about doing hair is understanding why it behaves the way it does.
Hair is influenced by chemistry, biology, genetics, environment, the products people use and what’s been physically or chemically done to it over time.
So when someone tells me they “hate their hair,” I’m usually much more interested in figuring out what they don’t like about it and why it’s behaving that way.
Because there’s rarely one universal answer that works for everybody.
And if you have another hair question you’ve been Googling, send it my way. There’s a pretty good chance I’ve either read the research already or you’ve just given me something new to investigate.