Should you stop shampooing your hair (so much)?

I came across a story on Jezebel yesterday about the "no-poo" movement, a silly name for a concept that essentially says we Americans are washing our hair too much.

According to the original report on NPR, folks in the U.S. shampoo about 5 times a week, which is twice as much as Italians and Spaniards. Though we've been sold the "squeaky-clean hair is better" line through bouncy Salon Selectives-type commercials for decades, in reality, dermatologists believe frequent washing strips the hair of beneficial oil, causing follicular damage and drying out our manes.

This makes a ton of sense to me. Much to my husband's and closest friends' horror, I've long thought that Americans are overly obsessed with hygiene and freakish with how frequently we need to shower. I'm also unnerved by the numerous, super-powered products we use to keep us from smelling anywhere near human-think of the foaming washes on top of flowery exfoliators on top of soap; the industrial-strength, aluminum-based antiperspirants; and don't even get me started on any of in the scary, scented Massengill-type goods. This is not to say I go out smelling like I don't have a home-I've just never felt comfortable subscribing to an extreme "cleanliness is next to Godliness" doctrine. No one needs to be that clean.

My personal hygiene issues aside, there's another reason to cease lathering up so much, and this is where the "no-poo" movement was born. Shampoo comes in plastic bottles and plastic is (obviously) bad for the environment. So, in an effort to shrink their carbon footprint, some eco-conscious circles have gone to hair-product extremes. In the NPR article, one blogger admits to not using shampoo for three months and just rinsing her hair with baking soda and vinegar, which is kind of yucky. Eventually the woman had a bad case of dandruff and started using bar shampoo (which I've never tried because it seems like it would tangle the heck out of my hair. Has anyone tried it?), but she says that, during the experiment, her hair wasn't greasy at all, it just kind of smelled like pickles and she plans on going on a shampoo-fast again.

The NPR story is chock-full of interesting facts, including how our great-grandmothers only cleansed their heads once a month, that is until a 1908 New York Times story suggested they clean up every two weeks. Were these people gross? I don't know. One could argue that infrequent washing is a wise decision in these crappy economic times, and, if one used less shampoo, one could afford a better brand. Um, but going dirty for a month? That seems insane and like you would have no friends and probably, somehow, lose your job.

OK. Now your turn to weigh in: How often do you wash your hair?

When it comes to shampoo, less is more