The ‘no shampoo’ trend is starting to have negative health impacts on women, and many hairdressers suggest we stop now

So we all have that one friend who’s always all, “hun, you need to stop shampooing so often. It’s not natural.”

And then we start thinking about it too much: Is it really unnatural? Do I harbor an unhealthy obsession with materialistic beauty products because I’m addicted to pandering to the particular beauty standards shoved down my throat by corporate women’s media?

And that’s when we start feeling bad about ourselves, so we do that thing where we throw out hundreds of dollars of beauty products we’ve payed for over the years, stop shampooing our hair and decide to only wear Birkenstocks from here on out.

But according to a recent article in the NY times, “While curbing excess washing has its merits, some are going overboard.”

“The truth is, some of my guy clients have been coming in and asking me to tell their girlfriends, wives, lovers to wash their hair,” said Michael Angelo, a Manhattan stylist.

According to him, and a number of other stylists, the ‘No Shampoo’ trend has gone too far, and many women are working out, going to soul-cycle, and having sex for days all without washing their hair in between, and it’s starting to become a health issue.

While he admitted that the issues many have taken with the trend is aesthetic, there are now scalp problems occurring as well. Dry shampoo can be useful, but it should not be used as an alternative. It can buy you an extra day or so, but it’s really not something that should be used multiple times in a row. And colorist Rita Hazan, a colorist known for her work on Beyoncé and Jennifer Lopez, told the Times she was seeing more serious concerns, such as “dry, flaky, itchy or oily scalps.”

While certain products are harmful to use too often, we’ve come a long way with our products in the past few years, and a lot of them are far gentler than they used to be. We should be shampooing regularly to clear away dead skin.

@carolinephinney