Truth About Shampoo and Conditioner

From one of the largest and most recognizable beauty salons in the southeast…. To the intimacy of an exclusive Atlanta salon... When it comes to the truth about shampoos and conditioners, the message is the same:

The single biggest truth about shampoo is that it's overused.

We're conditioned as Americans to think that you have to bathe and shampoo all the time, but we also moisturize all the time because of it.

When you shampoo your hair every day, or twice a day, you're stripping your hair of your natural oils. What happens next is that you start to use too much conditioner, to try to keep your hair from becoming dry—and all of a sudden your hair feels oily and then you feel like you have to wash it again.

But, you say…if I don't wash it every day I can't stand myself….

Do you brush your hair? If you’ll brush your hair everyday in the morning and at night, before you style it and before you go to bed, you're going to have much more balanced hair and your hair is going to be a little healthier.

More tips for the perfect shampoo: If you have fine or oily hair:

Use a shampoo that's cleansing for your oily hair, use one that's volumizing for your fine hair, and just alternate them

And for fine, dry hair, or hair that's colored….

If you have dry hair use something moisturizing, if you have colored hair use something with protein, and alternate that with the volume shampoo and conditioner.

What if you have curly or coarse hair…

Curly hair is lacking moisture naturally so to use something moisturizing is going to give you the best results, the strongest curls, the least amount of frizz.

The hair just feels rough..that's the coarse effect. You're going to use a shampoo that is a little more smoothing, something that adds moisture to the hair, something that's going to seal down the cuticle.

I'm going to put some conditioner on you…

The single biggest truth about conditioner is it gets misused. So many people just glob a bunch of conditioner right on their hand and they put it right here and then they say my hair is really oily here but it’s dry down here.

You apply to the ends first. Start at the ends and work up to the scalp. Whatever left you can rub in, mostly work the ends and then rinse that out after about 2 minutes.

For WebMD, I'm Sandee LaMotte.