Have you ever wondered how long to leave shampoo and conditioner in your hair? This is an important part of knowing how to wash hair properly.
While conditioners and intensive treatments require time to soak into the hair, timing your shampoo is tricky. You want to get your hair thoroughly clean, but exposure to detergents can be a slippery slope.
The answer to this question rests on the type of detergent used in your shampoo.
To know how to wash hair properly, you must go back to basics. Think about your hair type and any concerns you hope to address.
For example, if you have delicate hair, a sensitive scalp, or dandruff problems, you will not want to rinse your shampoo out too quickly. This is because you will lose any benefits your chosen formula may offer.
Let’s take a closer look at how to wash hair properly using the best shampoo for you.
How to Use Shampoo Properly
For most shampoo products, the best way to wash hair helps determine how long to leave shampoo and conditioner in your hair. Luckily, this is a simple process.
First, you must saturate your hair with warm water. Next, use a small amount of shampoo and massage it into your scalp until it lathers. Be sure to work the shampoo through your hair to remove lingering debris, but focus primarily on your scalp to wash your hair properly.
Finally, rinse your hair and scalp so that there is no product build-up later. Easy enough, right?
Well, if it isn’t that easy for you, here are some other tips and tricks to help you figure out how to wash hair properly and how long to leave shampoo and conditioner in your hair for the best results.
How Does Shampoo Clean My Hair?
At the base level, shampoo cleans the hair using detergents, just like every other cleaning product you use. Obviously, these aren't the exact same detergents as the ones in your dish soap or car wash.
But a detergent, harsh or gentle, is meant to remove dirt. The detergents used in shampoo, however, are specialised to that job because of the way a detergent must work to rid the hair of excess oil.
The sebum on your scalp and hair is hydrophobic, meaning it doesn’t budge just by rinsing the hair with water. In other words, water can't dissolve this type of oil.
A detergent molecule in a shampoo works as a surfactant, meaning it lowers the surface tension between the water and the sebum. This makes it easier for the detergent molecule to bind with oils and dirt particles.
Then, when you rinse the shampoo out, the hydrophilic part of the molecule (the part that binds to water) takes the dirt and gunk right on with it when it’s rinsed away.
Conditioning Ingredients Are Found in Most Shampoos
Look at all that science you’re using every single day! Crazy, right? Well, it gets crazier. To keep your hair from getting totally broken and stripped by the surfactants you use (be they sulphates or no), shampoos are also formulated with various types of conditioning agents to protect the hair.
The rest of your shampoo consists of heat/chlorine/UV protectants, functional ingredients to bind the ingredients together, colours, fragrances, and preservatives. There’s a lot that goes into that little bottle just to help you clean your hair!
In short, cleaning your hair is a whole lot more interesting than you may have originally guessed.
How to Wash Hair Properly with the 1-to-3-Minute Massage Rule
It can be tricky to know how long to leave shampoo and conditioner in the hair. Overall, most shampoos don’t need to be left on for a long period. Shampoos work on the surface of the hair and scalp without soaking in.
A shampoo contains both hydrophobic and hydrophilic molecules. This formulation allows the product to bind to grime and oil so they can be rinsed away.
However, that doesn’t mean you just slap shampoo on and then rinse it off if you want to know how to wash hair properly. The best way to wash hair is to rub the shampoo into the scalp to enable those molecules to do their job.
Ideally, you want to massage your shampoo on hair for anywhere from 1 to 3 minutes, depending on your hair's thickness, before rinsing.
Sulphates Shampoo on Hair: The Exception to the Rule
However, specific detergents call for a shorter massage to wash hair properly. If your shampoo contains sulphates, you want to get that bad boy in and out of your hair as quickly as possible.
This is where knowing how long to leave shampoo and conditioner in your hair is particularly important. Sulphates can be very harsh, and you don’t want to dry out your hair and scalp.
Shampoos with sulphates are perfectly fine for more stubborn oil or people who don’t wash their hair more than twice a week. Regardless, the best way to wash hair is to not leave these chemicals in your hair for longer than a minute, especially if your hair is colour-treated.
Knowing how to use shampoo properly with the 1-to-3-minute massage rule applies primarily to non-sulphate surfactants such as:
● Sodium cocoamphoacetate
● Cocamidopropyl betaine
● Lauryl glucoside
● Disodium laureth sulfosuccinate
● Disodium lauroamphodiacetate
Best Shampoo to Leave in Longer
Knowing how long to leave shampoo and conditioner in the hair is about understanding the ingredients. If you choose a nourishing, organic shampoo treatment, then you will, of course, want to leave the shampoo on the hair for longer. This will allow your hair and scalp to feel the full benefits of these enriching shampoo and conditioner products.
Once you have a better idea of the best way to wash your hair, there are several shampoo products that you can look out for to achieve a rich, nourishing effect.
If you’re looking for deep cleansing and feel the urge to leave your shampoo in longer, learn how to use shampoo properly by switching to a clarifying shampoo such as:
These formulas contain special ingredients to detoxify and clear the hair and scalp of excess dirt and oil. Used in moderation, clarifying shampoo on the hair shouldn’t cause drying or damage the way leaving shampoo in your hair for a long time could. For the best way to wash hair, the 1-to-3-minute massage rule applies to clarifying products too.
PRO TIP: Massage actually boosts blood flow to the scalp, so even a short session can be beneficial to hair growth. Use that shower time wisely and pamper yourself whilst you shampoo. You might just wind up looking like Rapunzel because of it!
If you’re particularly concerned about hair length or density, you can also check out our hair growth products. You’ll be shampooing like a champ, AND you’ll have long, luxurious locks!
