Everyone’s scalp produces oil, known as sebum. This oil is designed to coat your hair and even coats your skin, helping your hair and body retain moisture. It’s especially important in hair as this protective layer doesn’t just help your hair stay hydrated and looking shiny. It also prevents nutrients from escaping, ensuring your hair is healthy.
But, some people produce too much sebum. This results in their hair looking oily which can be extremely damaging to their confidence. Fortunately, there are things you can do to reduce the amount of oil in your hair and leave it looking great.
Choose the Right Products
You need to be looking at products for oily hair. That means products that use natural ingredients which are designed to remove excess oil gently from your hair. In particular, you’ll want shampoos and conditioners that target excess sebum without removing all of it.
You’ll find it’s worth paying a little extra for quality natural products.
Wash It Daily
If you’ve chosen the right product you can wash your hair daily without drying it out. The trick is to focus more on your scalp and less on your hair strands. This eliminates the excess oil without depriving your hair of all the sebum it needs.
It does pay to use a product designed for oily hair as this gives the best results.
Conditioning
Again, you’ll want to choose a conditioner designed to work with oily hair. This will allow you to use it 2-3 a week without removing too much oil from your head/hair.
It’s best to condition your hair after shampooing and leave the conditioner on for 5-10 minutes.
Use Coconut Oil
It may seem strange to add oil to your hair when you are trying to prevent it from being too oily. However, coconut oil is very effective at conditioning your hair before you shampoo it. Best of all, the coconut oil washes out easily, ensuring your hair looks clean and healthy. This actually reduces the need for your body to produce sebum and can help make your scalp less oily.
Apple Cider Vinegar
You can add 2-3 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar to a cup of water and then run this solution through your hair after you’ve shampooed. The apple cider vinegar will help to remove all debris in your hair and balance the pH of your scalp. This reduces the need for you to create more oil.
Increase Your Protein Intake
Protein is the main ingredient in hair. That’s why you should look at how much protein you currently consume and make sure your body is getting enough of it. You can increase your lean meat intake or add whey protein to your diet, this will help your hair stay healthy and strong, even when you wash it often to remove oil.
Epsom Salts
These are very high in magnesium which has been shown to reduce scalp inflammation and therefore lower the amount of sebum your scalp produces. All you have to do is add a teaspoon or two to your shampoo and, when washing your hair, leave it in place for 2-3 minutes.