12 Tips How to Prevent Greasy Hair Overnight – Training your Hair to Not be Greasy
12 Tips How to Prevent Greasy Hair Overnight – Training your Hair to Not be Greasy
Have you ever gone one day or less and your hair looks greasy? Looked in the mirror and said, “My hair is greasy in less than 24 hours!” It looks like you just stepped out of the shower, it looks wet because of so much oil.
It’s annoying!
How does one go about this process?
How long does it take?
Is it difficult?
Why?
These are the things we will be going over in this article.
Why Would You Want to Prevent Greasy Hair Overnight?
After waking up the next morning and your hair looks wet, is so annoying! And time consuming, right?
What’s worse is when you have already tried all of the magic products that are supposed to help with greasy and oily hair but it just isn’t working for you.
Here we’ll talk about why this happens, and how to prevent it from continuing.
Washing your hair too often is often the cause of greasy hair.
Constantly needing to wash your hair is time consuming, and quite honestly not that great for your hair and scalp. It ends up drying out the hair and scalp more than is necessary, which is why it gets so oily.
Also, the more you wash your hair the more wear and tear happens to the hair and the more often you will need to get a trim.
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But back to the point. Why does washing your hair more often make your hair more greasy and oily?
Allow me to explain.
Why Is My Hair Greasy After 1 Day?
There are two reasons hair gets greasy.
Grease is natural oil produced by the sebaceous glands in the scalp that restore the natural pH of the skin and hair, which is a 4.5-5.5, and hydrate the scalp.
- Restoring the natural pH 4.5-5.5
When hair has been washed with product that does not have a pH close to the natural, it has to work twice as hard to restore and balance the natural pH.
- Rehydrating the scalp
Oil hydrates a dry scalp. When washing the hair too often, communicates to the sebaceous glands that the amount of oil that it just made wasn’t enough and it needs to make more. But in reality you just washed off the oil that was just produced because it was too much on the hair and made it look oily.
Washing the hair often because the hair looks oily and greasy is actually counterproductive to restoring and training your hair to be less greasy.
If you allow the scalp to be extra oily, which is annoying but worth it, it will communicate to the sebaceous glands that it has made too much oil and gradually it will reduce the amount produced.
Thus making the hair less greasy and you have at this point successfully trained your hair to not need to be washed so often.
Preventing Greasy Hair While you Sleep
- Use a silk pillowcase
Generic cotton pillowcases soak up oils, silk will prevent from absorbing the grease so that the scalp will stop producing excess oil. If the scalp senses that the oil is being used up (absorbed by the cotton pillowcase) it will continue making more oil.
If the pillowcase is not absorbing oil and it is being left on the scalp when using a silk or satin pillowcase the scalp will communicate to the sebaceous glands to stop making anymore oil while you sleep.
Are Satin Pillowcases Good for Hair?
Learn How to Prevent Greasy Hair Overnight
Training Your Hair to Get Less Oily
Here are a few other tricks that you need to know in order to train your hair not get greasy overnight.
Be aware that the entire process before your scalp is fully trained not produce excess oil naturally may take several weeks or even a month or two.
👉 Wash your hair less often
Like briefly discussed above, the more often you wash your hair the more you are actually training the scalp to make more oil because all of its hard work to restore the pH and rehydrate the scalp with the oil just made was not enough. So it will make even more than before.
What is often and not often?
When go about beginning the process preventing greasy hair overnight and to train your hair to not be oily, begin by washing your hair every three days. Then every 4 days.
Personally, I only wash my hair when it feels itchy, which is usually 4 days.
But if you can make it to 7 days, then good for you! That’s even better!
Is it Okay to Wash Your Hair Once a Week?
If you feel like your hair is dirty, with actual dirt, wash it. Don’t put it off if you have dirt sitting on your scalp.
If it’s just sweat and oil, it’s okay but if you have dirt sitting in your hair for days and days, that can clog the pores and cause breakouts as well as possibly clog follicles and eventually lead to hair loss.
👉 Replace shampoo with an apple cider vinegar rinse
When you have tried sulfate-free shampoos (we’ll talk about that below) and it’s just not quite giving you the results you want, try replacing it with a chemical-free cleanser that you have right in your kitchen!
Apple Cider Vinegar is rich in potassium, pectin, malic acid, calcium, and vitamins B and C, which are excellent for scalp health. It also has a pH of 2 which is lower than the pH of the hair and skin, but gentle enough to cleanse the skin, remove the micro-bacteria on the scalp that slows hair growth and causes itchiness and possibly break-outs.
You cannot use straight ACV on the hair, you have to dilute it and use it in proper proportions. Here is a recipe to guide you on how to use it correctly.
Apple Cider Vinegar Rinse Recipe -Quick Cleansing Mask
👉 Focus more on conditioner, or even wash with only conditioner
This method is also called The No Poo method, as well as Co-Washing.
Conditioner is supposed to have the same pH as the hair and scalp, restoring the pH after the shampoo and hydrating the scalp without making the scalp work so hard. But not all conditioners are sulfate-free either (more on that below).
Once or twice a week when training your hair to be less oily, rinse your hair with water and use a conditioner. This will also cleanse the hair just enough without throwing off the pH so much, so it won’t disrupt the whole training process.
👉 Rinse your hair with cold water
Heat lifts the cuticle of the hair. If you rinse your hair with cool water after a warm shower, this will close the cuticle and keep all of the hydration inside.
Heat opens the pores of the skin. Cold closes them up. After a hot shower, oil is released but only a little bit, and toxins are released with it. Closing up the skin quickly with cool water at the end of a shower is excellent for the skin and to help the hair have less oil.
Products You Can Use to Make Your Hair Less Oily Instantly
👉 Use dry shampoo on the days you don’t wash
Dry shampoo soaks up oil. But be careful not to use too much too often or it will buildup on the scalp and the hair.
It’s okay to use dry shampoo on day 2 or 3 if needed. By day 4 or 5 wear your hair up in a hairstyle to disguise the oily hair.
👉 Also talc-free baby powder works in place of dry shampoo when lightly dusted on the scalp. This will also work as a push powder and give the hair a little more ‘umph’ and lift while soaking up oil but not drying out the scalp.
* This method is also better for your hormones. Talc can create hormone imbalances if you are sensitive or in the process of eliminating toxins from your home and habits to rebalance your body.
👉 Push Powder also soaks up oil and combs right out of the hair. However you have to use a lot of it at a time to make it work effectively, which is why I don’t recommend it when training the hair to be less oily.
👉 But Texturizing Spray does not dry out the hair and scalp as quickly and disguises the oil in a brilliant way by giving the hair more volume and wave which distracts from the grease on the scalp and roots.
🚩 Be aware that when using these products every day will buildup on the hair and scalp and end up being counterproductive to the end goal.
It’s okay to use these products to help you in between washes, but not good to use everyday.
How Do You Get Rid of Greasy Hair Overnight Without Dry Shampoo
Unfortunately, the slow way.
It takes time to train your hair to not produce oil so quickly, but it will happen!
Wash your hair less often and over time the scalp will realize that it is overproducing and will start to make less until you won’t wake up with greasy hair OR need dry shampoo or any other method mentioned above.
How to Preventing Greasy Hair Overnight
👉 Wash with sulfate-free shampoo
Sulfates dry out the hair. Often generic shampoos have sulfates and silicones in their products as filler ingredients but don’t benefit the hair, and sometimes dry out the hair and scalp more than it should.
Using sulfate-free shampoo when you wash will also help train your hair to not need to be washed so often.
When silicone is not listed as an ingredient on your product bottle, check for these ingredients instead-
🚩 Dimethicone
🚩 Cetyl dimethicone
🚩 Cetearyl methicone
🚩 Dimethiconol
🚩 Stearyl dimethicone
🚩 Cyclomethicone
🚩 Amodimethicone
🚩 Trimethylsilylamodimethicone
🚩 Cyclopentasiloxane
👉 Brush your hair with a CLEAN brush or comb
Brushing your hair *ONLY WHEN ITS DRY* will exfoliate the scalp, ridding it of dry skin and dry shampoo, if you have used it.
If using a comb it is safe to use on wet hair and will remove dry skin, dirt, and dry shampoo as well.
It is very important to clean your tools, brushes and combs, at least once a week with soap and water before using it on the scalp. You don’t want to spread old oil on the scalp while exfoliating it and create space for old bacteria to get into the skin.
To prevent greasy hair overnight wash your tools-
- Remove debris from your tool- all old hair that is sitting in your comb or brush
- With warm water and soap lather the tool well for at least 30 seconds
- Rinse the soap off of the tool
- Allow the tool to air dry
Voila! You have a clean brush or comb.
More Tips to Prevent Greasy Hair Overnight
When going about the process of training your hair to be less oily overnight here are a few more tips to implement into habits…
👉 Touch your hair less
Touching the hair transmits oils from your hands, and other things you have touched, whether food, or other dirty things, and put them in your hair. Depending on what you have on your hands, very likely it will throw off the pH and more oil will be produced to restore the balance and protect the scalp from the bacteria that it now detects.
Touching your hair less eliminates extra bacteria and other substances to be added to your hair, which makes the scalp more oily.
👉 Wear your hair up – Accessorize
Give yourself enough grace to allow yourself to wear your hair up.
If you struggle to find styles that you find cute when you wear your hair up, look on Instagram or Youtube on different ideas for braids, buns, even ponytails!
Or accessorize the simple styles that you do find easy to do with your hair to make them feel even cuter.
- Headbands
- Scarves or bandanas
- Clips
- Flowers or jeweled pins
All of the above are great to add to a simple ponytail or braid to make it look a little more fancy and super cute, while distracting from the oil while waiting for wash-day or putting off wash-day while training your hair to not need to be washed so often.
👉 Avoid Blow Drying the hair- Air dry instead
Blow drying the hair and removing all of the water from the hair the heat will, in turn, remove all moisture from the scalp as well. So it will make more oil to restore the moisture.
Air drying hair takes a little planning ahead. Plan to wash on your day off, or in the evenings instead of mornings. This will help prevent greasy hair overnight and to train the scalp not anticipate this consistent heated wind to always be drying it out.
👉 Consider overall health
Overall physical health is absolutely important for healthy hair and scalp.
When you eat greasy foods it goes straight into the bloodstream and into the skin, which makes the scalp greasy. Even if its trained.
Eating healthy foods and getting exercise regularly stimulates blood circulation and detoxes the scalp and follicles.
Taking B supplements and Omega 3 supplements increase scalp health and growth as well.
👉 Treat your scalp and hair to a hydrating mask
Making hydrating masks with ingredients from your kitchen is, in my opinion, the very best for the scalp and hair because these masks are pure and chemical-free.
And you can experiment with which ingredients your scalp likes the best.
You can even replace conditioner with hydrating hair mask ingredients from your kitchen.
Leaving a mask for 10-15 minutes is the most beneficial to the scalp and hair.
Treating the hair to a hydrating mask every week is sufficient enough to not create so much work for you to have to make a mask and make time to sit for a long time when washing your hair.
Washing your hair, especially when you have successfully trained your hair to not be oily, should not be a whole ordeal, an event. Washing once per week or every third or fourth day shouldn’t take more time than any other wash.
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FAQs About How to Prevent Greasy Hair Overnight
How to Make Hair Less Greasy Instantly- Can I do that?
To instantly make hair less greasy, I would recommend using a dry shampoo for immediate effect. But not everyday. Every second or third day would be appropriate, though any more than that will buildup on your hair and scalp.
How Long Does it Take to Train Hair to be Less Greasy?
The entire process can take several weeks, even up to a month or two. It changes person to person.
Start by washing your hair less often, allowing the hair to be oily. This will communicate to the sebaceous glands that there is enough oil being produced and it will naturally start making less oil.
The next step would be to consider the products you are using. Are you using too much styling products in between washes? Do you have sulfates in your shampoo and conditioner? Are you using a hydrating mask regularly?
Once you establish a balance between all of these, you will be on the right track to train your hair to naturally be less oily.
How to Train Hair to be Washed Once a Week
Like suggested above, start with washing two days, and gradually give yourself an extra day until you have achieved once a week. It might take a month or so for your scalp to get used to this new habit.
Is it Okay to Wash Your Hair Once a Week?
How to Stop Hair Getting Greasy After One Day
If your hair is greasy after one day, you are usually using the wrong products, washing too frequently and perhaps not using a hydrating mask that your scalp likes best.
By following the suggestions above you will be able to prevent greasy hair overnight and train your hair to stop getting oily so quickly.
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