Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stump Mom Never told you?
Speaker 1: From how Stuff Works dot Com? Hey there, and welcome
Speaker 1: to the podcast. This is Kristen and this is Molly Molly. Today,
Speaker 1: as you know, we are tackling the ever important question
Speaker 1: of how often should I wash my hair? I know
Speaker 1: I've been pondering this for so long, Not really, but
Speaker 1: it does remind me of an interesting tidbit about a
Speaker 1: fellow How Stuff Works podcasts of ours from the Wonderful
Speaker 1: Stuff from the B Side, Mark Larson co host Molly,
Speaker 1: Mark doesn't wash his hair. I know I've heard this
Speaker 1: about Mark Larson. He also, do you know how long
Speaker 1: it's been since you wash his hair? Give it to
Speaker 1: me one year. Well only I wouldn't have guessed so
Speaker 1: that Mark didn't wash his hair unless I had actually
Speaker 1: asked him about it, because he has pretty nice hair. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you would definitely sound like he's the greasy kid of
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works and he doesn't smell weird that we
Speaker 1: know of. No, I mean, it's it's you know, like
Speaker 1: you said, if he hadn't told us about his no
Speaker 1: poof movement, which is a movement that many people have
Speaker 1: adopted recently, this idea that you don't use shampoo. You know,
Speaker 1: we would have never known that he was the kid
Speaker 1: who didn't wash his hair. Yeah, it kind of started
Speaker 1: off as a joke between him and another coworker here
Speaker 1: and how stuff works. They're gonna see if they could
Speaker 1: do just like natural hygiene type of stuff. And Mark
Speaker 1: just kept it up for a year. And what he does, uh,
Speaker 1: in a nutshell is I think every couple of weeks
Speaker 1: or so he does a baking soda and vinegar rents,
Speaker 1: which he said it was very very exhilarating for a scalp,
Speaker 1: very refreshing. And other than that, I think that's it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he said it changed his life. No more buying shampoo.
Speaker 1: But he is so polite because he does leave an
Speaker 1: abolish shampoo in his shower for guests. That is sweet. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's always thinking about the the non no pooh ers.
Speaker 1: Well you should um listen to now stuff on the
Speaker 1: b sides knowing that you're listening to someone who doesn't
Speaker 1: wash his hair. Crazy. But you know, if I were
Speaker 1: to hear that, Okay, Mark doesn't wash his hair, I
Speaker 1: would think oh he's a guy. Whatever. Christ and you
Speaker 1: and I are ladies. We've got long, lustrous locks we
Speaker 1: need to be caring for. Like this no Pooh thing
Speaker 1: is not gonna work for us, not necessarily, Molly, because
Speaker 1: Americans might actually wash their hair too much. According to
Speaker 1: a story on NPR, Americans wash your hair in average
Speaker 1: of four point nine times every week, and that's twice
Speaker 1: as often as Italians and Spaniards. But that stay was
Speaker 1: put out by a shampoo maker. And I think Italians
Speaker 1: and Spaniards, you know, maybe we see them as a
Speaker 1: little greasy. That's an odd way of flimming it. Um.
Speaker 1: But you know, Christ and we weren't always at this
Speaker 1: healthy four point five nine times a week of shampoo. Actually,
Speaker 1: there was this column in the New York Times in
Speaker 1: nineteen o eight in which the column said, is okay
Speaker 1: to wash your hair every two weeks because at that
Speaker 1: time women were only washing their hair about once a month. Wow. Yeah. Basically, shampoo,
Speaker 1: like many things in a woman's life, has all been
Speaker 1: fed to us by marketing. Yeah, something that we need
Speaker 1: to do to make ourselves like attractive women. Um. But
Speaker 1: like we mentioned earlier, there is this thing called the
Speaker 1: no Pooh movement that's been gaining speed recently. And there
Speaker 1: are two main reasons why people are considering tossing the shampoo,
Speaker 1: and the first one of those is um environmental reasons, uh,
Speaker 1: people wanting to reduce the amount of plastic products that
Speaker 1: they use. And also, Molly, there are kind of some
Speaker 1: some bad ingredients in a lot of common shampoos, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you look at the ingredient list, you've got silicone
Speaker 1: for shine, sodium laurel sulfate. Preservative technologies such as parabins
Speaker 1: and parabins have been linked to breast tumors breast can sir.
Speaker 1: So a lot of people just don't want to put
Speaker 1: this stuff in their hair anymore. And like you said,
Speaker 1: from a plastic standpoint, you don't want plastics in the environment.
Speaker 1: And even like the best shower gel is going to
Speaker 1: take eight hundred years to fully wash away, Like it's
Speaker 1: really not good for the environment. Are showering habits right? So, Uh,
Speaker 1: we have all of these weird chemicals that we're using
Speaker 1: on a daily basis that that might not be the
Speaker 1: best thing for our bodies. And then on the other side,
Speaker 1: we we have hair follicles that are especially equipped to
Speaker 1: kind of do a little bit of cleaning work on
Speaker 1: their own. Uh. The stuff that makes our hair and
Speaker 1: our faces actually look greasy is an oil called sea bum,
Speaker 1: and our hair follicles excrete see bum, and it's it's
Speaker 1: pretty important for our hair. But when we sort of
Speaker 1: feel that grease in our hair, we want to wash
Speaker 1: it get out. But the fact of the matter is
Speaker 1: by getting it out, the seedum follicles just sort of
Speaker 1: put more out there that kind of go into overdrive.
Speaker 1: They're like, must produce sea bum. And so even hairdressers
Speaker 1: say that to keep the those oil glands under control,
Speaker 1: you should be activating them so much with all the shampooing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that explains why a lot of people will have
Speaker 1: to use a conditioner as well as a shampoo, because
Speaker 1: we're pretty much stripping the hair of the sea bum
Speaker 1: and then having to artificially replace moisturizer in our hair.
Speaker 1: Because sebum is really important. It's it's an oil that
Speaker 1: protects our hair shafts from breaking, It keeps our scalping
Speaker 1: good conditions, and gives our hair that lustrous shine that
Speaker 1: that we love so much. So the thought is, if
Speaker 1: you don't constantly wipe out the sea bum, then your
Speaker 1: hair kind of reaches a state of perfect equilibrium. And
Speaker 1: that right, Christa, Yeah, I think it's after a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks of not shampooing, these sebum production levels gotta
Speaker 1: balance out and your hair doesn't get more and more greasy.
Speaker 1: It just produces as much as it needs to, which
Speaker 1: doesn't I mean, you know, from my personal experience, just
Speaker 1: doesn't seem a cap trio. If I don't, I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm gonna admit I'm an everyday hair washer. I'm
Speaker 1: too molly. And if I don't wash my hair, my
Speaker 1: spout feels really greasy. I can't make it to the
Speaker 1: third day. But well, it might have to do with
Speaker 1: the texture of our hair. I don't know about you,
Speaker 1: but I have pretty fine hair, and uh, fine hair
Speaker 1: is often oilier than people with thicker, coarser hair because
Speaker 1: we actually have more hair follicles across our scalp, and
Speaker 1: each hair follicle has two or three oil glands. So
Speaker 1: since we have more hair follicles, we have more oil glands,
Speaker 1: so we have more sea bum being excreted into our hair.
Speaker 1: So that might be why after like a day and
Speaker 1: a half, especially if I exercise sweat a lot my hair.
Speaker 1: I mean it just feels like a helmet on my head. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's definitely this is not a one size fits all prescription. UM.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of variation among hair types like Christmas
Speaker 1: saying and curly hair. UM in particular can go longer
Speaker 1: between washes. People African Americans can go longer between washes.
Speaker 1: According to an article this NPR story we're talking about,
Speaker 1: but I do want to play Devil's advocate. We are
Speaker 1: reading this New York Times article about you know, not
Speaker 1: shampooing the no pooh and uh. They're interviewing a scientist
Speaker 1: who studies hair and scalp issues. His name is Philip Kingsley,
Speaker 1: and he said of people who went for the non
Speaker 1: shampoo method that these people have just gotten used to
Speaker 1: the fact that their hair is greasy and dirty, so
Speaker 1: they don't notice anymore. Well, would Mark Larson say about that?
Speaker 1: I think Mark Larson would disagree, and I back him
Speaker 1: up on that, Mark Mark Mark's hair looks looks pretty great.
Speaker 1: But you don't just have to use these homeopathic um
Speaker 1: shampoo replacements. They're also dry shampoos that a lot of
Speaker 1: higher end um hair hair care companies are starting to
Speaker 1: come out with now, Like I think you just spray
Speaker 1: it like on your roots and it sort of stakes
Speaker 1: up the excess oil if you don't actually want to
Speaker 1: have to go through the process of washing and then
Speaker 1: blow drying your hair, because I have a feeling that
Speaker 1: people who are blow drying their hair every day like me,
Speaker 1: are doing added damage to it and addition to just
Speaker 1: stripping all that sea bum from the hair, and it's
Speaker 1: a waste of time. It just saved so much time. No, Molly,
Speaker 1: but doesn't hair look great? You do look great today, Christen.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Molly, really I appreciate that. So if you're concerned,
Speaker 1: you should probably just ask your hair stylist. Your hairstyles
Speaker 1: can see all the damage that's going into your hair
Speaker 1: when it might need et cetera. Ask then how often
Speaker 1: you should shampoo your hair. Yeah, but take it from
Speaker 1: a fellow podcaster, you could try the no pooh. Trying
Speaker 1: the no pooh and no pooh could work for you. Oh,
Speaker 1: christ And I smell a sponsorship in your future. And
Speaker 1: if you do want to try out some of these
Speaker 1: natural recipes on our site how Stuff Works, You've got
Speaker 1: an article called how to make your Own beauty products,
Speaker 1: and there's a whole section on making your own hair
Speaker 1: kit products and I think you'll need a lot of
Speaker 1: egg whites and then a girl on hand. Yeah, they're
Speaker 1: at the ingredient list is if you're if you're on
Speaker 1: the fence about no pooh. I don't know that it's
Speaker 1: going to convince you because I was a little scared
Speaker 1: by some of the ingredients. But we do have it
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com. So Molly, before we
Speaker 1: close out this episode, we have some listener email could
Speaker 1: read right, yes, So I'm gonna start off with like
Speaker 1: an email from our listener Joseph who wrote in and said,
Speaker 1: the problem to me is less one of gender differences
Speaker 1: than one of arning differences. Instead of separating boys and girls,
Speaker 1: separate students based on their learning style. This way a
Speaker 1: teacher would be able to have a classic studence to
Speaker 1: the same learning style, such as visual learners and Taylor
Speaker 1: the class towards that. If any went on to say
Speaker 1: the gender differences are brought up in this research hard
Speaker 1: come back to Victorian era gender roles. When gender roles
Speaker 1: are essentialized, it is as much about in eight differences
Speaker 1: as a reinforcement of socially inscribed roles. Very interesting, pretty
Speaker 1: interesting perspective, And we have an email from Leah that
Speaker 1: kind of follows up on that point, takes a little
Speaker 1: bit of a step further. Leah wrote, when discussing this issue,
Speaker 1: we should also remember that gender is not necessarily binary anymore.
Speaker 1: There are more gender differences than just email and mail.
Speaker 1: So what would the hermaphrodite, trans sexual, or ambiguously gendered
Speaker 1: students do in this situation? This will likely put them
Speaker 1: in a very awkward and confusing place. Very interesting, very true,
Speaker 1: and now I'm only to close things out. We have
Speaker 1: an email from an actual real life middle schooler who
Speaker 1: was listening to it and had her own perspective to
Speaker 1: add to it. She her name is Rainier, and she
Speaker 1: is thirteen years old and attends a public school, and
Speaker 1: she wrote, I was listening to your podcast and just
Speaker 1: wanted to say that, frankly, school wouldn't be the same
Speaker 1: without boys in my classes. A lot of the boys
Speaker 1: I know aren't really annoying, crude and loud, maybe even
Speaker 1: nice and smart too. I don't really think that single
Speaker 1: sex classrooms would be all that effective and not as
Speaker 1: much fun for us girls. Nice point. Rainier. Nice point. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I kind of want to go to school where she does,
Speaker 1: where all these nice and smart boys are, but sometimes
Speaker 1: crude and loud sometimes but still fun. Well, if you
Speaker 1: have any questions or comments about any of the podcasts
Speaker 1: you've heard, uh, send me your Molly an email at
Speaker 1: mom stuff at how stuff works dot com for moral this,
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Does it have stuff works
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