Is really hot water good to wash your hair with?
We know that washing our skin with hot water opens our pores, wipes oil and really cleans our skin. Why should not it be good for our hair too?
But, as it is healthy for your scalp and pores, it actually dries out your hair, pulls moisture out of your hair shaft and it can leave your hair more porous. Hot water can also strip your hair of its natural oils. Natural oils, called sebum, are essential for your hair`s health. Moisture in the hair shaft helps prevent frizzing, too much hot water will cause frizz.
It feels great to be in a hot shower, then you come out and need to comb your hair. You should never brush your hair after you wash it because it is much more prone to breakage and damage that way. Always use a wide toothed comb or a wet brush to carefully dress your hair. But if you use hot water on your hair, your hair becomes much more susceptible to breakage as you styling and combing it.
What about cold water?
Cold water is really good for your hair, it will close the cuticle and cause the hair to retain the moisture, so after you condition your hair cold water helps to seal that. Cold water rinse after you`re all done, after you have rinsed out your conditioner is very beneficial to your hair, it helps calm your hair, it helps bring shine to your hair and it helps close your pores and the cuticle of your hair. By closing the pores you`re actually protecting your pores from dirt, oils and products that you use on your hair will not get into your pores.
While it is great to open them when you are washing to eliminate dirt and oils you should better use warm water, not hot water. You want that opening to occur, but you do not want to get the damage that you can get from overdrying caused by hot water.
Then when you are all done shampooing and you condition your hair, it is recommended to leave the conditioner on for at least 3 minutes, because it needs to get into your hair shaft and your hair to draw it right in, then you rinse it out with lukewarm water and then you give it a nice cold rinse. It does not have to be long, just for whole your head to close those pores on your scalp, close the porousness and retain the moisture of your hair shaft will make your hair much healthier and stronger that way. It will have some tensile strength to resist breakage, pulling and styling when you comb your hair.
You want your hair to be as strong as it possibly can
Whereas the hot will weaken your roots and hair to cause the frizz. So if you`re trying to eliminate the frizz out of your life, then cold flattens your hair look and remove the frizz from the equation. Just when you are done styling, you hit your hair with a cold setting of your blowdryer, that will seal your hair and prevent some frizzing from occurring.
Remember, wash your hair with warm water, open up those pores, clean it nicely and shampoo it and don`t forget to massage your scalp a little while you`re doing, bring some circulation to the area, rinse it all out, condition your hair and then don`t forget cold rinse. Cold is great, it will seal everything, it will make your hair shine and it brings blood to the area too because it opens up the capillaries in the scalp and that feeds the roots of your hair.
If you still want to wash your hair with hot water – read this facts:
5 Reasons Why hot water is Bad For Hair and Scalp
#1 What Ayurveda says?
Hot water (tolerable temperature) over the body is good but the same directly on head and scalp leads to hair fall and loss of strength of eyes.
Washing hair with hot water is not recommended at all at it is very harmful for hair.
#2 Hot water causes hair fall!
The hot water opens up the pores and this causes hair to become loose at the roots. As a result, after shower when you dry out your hair they come off in bunches so easily.
#3 Hot Water Burn The Hair
Though you might not feel pain in the hair, but they do get damaged.
Hair is made up of protein called keratin & when you overcook protein, it gets burned or denatured.
So, if you wash your hair with water that is way too hot, then the proteins in your hair will get denatured or burnt.
#4 Shampoo And Hot Water A Bad Combination!
You may not know this but, while you shampoo your hair there already is a tendency to Lose hair. Plus if you use steaming hot water with it then it would be Like adding fuel to fire. It will make your hair fall in bunches. You better know the difference between lukewarm water and searing hot water.
#5 Never use hot water after conditioner
Cold water should be used for conditioning & remember never use hot water after applying conditioner as it washes away all the softening effects of the conditioner on your hair. So basically hot water nullifies the effect of conditioner on your hair.
Conclusion
After knowing all these things you must have concluded that hot water does more harm than help to your hair. Though good for body, hot water is not recommended for shower as it has really bad effects on hair.
The only possible solution is to not take a head bath with hot water or wear a shower cap if you want to take shower with hot water. use hot water to wash your body and wash your hair with cold water separately.