Grease Lightening – How I fixed my oily hair!

I am an oily person. Straight up, no messing around pretending to be a glam girl. I have oily hair and oily skin. My hair is naturally straight, fine and shoulder length so bare in mind that what is working for me might not work for you. If you are someone with beautiful, dry, normal hair, you will not appreciate this little tale at all but my fellow oily girls, put down your dry shampoo and listen closely.

A few years ago, I remember hearing about this thing called hair training but it sounded a bit daft and made up to be honest. I felt like this was going to be another old wives tale that panned out to nothing but as a greasy haired gal, I was intrigued by the idea.

At the time, I had to wash my hair every other day but upon reading more about hair training and watching about a hundred YouTube videos featuring success stories, I began to stretch out the days in between washing by using dry shampoo/baby powder and putting it up in a bobble or bun to mask the hideousness on my third day after hair washing. I did this for about 5 months and managed to stretch out my hair to washing every 3 days. I won’t lie – it was tough going and my hair was at times, minging. It needed to adjust to the extra day of not washing and new rate of oil production but I got there eventually.

Then during lockdown 2020, I read an article in the Daily Mail about a hairdresser who was recommending her regime for washing hair only once a week. I was intrigued and so read on. She said that on the day of washing, she brushed her hair over and over until her scalp felt sore, washed it with shampoo and then rinsed it with rice water. Now this routine sounded a bit too much for me and seemed a bit aggressive so I decided to try just giving my hair a really good brush before I washed it. Now yes, we all brush our hair everyday I hear you say but I’m talking a BRUSH. So I began to brush my hair with more pressure than I normally would and once I’d brushed it the usual way, I flipped my hair to the left side, brushed it again ALOT, then did the same on the right, and upside down/tipped forward making sure the brush strokes matched the direction that I had flipped my hair. I guess this gets rid of any dead skin and stimulates the scalp. I then washed my hair as normal and after doing this for a few weeks, I was able to get another day or two out of my hair.

I’m now on washing my hair every 4th or 5th day and the condition of my hair has changed so much. No it’s not the elusive once-a-week wash but I’m pretty happy with the result. I barely use any dry shampoo or baby powder and the oil only begins to really show in my roots on day 3 or 4 but it’s not half as bad. Now take this vital information and test it out – hopefully it will work for you too!*

*I really wanted to write some sort of joke quoting Spider Man (‘with great power comes great responsibility’) but I couldn’t make it work. Still felt the need to mention it here though for some sort of credit 😉