!44: Can Daily Hair Washing Remove Scalp DHT?

!±8± Can Daily Hair Washing Remove Scalp DHT?

I get a lot of questions about how to reduce DHT and it's effects on the scalp and hair. This makes sense because statistics tell us that well over 90% of hair loss is caused by androgens, sensitivity, and genetics. I get a lot of questions asking if daily shampooing helps or if there are any shampoos that are really able to work on DHT. I'll tell you my take on this on the following article.

Daily Shampooing Or Washing Is Important If You Are Experiencing Hair Loss: I'm a firm believer that, no matter how counter intuitive it may feel at the time, daily washing is vital - especially if you are having hair or scalp issues. When I say that it may feel counter intuitive, I mean that it's hard to force yourself to do this when you know that it is going to result in more hair loss. It's difficult to see all the hair in the drain and know that you aren't doing more harm than good.

But, here's what many people don't understand. Those hairs in the drain were going to come out anyway. They have been in the resting phase on your head for many weeks or months. They were essentially "dead hair" that are not properly embedded in the scalp and not receiving any nourishment anyway. And, it's highly likely that it's possibly that DHT, androgens, or inflammation has already done it's damage to those strands anyway.

So it's best to clear your scalp of them and move on. And, if you skip washing, you'll likely allow more damage to build on your scalp. While your daily shed may well seem to be less on the days you don't wash, it's highly likely that you will only lose more on wash days. In fact, I've experimented with this many times and almost always (at least before I recovered), my average remained the same or even started to creep up the more I put off washing. The bottom line is that I firmly don't believe that you gain anything by washing less. In fact, I think that this practice does damage in the long run.

There Are Shampoos Meant To Lessen DHT, But They Can Only Do So Much: There are many popular shampoos on the market which claim that they have ingredients proven to diminish androgens. Examples are Hair Genosis, Revivogen, Thymuskin, Nioxin, and Nism. I've tried all of these. And while some did improve the appearance of my hair, I really do not believe, from my experience and my research, that a shampoo alone can clean up what is constantly being excreted on your scalp. You're only washing once per day and yet your scalp is secreting androgens all day long.

The truth is, people who have genetic hair loss typically will have a sensitivity to these androgens. They are genetically prone to not be able to tolerate them. People who have androgenic alopecia (AGA) don't have more androgens and DHT on their scalp than folks with healthy scalps and full heads of hair. They are just more sensitive to what they have. And, unfortunately, there is no way to eliminate all of it so that it will remain gone until your next shampoo.

There are however topicals that you can apply throughout the day as well as scalp stimulation techniques that can help with this sensitivity and inflammation. The laser wand or comb reduces DHT too, but you can't over use it. Reducing androgens and your sensitivity to them is truly an ongoing process that you must address regularly through a variety of methods. Shampooing can be an effective piece of the puzzle but in my opinion it alone is not a complete answer for most.