We all know that too much heat is a bad thing, but can air drying be damaging to your hair too?
Technically the answer is yes!
Too much water in your hair and over-moisturising your hair can cause what’s known as hygral fatigue.
Hygral fatigue and your hair
The simple act of wetting your hair causes it to swell up.
The hair shaft expands and contracts every time it is wet and dries. This cycle of swelling takes its toll on the hair and can cause damage.
Think of your hair like an elastic band. The more you stretch it, the harder it is to go back to its original shape. It becomes warped or breaks.
The longer your hair is wet, the higher the chance of damage occurring. So if your hair takes ages to dry, this could be causing a similar amount of damage as the heat of blowdrying your hair.
Sleeping with wet hair and doing long moisturising treatments can end up having the opposite effect on your hair. This is known as hygral fatigue. Your hair is tired of being wet!
The same goes for overwashing your hair. Each time your hair is wet, it swells up and disrupts the protein balance in your hair. So technically, washing and air drying your hair causes damage.
Can air drying really be worse than heat styling?
To be honest, I don’t think it can.
Leaving your hair wet for hours isn’t helping your hair, but constant heat styling and brushing also creates friction which creates a different type of damage.
You need to find a happy medium for your hair and that includes air drying some days and blowdrying others.
That’s why everyone needs regular hair cuts
So even if you are gentle with your hair and never heat style your hair, you’ll still find damage that needs a regular trim.
The act of wetting your hair and letting it dry is the cause of the breakage that builds up over time.
So tell me, how often do you wash your hair? And how long does it take to dry? Do you ever leave your hair wet overnight?
I remember back when my hair became curly when I hit puberty, it would air dry in 40 minutes to an hour so I never felt the need to use a blowdryer. Though as time went by my hair changed and it takes forever to air-dry, usually I get rid of as much water as possible. I shake my head so that the water falls off, I let it sit in a towel for about 20 min, then I turn the towel around to the dry side and I wrap the hair again, then I brush it very gently with a wet brush and shake my head again. At this stage, I use the hairdryer on cold and high speed for a little, I let it sit for 5-10 minutes, then I brush very gently, shake my head and I apply a heat protectant and turn the hairdryer again on the low-heat setting and use it until it’s about 85-90% dry. It seems a little excessive but it’s the only way I can dry my hair without frying it or it taking me a whole day. After this “procedure” the hair feels healthier and less fragile than when I let it air-dry completely. Although, if my hair dried quickly I wouldn’t bother using the hairdryer most of the time and I guess it would be healthier.
I struggle with letting my hair air dry, because feel like it doesn’t get as much volume compared to when I diffuse, but I get more frizz when I diffuse. How can I get volume with air drying?
Hi, I know this post is almost a year old now…but…
I have quite thick hair that used to be super curly when I was a kid. I’m now 26 and my hair is still very thick, quite long but also quite frizzy. In order to get nice curls I either have to allow it to air dry with lots of curling around the fingers and creme/serum, which takes at least a full day (in summer, in sunlight!) Or.. I have to blow dry it and use my straighteners to curl it which takes around an hour and is obviously quite heat intensive on my hair. I have tried to use a diffuser but it still seems to make it frizzy. I wash my hair every other day and it starts to get greasy by the end of the second day. I’m desperate for an effective way to get my curls looking bouncy and full without it taking a whole day! Are there any products/methods you can recommend. Thankyou! x
Hi Rachael, frizz can often be a sign that you need to hydrate your hair. Check out my curly hair routine here and I hope there are some tips there that help xx
HI Christina! I love this article! Thank you for the information. I was wondering if you have a blog post or tutorial with the wet braid you have in your hair in the photo from this post. I am searching all over and not finding it. I love that and would like to know how to do it.
Thanks Megan! You cna find the tutorial for this braid here – https://www.hairromance.com/2015/10/hairstyles-for-wet-hair-3-simple-braid-tutorials-you-can-wear-in-wet-hair.html xx
What would be the least damaging way to dry your hair. Mine is very thick and i either just let it dry by itself or use a hairdryer but i’m not sure which one is best for my hair.
Hi Anastasia, apparently blowdrying on medium heat with the hairdryer about 15cm away from your hair is the least damaging but there are lots of other factors to consider – how long does your hair take to airdry? Do you use a brush to dry it? Science says the basic blowdry is best but you need to take into account your hair type. Personally, I try and alternate so that my hair gets a rest from heat as much as possible, but it doesn’t stay wet for too long either 🙂 xx
Thank you for this article! Can hygral fatigue be corrected with a protein masque? I typically wash my hair twice a week and it takes about 3 hours max to completely dry. I recently cut my hair and it is pretty short! My hair has a mix of 2c & 3a curls. It was just above my ribcage then. When I pulled on a curl, my hair was bellybutton length! Now, my hair is collar bone length while curly. I NEVER sleep with my hair wet. I’m too scared of damage!
Exciting about the haircut, Kelsey! Sounds great! Yes a protein mask can help. Hair needs both protein and moisture to keep it in balance. Protein masks are more about helping hair to be stronger while moisture masks make the hair feel softer so they work well in combination 🙂
My comments MUCH too long, sorry. Feel free to delete it all.
no way, I love hearing your hair routine! Thanks so much for sharing 🙂 Christina x
My hair is quite long (especially for a 65 year old). I really enjoy it. I keep it colored in the tigereye colorway popular now, though my stylist and I developed it before we knew about that.
Recently, I started having it colored every 4 weeks, instead of 3. This is partly because of this wonderful root cover powder you recommended. Thanks! I’ve also been experimenting with no-poo methods and natural soaps and rinses. I’m undecided about this – not being crazy about the results, but not abandoning the idea yet.
I’m washing every 4 to 5 days, and air-drying 4 out 0f 5 times. I think all the braiding and up dos are most damaging. The elastic and pins are brutal.
And, I use dry shampoo, mostly on my bangs. But lately I’ve been trying arrowroot powder and cocoa powder mixed, with good results. I washed my hair, and blew it dry daily for about 50 years because it was very oily. It got less so as I got older. I also spot wash my bangs and part area sometimes. I only get hair trims of an inch or two about twice a year.
Thanks for sharing your hair routine and so glad you’ve got out of the daily washing habit. 🙂 I agree that hair elastics can really pull at your hair if you don’t take them out carefully x
I let my hair air dry wrapped in a microfiber towel to about 80% dry, then use a hair dryer on low hear to finish it if i am blowing it straight.
If I am trying to let my natural frizz (er waves) show, then I air dry all the way. I have fine, wavy, low porosity, high density hair. In other words my hair strands are fine, but there are a lot of them and my hair has a hard time absorbing things.
What is the best way to mitigate the damage? Is it better to dry wrapped in a Tshirt so that the weight of the hair is supported?
Hi Loren, t-shirt drying like that is great and I wouldn’t stress too much about the damage from airdrying. Pretty much everything we do to our hair damages it and that’s why it keeps on growing 🙂 Or you could speed up drying the process with a diffuser if you want it to dry faster. There’s a link in the comments here to a study on this if you want to read more x
This is potentially devastating, especially as I was just reading the articles about baldness caused by dry shampoo. There’s no winning!
sorry, it’s true though isn’t it? You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t! I’ve seen those dry shampoo stories too and think it’s a bit of an extreme case. My hair is 90% dry shampoo by the end of the week and my scalp is just fine 🙂
I NEVER use a hairdryer… in fact, I’m not sure I even own one any more! I wash my hair once a week, at most twice. I either do vintage pin curls (yes, with bobby pins) or just a top knot, and yes, I sleep on it wet, because I have very thick, curly/ wavy, grey hair and even if I leave it loose it takes forever to dry. But I prefer the controlled waves I get with my “wet sets” , and I’m gentle as I unpin and use my fingers to shape then brush out. I’m trying to grow my hair long again after a disastrous haircut last year where “trim the ends please” somehow ended up costing six inches of growth, I don’t want to go back!!
I love a vintage set! They last so well. Sorry to hear about that “trim” Caity, sounds like a nightmare! x
oooh I would love to see your hair when you’ve done the vintage set! sounds pretty!
There’s a study on this and it agrees with you: air drying is a little more damaging than hair drying at a 15 cm distance, but less damaging than using a hair dryer closer than that.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3229938/
oh thank you for linking to this study! You’re brilliant! X