Myths about African hair: Scalp oiling
October 07, 2019
The skin on your scalp is no different than the skin on your face, one of its special qualities is that it produces its own oil/fat called sebum. Sebum feels like wax and appears whitish when wet. Most people confuse it for conditioner residue and scrub it all off while shampooing their hair(I know I used to do this too🙈) under ideal circumstances Sebum is the only oil your scalp needs but due to the factors I am about to mention below some of us do not produce enough to keep our scalp well lubricated.
Oiling the scalp is something we have been doing or have been seeing done since we were little girls and we carried on doing this mostly out of habit not because our we actually need to or because our scalp needs it. Infact some of us will experience much healthier hair if they didn’t or greatly reduced oiling their scalps. Take a look at this scenario. You have been oiling your face for the past five days and splashing water on it every now and then, but you haven’t been cleansing it. I bet your face would look terrible and you would probably have a break out due to clogged pores. No one in their right mind would do this on purpose.
But this is exactly what happens with our scalps, most of us Layer it with thick heavy oils over long periods of time and as a result it compromises the quality of hair that grows out due to clogged follicles. Picture this, if you have a tube of toothpaste but for some reason the toothpaste dries out right at the top of the tube. If you don’t make an effort to first remove the dried out toothpaste two things will happen when the tube is pressed. Either the pressure of you pressing on the tube will create a small crack in the dried out toothpaste and force a little toothpaste out or nothing will happen the toothpaste tube represents the hair follicle. Too much oil on it will suffocate it and as a result you grow thinner hair than you actually should.
But this is exactly what happens with our scalps, most of us Layer it with thick heavy oils over long periods of time and as a result it compromises the quality of hair that grows out due to clogged follicles. Picture this, if you have a tube of toothpaste but for some reason the toothpaste dries out right at the top of the tube. If you don’t make an effort to first remove the dried out toothpaste two things will happen when the tube is pressed. Either the pressure of you pressing on the tube will create a small crack in the dried out toothpaste and force a little toothpaste out or nothing will happen the toothpaste tube represents the hair follicle. Too much oil on it will suffocate it and as a result you grow thinner hair than you actually should.
Another disadvantage of applying too much oil on the scalp is that it keeps your scalp from producing sebum in order to lubricate itself
My Tip: If you have to oil your scalp use a light oil that will still allow your scalp to breathe. If you are not sure if your scalp needs any oiling just don’t oil it after washing and see what happens.
I personally stopped oiling my scalp in 2012 when I realized that I didn’t have to. The only time I apply oil to my scalp is when doing hot oil treatments and over the years I have noticed my hair produce more sebum which is the best oil your scalp can ever have.
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9 comments
Very informative.
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