The battle never ends. Some people have battles against moral issues, or against people – some have their own private war against oily hair and scalp. You keep trying day after day to keep that hair looking fresh and fabulous and you’ve finally got that slicked back look or whatever you want – but damn, in a few hours time your scalps turned on you like bad milk and there you have it – flat hair. You just lost another fight. Hey, it’s no Iraq, but it’s still a good fight.

Causes for oily hair and scalp vary. People are as unique as they come and hair’s unique too. Too much hair can actually lead to a higher instance of oily hair. How do you have too much hair? When it’s fine and not fine as in the Nanny, just fine, whispy or thin individual strands of hair.

Where the hair and the scalp meet is where oil is secreted and the more of these glands, sebaceous glands they are called, the more oil is naturally produced. Fine haired people, though they may not be fabulously haired, could have over a hundred thousand oil glands on their scalp. That’s a lot of oil factories running every day.

Redheads –well, natural redheads anyway- suffer far less from the curse of oily hair. Blondes tend to have finer hair and thus, suffer from oily hair a lot more than other people. Heat, humidity and hormones can lead to a whole lot more of oil. Taking on the oil in your scalp isn’t too difficult but you do need to be informed.

You don’t need special stuff to clean out all that gunk – maybe you just need to shampoo more. Once a day would be fantastic. Being in a heavily urbanized environment means that I have to clean my hair out a lot more than people who’re tramping around in the forest. When its summer time, you and your hair are a under a lot more stress than normal and twice a day might actually be reasonable. This way, you can keep up with the factories on your head going into overdrive.

Speaking of shampoos, clear shampoos are probably better for people with oil heads. Less fuss, less muss. Massaging the shampoo into your head actually works well – it’s also quite relaxing. If you’ve got a partner, ask them to massage your head while you take a nice bath together. I swear, it works wonders. You might not even care about your hair for a few minutes there.

Oily hair and scalp isn’t the end of the world. There are plenty of other ways to deal with it aside from simply shampooing more although that works well enough for most people. If you’re really desperate, you can try beer as a setting lotion. The smell fades as the beer dries. I personally love “beer in the hair” because it makes my hair feel luxurious and soft, as well as adding shine and controlling the greasies.

Oily hair and scalp can get in the way of a great hair day. Make sure it never gets in the way of your real day.

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