Tune In: How To Care For Your Hair & Scalp From A Trichologist

I'm going to give you a peek behind the content production curtain: When we write about anything related to hair growth or loss, that story gets a lot of eye traffic—by which I mean, lots of you read it. As an editor, that signals to me that it's of urgent interest for lots of folks in the mbg community. (It makes sense as to why hair loss is trending upward right now: COVID-related hair loss was a real issue, as is stress-related loss.) 

Often, I take that valuable intel and use it as topic inspiration for my podcast Clean Beauty School. Such is the case for today's episode, with hairstylist and trichologist Helen Reavey, founder of hair and scalp care brand Act+Acre. She's a longtime source for me and my fellow beauty editors, so having her on the pod felt like a long time coming. 

Throughout the episode, we dive into hair loss, regrowth, and how to actually care for your scalp on a daily basis. "When it comes to scalp care—like skin care—it's all about getting the body into homeostasis," she tells me. "It's about less is more, laying solid foundations, and getting back to the roots—no pun intended." 

"My priority is keeping my scalp in the best possible condition because ultimately that's going to affect how my hair looks in two to three years," Reavey says. "Because once it grows out, there's honestly not much we can do about it at that point." 

And the first step in this process is figuring out your scalp type. Yes, your scalp has a type—much like your face does. Luckily it's pretty straightforward how to figure out yours: "Usually it just follows the face: If you have dry skin, you'll likely have a dry scalp—oily skin, oily scalp," she says. If you want help, here's a quiz to identify your skin type. 

Lots of us aren't washing our hair properly, and one way to find out is to identify where you get oily first. If the nape of the neck or the crown are the first to show signs of grease, that may be a signal that you need to switch up how you're shampooing. 

"Most people start with the shampoo on the top of their head and the midband on the sides, but you're missing a whole chunk of scalp when you do that," she says. Instead, part your hair down the middle all the way, and move the hair past the shoulders on both sides. (Almost like you're planning to put your hair in pigtails.) Then start cleaning the nape, going up to the crown. Once you've cleaned that, then you can go into the top and the sides. And "always double cleanse if you're not shampooing your hair daily," she says. 

All skin types could benefit from a conditioning scalp treatment—oily, dry, and sensitive included. Reavey recommends scalp and hair oiling, which is a long-standing hair practice in many cultures. On some corners of the internet it has been rebranded as "hair slugging," but it's the same thing.