Is This Common Shower Habit Sneakily Making Your Hair Brittle?

I recently got a scalp analysis from editorial hairstylist and founder of Act + Acre Helen Reavey—for those unfamiliar with the service, all that means is that she used a digital microscope to examine my scalp. Aside from the surreal experience that is seeing your hair follicles up close and personal, nothing appeared too out of the ordinary—just a little dryness, mostly clustered at the crown of my head. 

"Is that common?" I asked, peering into the monitor screen. "Oh yes," she replied. After all, the shower spray typically beats down on that one spot. Unsurprisingly, this is also the area where my hair is thinnest and prone to breakage. Huh. 

There are actually a few culprits at play here: water pressure, temperature, and hardness. We'll start with pressure, which is perhaps the most obvious. If you have a jetlike stream shooting onto your scalp, that's a form of physical stress—over time, this can result in scalp dryness and irritation, as well as hair breakage. Sure, it might feel lovely to have that pressure on your back and shoulders, but your scalp is much more sensitive to that physical force. 

As for temperature, we likely don't have to remind you how drying hot water is for the skin. "[Hot water] literally strips the skin of moisture," celebrity esthetician and dermatological nurse Natalie Aguilar says regarding dry skin. Specifically, hot water has the ability to strip the protective oils and lipids from your skin; on the scalp, this can result in dry, itchy flakes or greasy hair, as your scalp can wind up producing even more oil to compensate for the lack of moisture. 

If you think your water pressure is way too harsh for your scalp, try to replace your shower head with one that has a gentler, rainlike setting. Certain showerheads and water softeners can also help remove minerals from the tap if you'd like to address hard water head-on. Reavey says you can even "tip your head upside down to wash it" every couple of rinses, just so the spray isn't continuously coming down on one spot. Additionally, turn down the heat, or if you can't bear the thought of no hot water, take shorter showers so your scalp isn't exposed to the high temperature for too long. 

If you've exhausted all shower tweaks and still face a parched scalp, it might be time to try some proactive maintenance. For example, you can apply a pre-shampoo oil to add a coat of protection before your shower. "You always want to pretreat the hair dry with some type of nourishing oil," trichologist Bridgette Hill tells us on an episode of our beauty podcast Clean Beauty School. "You always want to put moisture into the hair fiber: Think of it like a sponge before you get into the shower. It absorbs those nutrients and can help protect the hair fiber when you wash."

Simple oils, like coconut and olive oils, are fabulous options that you can get relatively inexpensively—or if you're looking for a market option, we love Act+Acre's Cold Processed Hair Oil, which calls on argan oil, meadowfoam seed oil, and squalene to nourish the strands and lock in moisture. 

Hydrating hair and skin supplements can also work wonders, and you have a few options. First up: Collagen can support a healthy scalp by promoting your body's natural collagen and elastin production1.* Hyaluronic acid also helps your skin naturally pull in and retain water (fun fact: you have a natural supply of HA in your body, but of course, high-quality supplementation can also provide some targeted HA support, too).*