Years ago, I used to do my laundry on laundry day. You come out of the shower, your hair dripping, and you toss it with a warm bath towel straight from the dryer. I continued with my usual routine, but I kept having a huge amount of hair. My hairdresser eventually came to tell me that I also had a lot of blemishes. I listed a few hair-strengthening treatments I’d been trying out, like bond repair masks and anti-frizz serums, and figured there couldn’t be anything wrong with me. “By the way, how do you dry your hair?” she once asked? Midway through my response, when I detailed how I used my bath towels, she stopped me and said I should switch to microfiber towels instead.
You wouldn’t think that simply changing the way you dry your hair would make that much of a difference. However, it turns out that it can actually damage or even destroy your mane. “Microfiber towels are towels made from tiny synthetic fibers (thinner than human hair),” Rita Hazan, celebrity colorist and founder of Rita Hazan Salon, told me via email. . According to Hazan, regular use can prevent hair breakage and reduce stress on wet hair.
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As Shabu Kaspara, a New York City-based trichologist and founder of hair care retail platform Leona.co, explains: Microfiber’s soft and fine structure makes the hair cuticle more gentle, reducing friction, frizz, and breakage. Traditional towels, on the other hand, are “highly textured and can destroy the hair’s delicate cuticle layer if you use them to dry your hair.” Kaspara explains that even air drying isn’t a good solution. I’m doing it. “Depending on the thickness and porosity of your hair, air-drying your hair can take a very long time, and too much moisture can make your hair stuffy and cause wet fatigue,” she explains. Continue. Additionally, “the top layers of your hair can dry faster than the hair underneath, resulting in an uneven texture when your hair is all dry.”
The first time I used a hair towel, I noticed an immediate improvement in the look and feel of my hair. As per Kaspara and Hazan’s notes, when using my normal routine (clarifying shampoo, then moisturizing shampoo, then deep conditioner), just changing out my usual bath towel made my hair smoother and silkier. It has become. An added benefit was that my hair dried quickly. Instead of my freshly washed hair dripping down my back, the towel was firmly secured on top of my head, so all the excess moisture was immediately absorbed. Most hair towels have clasps or elastics to hold the hair in place, another feature that sets them apart from regular towels.
