After a shower, what is best, to blow-dry your wet hair or let it dry naturally in the air?
Some say hairdryers add shine. Others counter heat damages your hair.
We polled scientists and found, as is so often the case, the answer lies somewhere in between.
German qualified hairdresser Antonio Weinitschke suggests you use a hairdryer if only because you can't create a proper hairstyle without heat.
He also confirms the shine argument: “Our hair consists of cuticle layers." Heated air smooths these out – and makes the hair shine, says Weinitschke, Art Director at the Central Association of German Hairdressers.
Stay cool
However, Weinitschke admits that using a hairdryer incorrectly can also damage your hair. Specifically, if you blow-dry it at too high a temperature – and hold the hairdryer directly onto the hair, “in other words, when the air from the hairdryer doesn’t glide over the hair but penetrates it,” he says.
Tips for blow-drying correctly:
- Make sure your hairdryer should have a nozzle so that you can direct the air to glide over the hair.
- Use a medium heat setting when blow-drying – “nothing happens on a cold setting,” says Weinitschke. And: the stronger the hair, the more heat it can withstand.
- Blow-dry from the roots to the ends, meaning in the direction of the cuticle. Doing it the other way round would roughen up the hair. The result: it looks dull.
- It’s best to use a heat protectant. Leave-in conditioners, worked into towel-dried hair, and hair oils also ensure that blow-dried hair doesn’t dry out.
An earlier study also addressed the question of how to dry your hair with the least possible damage.
Blow-drying does indeed cause more damage to the hair surface, particularly when the dryer is held too close and at high temperatures, says a Korean study published in the Annals of Dermatology in 2011.
Surprisingly, however, the research team found damage to the cell membrane complex – a connecting layer between the hair cells that provides stability, protection and moisture regulation – only in air-dried hair.
The researchers suspect that hair remains wet for too long when left to air-dry. Wet hair swells, allowing water to penetrate its structure and cause damage inside.
They concluded that prolonged contact with water could be more damaging to your hair than the heat of a hairdryer. As to the ideal drying method, the authors recommend blow-drying your hair with the hairdryer held 15 centimetres away and kept in constant motion.
