It’s clear that too much heat is a bad thing, but can air drying be damaging our hair too?
The answer is yes.
Too much water in your hair and over-moisturising can cause hygral fatigue. In simple terms, the act of wetting your hair causes it to swell up. The hair strand expands and contracts as it gets wet and dries. This constant cycle of swelling takes its toll on the hair and can cause major damage. Think of your hair like an elastic band; the more it stretches, the harder it is to go back to its original shape.
The longer your hair is wet, the higher the chance of damage occurring. If your hair takes ages to dry, this could be causing a similar amount of damage as the heat of blowdrying your hair.
Sleeping with wet hair and doing long moisturising treatments can end up having the opposite effect on your hair than what you intend it to. The same goes for over-washing! Maybe a little bit of hairdrying isn’t a bad thing after all.