Blow drying is a convenient way to style hair, but frequent use of hot tools raises concerns about potential damage. Understanding the effects of heat is essential for maintaining your hair’s health.
Beautiful and healthy hair is everyone’s desire, so knowing what you should and should not expose your hair to is vital. Read on for everything you need to know.
Is Blow Drying Hair Bad?
Is blow-drying bad for your hair? Yes, it can be damaging, but there are ways in which you can do so and still keep your hair healthy and strong. Blow drying your hair too often or on too high of a setting can lead to dry and brittle hair.
Why Is Blow Drying Hair Bad?
When you blow dry your hair, you’re exposing the hair shaft to high heat to accomplish the goal of a quick dry. Although the hot air is excellent for drying the hair fast, it also leads to brittle and damaged hair.
Continuous use of a blow dryer, or any device that exposes your hair to heat, causes damage to your hair by stripping it of its natural oils and drying out the hair cuticles, which results in frizz and split ends.
Blow Drying Hair Strips the Natural Oils From Hair
The high heat of the hair dryer causes your hair to lose some of its natural oils, which protect your hair shaft and makes it look healthy, shiny, and bouncy. The heat causes a physical change, accelerating the evaporation of moisture and loss of lipids.
Keratin, in particular, which is what hair is made of, does not like heat. The heat causes the keratin protein to change its form, and it becomes hard and dry.
When exposed to the heat source daily, that’s when you’ll notice a significant change in the way your hair looks and feels.
Dry Cuticles and Frizz
Frizzy hair is another common effect of blow drying. Extended heat exposure causes your hair cuticles to naturally dry out, which is when frizz becomes an issue. Dry, frizzy hair is hard to style and won’t go away until it grows out.
Are There Any Benefits of Blow Drying Hair?
Blow drying your hair is not the best thing to do if you want healthy and strong hair, but there are benefits to blow drying hair as opposed to leaving it air dry.
Dries Hair Fast
Sometimes you’re in a hurry and don’t have time to wait for your hair to air dry. In this case, blow drying your hair is an ideal solution.
With a dryer, you can practically dry your hair instantly from the shower to styling. It’s an easy way to get the job done, and it’s also super convenient.
Pre-Molds Hair for Styling
Another benefit of it is that it pre-molds your hair for better styling techniques. Hair stylists always wash and blow-dry hair before styling for this reason.
The heat from the dryer temporarily resets the hydrogen bonds in your hair, making it easier to shape and style the way you want. In fact, blow-drying your hair alone can be used as a styling method.
Creates Straight Hair
A hairdryer uses heat to dry wet hair quickly. When you apply heat combined with tension from a brush, it helps create a straighter strand of hair.
If you want to straighten the curls in your hair without using a straightener, blow drying it can help.
Ways To Prevent Damage From Blow Drying
There are some ways you can utilize this popular hair styling technique without causing too much stress on your hair. This way, you can have the best of both worlds–healthy hair and an easy and quick drying method.
Prevent damage from blow drying your hair by using the low heat option on the dryer, purchasing a high-quality blow dryer, and using heat protectant products.
Purchase a High-Quality Blow Dryer
Although it’s tempting to go to the nearest convenience store and buy the cheapest blow dryer they have, lower-quality heating elements and controls significantly increase the risk of damaging your hair. While budget-friendly dryers can work if used on the lowest settings, investing in a mid-range dryer (often $30–$60) with ceramic technology, an ionic generator, and multiple heat settings will offer better temperature control to protect your hair.
Low-quality hair dryers often have poor temperature regulation and uneven airflow, which can concentrate extreme heat spikes on specific areas of your hair, leading to localized damage. Many high-quality dryers emit negative ions. This technology helps break down water molecules to dry hair faster and reduce frizz, minimizing the time your hair is exposed to heat.
Use Heat Protectant Products
Heat protectant hair products are another great way to ensure you don’t damage your hair while blow drying.
Heat protectant products coat the hair shaft with a protective barrier to reduce heat transfer and preserve moisture. Heat protectant products also help reduce the damage from blow drying by preserving the moisture and locking it into the hair.
Never Use the Highest Heat Setting
When blow drying your hair, it helps reduce damage if you use the lowest heat setting on the blow dryer rather than the hottest.
It may be your natural reaction to want to use the hottest setting and dry your hair super fast, but the hotter the heat, the more damage is done. Try the coolest setting first to see how your hair reacts.
For straight or wavy hair, allow it to air-dry until damp before blow-drying. However, if you have curly or coily hair, it is safer to begin blow-drying in sections while the hair is very wet (using a protectant and detangler) to stretch the hair smoothly before it shrinks and tangles.
FAQs
Here are some of the most commonly asked questions about blow-drying your hair.
While air drying avoids heat, leaving hair wet for prolonged periods can swell and stress the hair’s internal structure. Using a blow dryer on a low, cool setting from a distance can actually be healthier for the inner hair cortex.
If you choose to blow dry your hair occasionally, you should try to wait at least 3-5 days between each time doing so.
This time frame prevents compounding the structural stress and moisture loss caused by frequent high heat exposure.
While the air from blow drying doesn’t directly cause hair loss, aggressive pulling with a brush while drying can cause breakage and traction alopecia, which leads to thinning.
It is best to use the lowest setting on your hair dryer to reduce the amount of heat being blown onto your hair. So, it is beneficial to use cold air when blow drying your hair.
Yes, if you blow dry your hair too often, it becomes brittle and dry, which causes frizzy hair. Using heat protectant products and drying your hair in a cooler setting will help to reduce the frizz.
If done professionally using all the right products, blow-dried hair can last up to 3-5 days. If you have fine or straight hair, an at-home blowout may only last a day without styling products. For those with curly or coily hair, a blowout can last until your next wash day or until the hair is exposed to moisture.
In Conclusion
It’s important to consider all circumstances when answering the question, “is blow drying bad for your hair?” However, in general, drying your hair too often will cause damage to your hair and could affect the way it looks and feels.
Suppose you use a high-quality dryer and heat protectant products. In that case, you’re much less likely to see the damage done to your hair from blow drying it.
In addition, blow drying your hair with a colder temperature setting is another way to reduce the amount of damage done to hair from being exposed to the heat of a hair dryer. If you have straight or wavy hair, you can allow it to air-dry until damp before using the hair dryer. If you have curly or coily hair, start drying in sections while it is very wet to reduce tangling and breakage.