If you step out of the shower and rub your hair dry with a towel, you could be ruining your locks, experts have warned.
Hair specialists say aggressively towel-drying wet hair is a badly underestimated cause of hair damage.
They warned that rubbing the same spots every day could lead to thinning and eventual hair loss.
And, in bad news for those who wrap their hair in a towel turban, they revealed this also puts extra friction and tension onto fragile strands.
‘When your hair is wet it is at its absolute weakest, and that is the exact moment most people attack it with a rough towel,’ a spokesman for UK Hair Transplants said.
‘People rub the same areas over and over, usually the top and crown, so the friction is concentrated there.
‘That is where hair snaps, thins out and looks patchy first. The towel is one of the most underrated causes of thinning-looking hair we see.’
The clinic’s experts said this repeated mechanical stress is ‘entirely preventable’ if people gently squeeze the water from their hair out with a towel instead.
In bad news for those who wrap their hair in a towel turban, they revealed this also puts extra friction and tension onto fragile strands (stock image)
The reason a towel does so much harm comes down to science, they explained.
Each hair strand is built from a tough protein called keratin, held together by strong disulphide bonds and weaker hydrogen bonds.
The moment hair gets wet, water disrupts those hydrogen bonds, leaving it far more elastic and fragile.
A healthy strand can stretch up to 30 per cent of its length, and takes far less force to snap when wet.
Dermatologists point out that most of the damage done on wash day happens not in the wash, but in the drying.
‘The worst things you can do are rub vigorously or twist hair into a tight turban, which heap friction and tension onto fragile strands, especially around the delicate hairline,’ they said.
‘Instead, gently squeeze and blot the water out, working from the roots down.
‘Swapping a heavy cotton towel for a lightweight microfibre towel, or even a soft cotton t-shirt, sharply cuts the friction that frays the cuticle, and microfibre absorbs up to seven times its weight in water.
‘Avoid wrapping tightly, try not to sleep with soaking-wet hair, and a silk pillowcase is kinder than cotton.’
In a separate study, scientists showed how strands of hair split and cracked when regularly exposed to heat. Now, experts say roughly drying your hair with a towel could also be ruining your locks
According to the NHS, hair loss affects an estimated 6.5 million men and 8 million women in the UK, with around half of men and 40 per cent of women experiencing some degree of it by the age of 50.
The experts said rubbing your hair with a towel won’t cause the hereditary pattern baldness that is driven by genetics, but it can damage and thin the hair you have – making existing hair loss look worse.
They said there is a simple way to tell between damaged hair and that which has been lost naturally.
Naturally-shed hair – everyone loses around 50 to 100 strands per day – has a tiny white bulb at the root.
A broken hair, meanwhile, has no bulb and snaps mid-strand. A hairbrush full of short, bulb-less fragments points to breakage.
They said sudden shedding, a widening parting or a receding hairline should always be checked by a professional.
But for the everyday thinning that frustrates millions, the fix may be hanging on the towel rail.
