To Air-Dry or Not to Air-Dry Your Hair?!

THE BEAUTY BRAINS, generally a good authority on all things beauty-related wants you to air-dry your hair - and has been a common opinion for a quite a long time.

"It’s more damaging to blow dry or towel dry your hair than it is to let it air dry. It’s as simple as that. That’s because heat from blow dryers can mess with the natural lipid distribution in your hair AND degrade the intercellular cement that holds the hair’s protective cuticle in place. And the physical abrasion from towel drying not only loosens healthy cuticles but can actually wear them away! So if you dry your hair a lot you’ll end up with less shine and more split ends."  

Read more: Source

But REALLY REE posted about recent research (Sept 2017), indicating that gentle blow drying might be the way to go.

"Hair is most vulnerable to damage when it is wet. The results documented in the published paper referenced above show that letting hair dry naturally causes the cortex (the thickest layer of hair) to swell and become weaker, as the swelling puts pressure on the delicate proteins that hold hair together. By leaving the hair wet you are effectively leaving it in contact with water for a longer period which means it’s in its weakened state for longer and therefore vulnerable to more damage." 

"Further research carried out at the ghd Research & Development centre in Cambridge has shown that using a hair-dryer at the right distance, correct temperature and using a precise step by step method can actually cause less damage than letting hair air-dry." 

Read more: Source

Air-drying damages the inner cortex, while blow drying damages the outer cuticle. There's a trade off. And of course ghd, who makes and sell heat styling tools, would claim damaging the cuticle with blow dryers is the lesser of two evils - but I'm not sure what to think.

I think research carried out by, or funded by, companies who would make significant profits of a "positive" result are definitely biased and not reliable. That doesn't mean that they're necessarily wrong either, so it's difficult to know what to believe. (I don't specifically have anything against ghd, though. Many global companies do this.)

In this case, I think for me it's worth testing out whether e.g. blow drying on medium-cool with heat protectant reduces damage in the long run, but I wouldn't blame any fellow longhairs who aren't ready to risk it. The longer and "older" your hair gets, the more delicate it gets too after all, and I'm not at super-long lengths just yet!