Why You Should NEVER Use A Towel To Dry Your Hair

What do you do immediately after washing your hair and stepping out the shower? Well, if you’re anything like us, you’ll firstly somehow get water everywhere and secondly tie your hair up in a towel.

However, as effective as a towel can be for soaking up excess water from your hair before you style it, your tresses won’t actually thank you for it.

Confused? Enter Matt Newman – or @MattLovesHair as his two million followers on TikTok know him as.

Matt’s a professional hairstylist who is using his 10+ years high-level industry knowledge to help people understand haircare without all the jargon and without any judgement – and we (and our hair) couldn’t be more grateful for him.

So what’s the deal with all this towels-aren’t-great-for-your-hair business? HuffPost UK sat down with Matt to find out more.

“First of all, we all when it comes to hair there’s not a one-fits-all answer – but what I will say is think about the texture of your towel,” he explained.

“Think about all those little notches in the fabric, those teenie, tiny loops you see. Sorry, but that’s going to cause frizz as your hair gets caught in them.”

So what to do instead? Well, it all comes down to using the smoothest fibre possible.

“If you were to look at a material with a microscope, you’d see that silk looks like sleek water and terry cloth towel looks like a cactus – that’s what you’re putting against your hair,” says Matt.

“Although silk doesn’t dry well, a cotton T-shirt is going to be very smooth. It’s the best kind of middle ground of being absorbent without being frizz causing.”

The good news is that if you’re going to be straightening or curling your hair after drying, what you choose to dry your hair with won’t make huge amounts of difference – but it’s still crucial to be gentle while towelling.

“You don’t want to use the towel roughly, if you’re going to use one be really intentional and gentle and sort of group it together and ring it carefully and not pull on your hair,” Matt advises.

Don’t fancy using a T-shirt? Matt also recommends using micro-fibre towels, but warns that even these might still be rough for those of us with super-fine hair.

Excuse us while we raid our wardrobes…