You’ve been washing your hair wrong – why the ‘upside down’ method is the key to cleaner, healthier locks

YOU’VE been washing your hair your whole life, which means you might not have questioned your habits before.

But a new method, “upside down” washing, may be the key to healthier and cleaner hair.

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Flipping your hair upside-down in the shower might be key to healthy hair[/caption]

The beauty experts at Well + Good first began investigating upside-down hair washing after The Bachelor star Ashley Spivey discussed it on her Instagram.

The reality star said her special method was the secret to shiny, voluminous, TV-ready hair, and resulted in less waste of shampoo and conditioner.

Spivey said that when she showers, she starts by dividing her hair into upper and lower halves.

“I apply enough shampoo for those areas and then add a little more water,” Spivey explained. That’s when the star goes topsy-turvey: she flips her head over, leaving her hair dangling downward, to make sure she can reach her entire scalp underneath the hair.

After flipping her head right-side up, Spivey uses a scalp massager to work her shampoo in and loosen up dead skin or product residue.

Then, it’s right back to upside-down to rinse her hair. She uses the same technique to condition her hair from the midsections to the ends.

If these steps are making you dizzy already, just wait until you try them – because, yes, experts said her tactics have merit.

“The back of the head is usually the area people rush through, and they tend to focus on the top,” celebrity hairstylist Aaron Barry told Well + Good.

That means you aren’t actually cleaning your full head of hair when you skip it. “The majority of our hair is at the back of the head,” he continued.

Think about how sweaty and sticky your neck gets in the summertime. When you don’t wash effectively, all that grime stays embedded at the back of your scalp.

Jamie Wiley, the artistic director of Pureology, agreed, telling the outlet that the upside-down method would be effective for any hair type.

If you have particularly curly or thick hair, you should give it a try right away.

“It works best for higher textures of hair (3a-4c) as the density of the curls to coils need more separation and massaging into the scalp,” Wiley explained.

Go slowly, working with a wide-tooth comb or your fingers to separate out sections.

You can also use a Wet Brush or other in-shower styler, which will prevent your hair from becoming tangled as you flip back and forth.

Proceed with caution when you try this method, being careful not to hurt your neck while your head is weighed down by water.

“Please always be careful when doing Cirque du Soleil style head flips in the shower,” Barry warned.