Invoice Nye Is Begging You to Not Use Oil on Your Scalp

“It might follow you all through your grownup years,” Dr. Thomas says. “It might are available phases.”

At any time when it could happen, the answer is to make use of a dandruff shampoo containing zinc pyrithione. However Nye urges you to observe it up not with a daily conditioner, however one particularly meant for dandruff. “So in case you use anti-dandruff shampoo — OK, that is good. This fungus doesn’t take pleasure in consuming your pores and skin oil mixed with zinc. Would not dig it,” Nye says. “However then, if you situation with out the zinc, you are washing away about half of the zinc pyrithione, so that you’re undoing what you simply did. However with conditioners which have that energetic ingredient in it, you are not undoing it — you are doing it.”  

And this goes for individuals with a dry scalp, too. Sure, the greasy flakes of dandruff and dusty flakes of a dry scalp aren’t the identical factor, however they are associated. “Dry scalp flakes and dandruff flakes are rooted in the identical difficulty,” Dr. Thomas says. “So to Invoice’s level, I’d say, give an anti-dandruff shampoo a attempt to see if that addresses your dry scalp drawback.”

What Nye would urge you to not do if in case you have a dry scalp (or any form of scalp, for that matter) is to make use of oil to attempt to moisturize it. “There could also be a notion that in case your pores and skin feels dry, you place oil on it,” he says. “Effectively, in case you add oil to your scalp, you are simply offering extra gas for this fungus. So I like to recommend in opposition to that.”

Heidi Prather, MD, a board-certified dermatologist primarily based in Texas, agrees with the advice. “Over-treating the scalp with oil-based hair merchandise could exacerbate dandruff,” she beforehand informed Attract.

Nye would not wrestle with dandruff the best way he did as teen, which can have one thing to do with getting older — Dr. Thomas says oil manufacturing is not fairly as strong after age 60 — or it could have one thing to do along with his fondness for Head & Shoulders’ Scientific Power line, which, along with zinc pyrithione, incorporates one other dandruff-suppressing mineral referred to as selenium disulfide.

Finally, regardless of which dandruff components you select, it is necessary to stay to it, even when issues are trying much less flaky. Dr. Thomas calls it upkeep mode. Nye sees it extra like staying forward of the “competitors” — the fungus.