How To Dry Long Hair Quickly

Girl towel drying her long hair — Photo: Kamira/Shutterstock

Q: I have long and thick hair, and it takes ages to dry it every morning. I wash it daily when I take a shower because my hair is rather greasy. How can I dry my thick hair quickly?

A: The biggest step in drying their hair that most people miss or perform incorrectly is in towel-drying the hair after they step out of the shower. Obviously, this is going to involve more than simply using the towel with which you dry your body.

Depending on the length of your hair, you will want to have one or two towels for your hair alone. Remember that if you’ve washed your hair and made it clean, then all you are doing is making these towels wet, and they can be allowed to air dry or tossed into the automatic dryer and reused without daily re-laundering.

The key to minimizing the time spent “drying the hair” is in multi-tasking. Letting the towels do their jobs while you do other things.

Step one when coming out of the shower is to dry the body and then the hair with the “bath” towel. Be sure to remember that you always want to pat and blot the hair instead of rubbing and roughing up the hair. Step two is taking a clean, dry “hair towel” and repeating the blotting, patting process. Wrap the hair in the towel and then go about your grooming routine.

After 10 minutes or so, swap the first “hair towel” with your second hair towel if needed, repeating the patting and blotting process before wrapping the hair up again and letting it sit for another 10 minutes or so.

At this point, the hair should be ready to be blown out. Of course, if you have curly hair, you can actually finish off the hair using an unusual technique: paper towel. If you apply your styling product to the towel-dried hair, and work it through evenly, you can finish the hair by squeezing it with a paper towel to get it as dry as possible, and let it finish drying on its own. This will give you clean, smooth, crisp curls that will look great.

If you blow-dry the hair, remember to divide the hair into sections – at least three. Gather the hair at the parietal ridge and upward (including the crown) and divide it evenly down the center. Twist the hair and secure it with butterfly clips. This will leave down the sides and nape sections.

Dry the hair as normal, angling the airflow in the direction of the hair growth. Dry the hair to a “mostly dry” state. Once finished with the lower portions, let down one side in halves, then the other and continue drying the hair. Finish styling as desired.

©Hairfinder.com

See also:

Towels to dry hair without damaging it

How to minimize the post-shampoo detangling job

How to wrap your hair towel in a turban fashion

How fragile wet hair is