Is It Bad to Sleep With Wet Hair? What Happens Overnight

Does going to bed with wet hair give you a cold?

One night with wet hair will not make you ill. Colds come from viruses, and both Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic say that wet hair is not what gives you one: if you go down with something after a late shower, the likelier culprit is the virus you met at work or on the bus. Colds peak in winter because people spend more time indoors close together, and Mayo Clinic adds that wet hair in a cold room only makes you feel chilly and uncomfortable. The cost of the habit lands on the strand and the skin under it. Cleveland Clinic points out that wet hair can stretch up to about 30 per cent of its length without damage, and that stretching it further, with a comb, a brush or a tight style, can change it for good. The American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) advises handling wet hair as little as possible, since it breaks more easily when combed or brushed. A dry strand takes the same handling far better. Seven or eight hours on a pillow, with the weight of your head on top, is a long time for a weakened strand, and in the morning you comb it when it is already tangled. Short hair gets off lightly, since there is little length to snag or twist. Long hair, curls and a beard have more to lose. The clinic describes the result of that kind of damage as hair that breaks easily and looks dull. The more nights you go to bed wet, the more often a strand goes through it.

What a damp pillow does to your hair and your scalp

The second cost comes from warmth and damp. Cleveland Clinic explains that bacteria and fungi thrive in warm, moist places, and a wet head on a pillow gives them both. Sleeping with wet hair, it says, can raise your risk of infection. That is a risk and not a sentence, because healthy skin copes with a damp night now and then. The clinic also links sweaty, repeatedly wet hair with a higher chance of infection once a microorganism lands on it. Pay closer attention if your scalp already flakes or itches, or if you go to bed wet every night, since the damp never gets time to leave. The clinic lists the signs that justify a doctor: itchy, acne-like bumps on the scalp (a yeast infection of the hair follicle can cause them), a red, itchy, ring-shaped patch, and a bald spot that appeared alongside it. Those are treated with medicine, not with a new shampoo. The pillow counts too. A damp pillowcase stays damp for hours, so change it more often than you think and turn the pillow over; Cleveland Clinic suggests a pillowcase that does not hold moisture, silk for example. In the chair barbers often see the other side of a wet night: hair that dried pressed into the pillow wakes up with a flat side or a tuft standing up, and water in the morning does not fully erase it. Hair sets in the shape it dries in, so how it sits at breakfast depends on what you lay on.

Dry it before bed, and if you cannot, leave it loose

The simplest fix is to move the shower earlier. With a gap between the shower and the pillow, the towel and the air do most of the work. Wrap your hair in a towel to soak up the water instead of rubbing it, because the AAD lists rubbing with a towel among the habits that damage hair and says to let it air dry. If you use a hairdryer, choose the lowest heat. Straight hair should dry a little before the comb touches it, and a wide-tooth comb is gentler on it. Go to bed when the hair is dry or close to it: Cleveland Clinic advises sleeping with dry hair whenever possible. A quick test: press your palm to the hair at the temple and the nape, and if it feels damp or cool, it is too early for the pillow. If that is out of the question, leave it loose, since a braid or bun on damp hair adds tension, and tension is what makes a wet strand fracture. For tight curls the AAD says to comb while the hair is damp, with a wide-tooth comb. At 044 Barbershop in Kyiv the barber usually cuts with the way your hair dries in mind, which is why a cut that follows the growth direction falls into place almost by itself in the morning, and for the evenings when you want your hair done before you go out there is our styling service (wash and style). If your mornings are a fight with the fringe, come to us for a haircut shaped to how your hair dries, and the barber can show you which zone to dry first.