A shampoo schedule tracker for your wash-day rotation

How often should you shampoo?

There is no single right number. The American Academy of Dermatology's tips for healthy hair say to wash based on how often your hair gets dirty or oily. If you have straight hair and an oily scalp, you may want to shampoo every day; if your hair is dry, textured, curly or thick, shampoo when needed, at least once every 2 to 3 weeks. The same page notes that flakes can come from not shampooing often enough, or from not using the right conditioner, oil or scalp moisturizer for your hair type.

So the useful schedule is the one that fits your hair, and you find it by watching what happens at different gaps. That is hard to do from memory: "I washed it on... Tuesday? Or Monday?" is where a log comes in. If your scalp is itchy, flaky or sore despite changes, see a dermatologist rather than adjusting the schedule yourself.

Common wash-day rotations

• Stretching washes. Going from every other day to every third day, or longer, for curly or textured hair. The question is how many days you really managed, and how your scalp felt by the end.
• Alternating shampoos. A gentle shampoo for most washes and a clarifying one now and then to remove build-up, or a shampoo for color-treated hair on most days and something else occasionally. The question is which one you used last.
• Shampoo and co-wash. Some washes with shampoo, some with conditioner only.
• Dry shampoo between washes. Worth logging too, because a lot of dry shampoo days can be the reason a gap felt longer than it was.

Whatever your rotation, follow the directions on each bottle for how to use it, and change one thing at a time so you can tell what made the difference.

Log each wash in EasyRoutine

Create a routine called Wash days and add one activity per kind of wash: Shampoo, Clarifying, Co-wash, Dry shampoo. Each gets its own color, so the calendar shows the rotation at a glance. Add a photo of each bottle if you like and log by pointing the camera at it with the free photo scan; bottles that look alike are safer to log by tapping.

After washing, tap + Log on today, pick what you used and save. Washed last night and forgot? Add the log afterwards with the real date and time.

Add a note or a flag when it matters: "scalp itchy by day 4" with amber, "curls held well" with green. The log sheet shows your recent notes for the same activity, so the next wash day starts from what you learned last time.

Read the real gap between washes

Open the Calendar tab on the Wash days routine and switch to Month. Tap the Shampoo tile to highlight its entries, and count the empty days between them: that is your real gap, not the plan. Tap Clarifying to see when you last did it and whether it is due again under your own rotation.

The Week view is the quicker check on the day: did I wash yesterday or the day before? Which shampoo did I use last? Read it before you reach for a bottle. More on the views in the calendar guide.

Planned wash days (Premium)

With Premium, the Plan tab can put fixed wash days on the calendar, for example Shampoo on Monday and Thursday at 07:30, with a reminder on time or up to 30 minutes before. A planned wash stays faded until you log it.

Schedules repeat on chosen weekdays; there is no "every 3 days" or "every 2 weeks" rule. For a clarifying wash every other week, add Single day plans for the next few dates. If your wash days move with your hair, skip the plan entirely and just log: the record is what tells you the gap. For masks, oils and trims, see the hair care routine tracker.

Common questions

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