About ten years ago I decided that I wanted to grow my hair very long. I searched the web for resources and learned that the best way to have healthy hair is to not wash it every day. There were tips for training your hair to not need washing every day. I followed these tips and for the past ten years I’ve only washed my hair about twice a week.
Obviously, washing your hair less often uses less water, less time and less energy to heat the water thereby saving you time and money. I also use less shampoo and less conditioner which saves a ton of money. (Second hint – use up all those hotel bottles of shampoo on your hair – rotating shampoo is good for your hair too! Then I give the little bottles to my children to play with as bath and splash pool toys.)
The idea is that the less you wash your hair, the less oil it produces. To train your hair to need less washing start slowly. The first few days I washed my hair every 36 hours, instead of every 24, rotating whether I washed it at night or in the morning. After a few weeks of this, once my hair didn’t need to be washed until the 36 hour mark, I pushed it off to 48 hours. This wasn’t long enough for people to really notice that my hair was greasy, just long enough for me to notice. After a while, I pushed it off to 3 days. Now I check my hair each morning, and if it seems a little greasy to me, or if I have something fancy going on, I wash my hair that day. I wash it about twice a week and it’s long, healthy and shiny.
It is wonderfully convenient to be away places and not need to wash your hair every day, it means that I don’t always take a shower when the facilities are not comfortable to me. Now that I have a new baby, and two older children, I often don’t find time to shower every day, and I don’t walk around with a greasy head of hair.
This does require having a hairstyle that doesn’t require styling when wet every day. Blow drying your hair is bad for it and damages your hair, so should be saved for special occasions. It also speeds up my morning routine to be able to just brush and go, or brush and put up in a ponytail holder.
Not washing my hair means that most showers I take are shorter – my husband and I aim for 5 minute showers, 
get tips on reducing your shower duration in our 5 minute shower post. It means I use less water and less energy to heat the water. I use less shampoo and conditioner, less electricity on a hairdryer and more time for myself.
For additional water savings bathe your children less often too, doctor recommended!
Happy Greening!
Alicia
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I never thought about training your hair, but I suppose that’s what I did. I used to wash, blow-dry and straighten my hair *every single day* as a teenager. Now I wash my hair about twice a week as well. It takes a long time to look noticeably oily.
I used to always wash my hair every day because it got greasy by night time and definitely by the next morning. Now, I wash it every other day because I have 4 kids and don’t take the time to do it. My hair still gets greasy though. I wear it up and hope no-one looks at it. My hair is un-trainable.