Dandruff: what you can do at home, and what needs a salon

Dandruff is one of the most common scalp complaints, and one of the worst-handled — mostly because we use the same word for two different conditions.

Dry or oily?

Dry flaking is fine, white and dusts off easily. It typically shows up in winter, in heated rooms, and comes with a tight-feeling scalp. This is a dry scalp.

Oily flaking is larger, yellowish and sticky, clings to the hair and does not dust off. It often comes with itching and roots that get greasy quickly. Behind it is an overgrowth of a yeast — this is the milder form of seborrhoeic dermatitis.

The two need different treatment. Dry flaking needs moisture; oily flaking needs the opposite.

What you can do at home

For dry flaking: wash less often, use lukewarm — not hot — water, and a gentle, sulphate-free shampoo. A weekly oil treatment on the scalp helps a lot.

For oily flaking: a pharmacy shampoo containing ciclopirox, zinc pyrithione or ketoconazole, used as the box says — usually twice a week, left on for a few minutes. Oil treatments make this one distinctly worse.

What hurts in both cases: scratching with your nails, and daily hot-water washing.

When the chemist is not enough

If eight weeks of consistent home treatment brings no improvement, or if the scalp is red, inflamed or broken, or the patches continue past the hairline — then you need a dermatologist. Psoriasis and more severe seborrhoea are medical questions.

What the salon can do

Here, scalp treatment is a separate service: heavy dandruff or an oily scalp takes an hour, seborrhoeic dermatitis an hour and a half. They start with a deep cleanse and work towards restoring the scalp’s balance.

Their practical advantage is that the stylist can see what you cannot: the crown, the nape and the hairline — and can tell you whether what you are calling dandruff actually is that.

One thing people commonly get wrong

A flaking scalp does not tolerate daily washing — but it does not tolerate washing too rarely either. The aim is regularity: the same rhythm week after week, with the same shampoo, for at least a month. Switching products weekly tells you nothing about which one would have worked.