How blow drying hurts hair
The largest problem caused by hair dryers is all about temperature. When you point a too-hot hair dryer at your scalp, a couple of things happen.
First, moisture in the hair is suddenly heated to evaporation point. As this water turns to steam, it creates high-pressure bubbles inside your hair which permanently damage its structure, leaving spots that are especially brittle and prone to breakage.
How blow drying hurts scalp
Meanwhile, your scalp can be damaged, as well. Just as hot, dry air from a blow dryer removes water from your hair, it can remove water from your skin. That is a problem for people who are prone to dry, flaky scalp.
And for some people, that’s only the beginning.
Blow drying with dandruff
For dandruff sufferers, things can get a lot worse. When skin is healthy, it helps keep us properly hydrated, by regulating the amount of moisture that evaporates into the air.
Dandruff skin is unhealthy – it happens when your skin cells are produced and shed too rapidly, causing visible flakes of skin to appear. Research shows that dandruff skin is especially “leaky,” allowing too much water to escape from our skin and leading to dryness.
This makes dandruff sufferers especially vulnerable to the effects of blow drying, further drying out their skin and leading to a flaking flare-up.