The Dry Shampoo Method

See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no “root of bitterness” springs up and causes trouble. – Hebrews 12:15

I truly believe one of the greatest inventions in the entire beauty industry is dry shampoo. Can I get a witness? That stuff is a game-changer. Back when I was in middle school and high school, I had to wash my hair almost every day. If I did skip a day, I ran the risk of my hair looking oily and gross by fifth period on the day after I washed my hair, and that was not a risk I often chose to take.

Fast forward to my senior year of college, and my friend Noelle introduced me to dry shampoo. While we were at a work retreat, she showed me this magical aerosol can of white powdery stuff that you sprayed in your hair. It almost immediately soaked up all the oil and made her hair look like she’d just washed and dried it fresh that morning. I was sold, so much so that I didn’t even wait to unpack my suitcase from that retreat before I headed to Target to buy my own magic aerosol can.

To this day, I use dry shampoo almost daily. It’s honestly kind of gross how long I dare to go without washing my hair, but this stuff is just so convenient. It makes my life so much easier, and I don’t have to spend nearly as much time getting ready. It really is a win-win.

Now that I’ve hopefully sold you on the amazingness of dry shampoo and how you should immediately go buy some if you don’t own any at the moment, I want to ask you a question.

When you make a mistake, when you sin, do you try to fix things with the dry shampoo method?

Let me explain. I think many of us, often without even realizing it, try to cover up our sins or apply a quick fix rather than really addressing the sin issues in our lives at the root. We hurt someone’s feelings, so we apologize, but we don’t do the work to figure out why we lashed out in the first place.

We react to a circumstance out of anger and frustration, and we say we won’t do it again, but we don’t make the effort to pinpoint where our anger and frustration are coming from.

We gossip about someone out of hurt or insecurity, so we tell the person we gossiped to that we shouldn’t have said anything, but we don’t look inward to try to understand why we are speaking from that place of hurt and insecurity.

In other words, we implement the dry-shampoo method. We apply a quick fix. We don’t actually wash out the sin, if you will. We do the bare minimum to make it look like we’re clean and good to go when in reality, we’re just allowing all the sin to build up over time because we’re not addressing it.

While I will happily endorse the use of dry shampoo on your hair until I’m blue in the face, I don’t think it’s a good idea to apply the dry shampoo method when it comes to dealing with sin in your life. Instead, I’d encourage you to do the grunt work, to really dig deep and identify where your sin is originating from.

It’s not enough to cover it up and hope you don’t make the mistake again. You have to go beyond that. Are you angry about something from your past? Are you holding onto bitterness and unforgiveness from a hurt-filled relationship? Are you carrying around insecurities and feelings of not being enough?

Whatever the case may be, now is the time to ask the Lord to help you look inward and be honest about what’s weighing on your heart. Not only will He help you identify what’s going on, but He can heal you, redeem you, and restore you. If you are His child, He has already forgiven you for every sin you have committed and will commit moving forward. And He offers us freedom and redemption if we will only come to Him for help.

My prayer is that moving forward, the Lord will give you the courage and boldness to dig deep and uproot any harmful or negative thought patterns or behavior patterns so that you can move away from sin and move towards holiness. 

So go crazy with the dry shampoo. Just promise me you’ll only use it on your hair.