Has anyone else ever wondered why most men face the shower and put their head down when washing hair, whereas women face away and lift their heads up?
At first I thought that maybe it had to do with the height of the man or that the shower head is too low, but this doesnt seem to be relevant.
Anyone want to take a stab at this?
Well, women are face-up because otherwise they’ll usually get hair all over their faces, and it won’t rinse right anyway. Doesn’t matter so much for men, I suppose, though why you’d want shampoo in your eyes I don’t know.
I’m constantly telling my little girls to “Look up, look up, look up!” when I’m washing their hair, so it probably gets ingrained pretty young. 
I’m guessing length of hair. I imagine it’s easier to wash long hair by tilting you head back, so as to avoid having lots of wet hair, water, and shampoo in your face.
Certainly there are plenty of men with long hair and women with short hair, but there’s a good chance when they were first growing up and taking baths and showers as kids, they had the standard short hair for a boy and long hair for a girl and that’s when most of us get our hygiene habits. Plus I’m sure lots of women wash their hair facing the shower head and lots of men who tilt their head back.
I’ve done both. It depends how I ‘wear’ my hair.
I used to shower with my head facing slightly down so that the ‘grain’ was outward from the center of the head. Then one day I decided to brush my hair back and found that it was easy to shower it backwards so that when it dried it was backwards.
Are you watching people as they shower, or just guessing at this?
I’m a guy with short/medium lenght hair and I wash and rinse with my back to the shower head and my head tipped back. I only do it the othe way when the shower head is mounted too low.
Woman with long hair. I tilt my head back because, when I tilt it forward, it is always full of snarls that must be painfully combed out post-shower. Not true if I tilt back.
Also, there’s the shampoo and hair in face thing, and it’s generally less comfortable to bend as far forward as I must in order to keep the hair out of my face.
Hubby tips his head back to wash his hair.
Men in shampoo commercials tip their heads back to wash their hair.
I’ve seen my best (male) friend tip his head back to rinse salt/sand out of his hair at a shower on the shoreside.
Both. Mostly from watching movies & tv. But the question popped into my wee head after showering with my mate & observing how he washes his hair. Well, ok, it’s hard not to notice when he’s FLINGING water behind him and into my face! :dubious:
I’m a guy and I do the tip-back. This is mainly because I can’t stand having the water dripping or spraying on my face. If I put my head forward, the water would flow down my face and I’d hate it.
I am a guy and I always tip my head forward. My hair is very thick and the hair on the upper back of my head needs some serious water with pressure before it will behave for the day. I have tried to wet it in the sink some mornings and it doesn’t work worth a damn. I have to hit that part of my head with full spray for a while before it will brush correctly.
long hair for most of my life. short to shortish now.
at home with hand held shower thingy: head forward for shampoo, put in conditioner, slick hair back. at end of shower rinsing conditioner out, head back.
anywhere without a hand held shower thingy: head back for shampoo and conditioner rinse out.
I’ll add to the theory-busting anecdotal pile-on.
Male who has always faced away, head back. Was doing it as a kid with short hair long before I grew it out quite long in college, and now that I keep it shorter than ever, still tilting back.
I’m a guy with short hair, and I face the shower and put my head down.
My wife has hair down to her butt, and she also faces the shower and puts her head down. She can’t imagine how it would work the other way.
On TV, they’ll do whatever looks best. Head down probably doesn’t look too flattering.