hairwashing

plural hairwashings

1. uncountableusuallyThe washing of hair.

   Hagar did not come back to me for my massages, manicures, and hairwashings.

   1983, Lillian Cantleberry, Sarah’s Story, St. Louis, Mo.: Concordia Publishing House, →ISBN, page 148

   3 more examples

   The wedding ceremony consists of hairwashings in yucca-root water and eating marriage mush from a wedding basket.

   1933, Mrs. White Mountain Smith [i.e., Dama Margaret Smith], Indian Tribes of the Southwest, Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, page 46

   We read to these children in tender tones, loving the snuggled warmth of their bodies, delighting in their baths and hairwashings and in their little clothes; enjoying the feel of their hands in ours on our long, naming-the-world walks.

   1988, Augustus Y. Napier, The Fragile Bond: In Search of an Equal, Intimate and Enduring Marriage, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Row, →ISBN, page 296

   Sometimes, she thought, Craig Gleniston did display those endearingly out-of-touch characteristics one expected of an academic—he’d evidently never heard of the short haircuts and blowdriers that made it unnecessary to give over an entire evening to hairwashing.

   1985, Nicola West, Comeback, Toronto, Ont.: Harlequin Books, published 1986, →ISBN, page 41