4 Easy Hair Tips For Travelers

4 Awesome hair tips for travel girls! Tips for keeping your hair healthy and looking good while traveling, and what products + tools I pack when traveling! Super easy and helpful!

Whether you're traveling for a couple of weeks or for several months, you'll likely be packing hair products and tools for the road.

Read on for tips on what tools and products to bring, use, and how to maintain your hair when you're far from your home salon!

1. Hair Tools and Products For Traveling

First, always make sure your hair tools can be used with your adapter when you travel internationally so you don't fry them by accident!

Check THIS video to learn how travel adapters work so you don't fry your hair tools and other electronics abroad!

I always bring these tools with me while traveling:

Wide-tooth comb (for wet hair)
Paddle brush (for dry hair)
Teasing comb (for getting lift at the roots, my hair is pretty flat! This doesn't take up much space)
Curling wand
Travel-sized flat iron (though the one I have kind of sucks so if you have suggestions on a good brand, let me know!)

These are all everyday items I use at home. I don't bring anything extra I wouldn't use at home.

Hair products I bring while traveling:

Travel-sized shampoo/conditioner/body wash/shave cream: basically smaller sized items from my shower. I like to refill my small bottles with my large sized ones instead of buying new ones each time I run out. Though if I'm staying with a friend or family member and I know I'll be able to borrow some of these things (like shampoo), I nix the item to save space - and prevent any accidental spillage!
I haven't tried this yet, but some travelers recommend bringing a solid shampoo bar (like these from Lush) instead of liquid shampoo to further avoid spillage!
Travel-sized bottle of Argan oil (you really don't need a large bottle anyways as it lasts forever)
Travel-sized dry shampoo - this will save greasy roots when you are, say, in transit for 24+ hours...
Travel-sized hairspray (I don't even buy a large bottle of hairspray for home, since I travel so often)

2. Argan Oil - Travel BFF?

I'm low maintenance with my hair - I've never colored it (though have been considering balayage for the past couple years...!) and I only get it trimmed once every 6-8 months.

Part of this is from using argan oil - a product I've had in my arsenal since high school - and it always comes with my on trips. Why?

1) It keeps your ends healthier and provides body/shine

2) I read once somewhere that it dries your hair in half the time (!) whether you're air drying or blow drying. This is huge! I forget the source on this, so I'm not 100% sure how quickly it helps dry your hair, though for me personally I tend to find it helps dry my hair faster.

3) A little goes a LONG way

My mom gave me my first bottle of argan oil when I was a junior in college - it was about 1.2 oz and it was almost gone. This lasted me two years!

I restocked with another bottle traveling in the French Riviera a few years ago and still have plenty left.

3. Traveling long-term? Consider your color!

I have friends who get their hair re-colored every 4-5 weeks, and if you do color your hair regularly, you'll want to consider your color if you plan to travel long-term.

You can find hair salons around the world, of course, though keep in mind 1) getting what you actually want (it's not your regular hairdresser), 2) the cost and 3) availability. Try Yelp for finding salon recommendations or asking around in Facebook groups.

If you're jungle trekking or camping, you probably won't be near a hair salon!

However, the ombre and balayage trends seem to still be going strong, so consider letting your roots grow out for a more natural look! Or color your hair back to its original shade prior to your trip if you don't want to deal with maintaining your color.

4. Have hair extensions?

I used to have clip-in hair extensions that I wore when I studied abroad. I didn't wear them all the time, especially when traveling on planes, so when they weren't clipped in I would keep them together with a hair elastic to avoid tangling.

I would then put them in a plastic ziploc bag so they wouldn't get dirty, and lie them flat across the top of my bag to keep them in good shape!

One of the funniest conversations I had was when I had the extensions in my carry-on bag and put the bag through the security belt at the airport. The airport attendant opened up my bag and had the most confused expression on his face holding up the extra hair. I explained what they were and we all had a good laugh.