Hair that Travels Part 1: Prep

When you’re prepping your hair for travel you should consider length of stay, planned activities while there and the climate. 

I was scheduled to be in Santa Monica, CA for 4 solid days so I wanted a “set it, and forget it” type of style.  I knew for certain that I would not be doing any activities where a wash was needed so I didn't pack shampoo and conditioner.  When I checked the weather for the region, I found that it would be cool, sunny and no humidity.  It was safe enough to say that I was going to rock my signature style: the twist-out. 

The Friday before my travel I detangled, washed with a clarifying shampoo and deep conditioned my hair (in that order) with the help of my hair steamer.  Since I hadn’t washed my hair in more than 2 weeks, I figured a clarifying shampoo – to get rid of excessive product, and the deep conditioning – to restore moisture, were a must.  After I sat under the steamer, I donned a plastic cap for at least 30 more minutes.  I’m not sure if the last step did anything, but I needed to wash clothes before I finished my hair.

After rinsing with cool water, I wrapped a regular terry cloth towel around my hair for approximately 15-20 minutes to soak up as much water as possible.  I did not rub my hair because I didn’t want to un-do the detangling that I had done.  My original plan was to section my hair and twist it into about 10 twists and let it dry overnight to stretch my hair out a bit but I knew that the next morning I wouldn’t feel like breaking the big twists into smaller ones for my “set”.  So…

I parted and clipped my hair into about 6 random sections so that it would be easy to style.  I then applied a creamy, leave-in conditioner (I used Shea Moisture’s Deep Treatment Masque) to each section and finger combed the section to ensure there were no tangles.  I broke the larger section down into about 6-8 smaller sections to twist, using a bit of my shea butter mixture on each twist.  When I got ¾ ways down the twist, I used my denman-type styling tool to brush the ends (to avoid bushy-ness) and completed the twist.  I twirled the end around my finger to lock in place and went on to the next.  I did this to my entire head.

I let the twists hang free until it was time for bed and then I donned a satin bonnet.  I knew that I wasn’t going to unravel the twists until Sunday evening, so I was done.

What did I do to my hair en route to CA?  I kept the satin bonnet on and placed a cute crocheted beret over top of the bonnet.  To make it cute, I pulled out some of the twists in the front to frame my face.  Sunday evening, I unraveled the twists and styled.  Easy-peasy.

Note: I didn’t think about this series of posts until I was 2 days into my trip, so there are no pictures of me with the hat or of the first time I actually styled my hair.  Sorry.  

Blogging rule #1: Everything in life is a potential blog post so always have access to pen and paper or some type of PDA and always have a camera (even if it’s just a crappy cell phone camera) and take pictures. 

But for the most part, this is how my hair looked.  There were some minor setbacks but more on that in post #3.

Come back tomorrow to see what products and tools I packed to maintain my style.