Hair that Travels Part 2: Products

Product selection (and shoes!) were the things that I thought about the most when packing for my trip.  I went back and forth in my mind about checking my luggage or just carrying it on the plane with me.  When I assessed my liquids (contact solution being the main one since I didn’t re-stock my travel sized solution), I decided that I’d check.  Now there was no restriction on what hair products I could take.

Since I knew what style I wanted to maintain throughout the 4 days, it was rather easy to choose which hair products to take along.  I’m on campaign “Less Is More” these days so I narrowed my styling products down to three:

1. Leave-In Spray.  This is a combo of whole leaf aloe vera juice and water with a couple of essential oils added in.  
2. Creamy Leave-In Conditioner.  I’ve talked about this product plenty of times but my go-to creamy leave-in is Shea Moisture’s Deep Treatment Masque.  I have used other products in the past but this one hasn’t failed me.  If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
3. Shea Butter Mix to seal in moisture.  This is something that I made myself.  It’s a combo of unrefined shea butter, aloe vera gel, olive oil, castor oil, vegetable glycerin, and tea tree and rosemary essential oils.  I could have simply taken any other type of oil for this step, like jojoba, but I liked the fact that this was not a liquid.

I also packed my denman-type brush, a wide toothed comb, ouchless hair elastics, bobby pins and my satin bonnet.

I never used the brush or the wide toothed comb but they were good to have “just in case”.  The ouchless elastics where packed in my purse for emergency purposes.  If all else fails…ponytail puff.  Since I didn’t have a hair emergency I decided to use the ouchless bands to stretch my twists and to “pineapple” my hair at night.  More on that tomorrow…

Lessons learned:

1. Leave the liquid leave-in at home and use good ole H₂O and shower steam for moisture.  
2. Pack hair accessories.  There’s nothing like a cute little flower, a colorful scarf or an ornamented hair clip to jazz up a style (and they don’t take up any amount of space).  
3. Include a rinse out conditioner for co-washing.  It wasn't needed but would have been nice to have in my arsenal in case it was.
4. Pack travel sizes to avoid bag checking.

What do you pack for your hair when traveling?  Do you pack light or are you checking an entire bag of products, styling tools and accessories?