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I'm back in the USA after a pretty perfect flight home and am eager to tell you about so much we have coming up at YBC but I want to get all my T's crossed and I's dotted, so stay tuned. In the meantime, I want to thank all the guest writers who have helped me out over the last month while I was traveling for retreats and workshops. I love this YBC Community so much and am so grateful for the efforts of our guest writers, and the support from the readers.
Today I wanted to talk about hair styling while traveling. Before I left for my trip, I was at the salon telling my stylist how there was no way I'd be able to bring my hot styling tools while traveling because the voltage is so different from all the places I'd be hitting up (London, Greece, Dubai and Kenya), and I've learned from past mistakes that even if your styling tools say they'll work with a converter, they usually don't. Womp. Plus, I didn't want to add more heavy stuff to my luggage. My stylist stopped what she was doing and said, "Who cares?! It'll be great for your hair to give it a break from all the hot styling." Mind. Blown.
Let's back up a second and I'll fill you in on my normal hair routine. I don't blow dry my hair every time I wash it (I wash it every four or five days or so), but I do use the curling iron a lot. Not daily, but definitely every other day. I also play around with the straightener when I want to experiment with 90s vibes, but for the most part, I'm a curling iron kind of girl. Only within the last two years have I learned to style my hair in a way that is easy and quick, so I wasn't thrilled about leaving my iron behind. Without it, my hair is just meh. Never one to back down from a challenge, I figured I'd try a few new-to-me styling products and see how it'd go.
While I didn't break out of the mold too much in terms of the styles, I was happy with how it went down. Here are some pics, if you're interested. :)
Above, in London, I did a simple messy top knot with two pieces tucked behind my ears on my way to brunch. I got a lot of questions about these pants. They're super old from Forever 21, but I found a few similar styles at a good price point. Shop the look below
Teaching in Greece
The challenge in Greece was the sticky heat. For teaching, I did a lot of french braid pigtails. I used a dime size amount of travel size oil, lightly brushing it through the ends the night before to help seal in moisture after the sun and sea dried it out. Then in the morning I'd use this wax to get defined braids, and I secured with these clear hair ties.
Shop the look below
Greece
The one thing Greece's weather did do for me, though, was give me the best beach hair. We did this shoot after a long day of sailing and swimming, and my hair had zero product in it. ZERO.
Side note on this dress: it's super flattering. Shop it, along with others from the same brand below
In Greece
The following day, we did another shoot (outtake above) and I wanted to keep that same beach wave look, but it was starting to lose its oomph, so I tried to revive it. I used Bb Curl Creme (another travel size bottle I'd brought), rubbed a tiny bit in my hands and scrunched the ends. To get some volume back in the roots, I used this dry shampoo. The trick to the dry shampoo lifting a bit of hair, spraying just the roots, and then kind of zshushing it with your fingers.
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I really got out of my comfort zone with this hair style, and actually wound up being a big fan of it even though I probably look like a five year old. In Oia, Santorini, they were selling this gorgeous silk head wraps, so I got one and then used a rat-tail comb to create a part down the middle. Then, I used clear hair ties to create two top knots on either side of the part.
Shop the look below:
Another trick I did was use a bandana and tie it around my head to make my boring messy top knot look slightly less boring. I like tying it on top because I think the knot at the top looks cute.
In Kenya
For Kenya, you can see I lost my curls. Womp womp. Kenya's weather was so interesting. Because we were right on the equator, it was sweltering for about three hours in the middle of the day, and freezing cold the second the sun went down. It wasn't humid, so I lost a bit of volume, but tried my best to revive it with Deva Curl Creme, dry shampoo, and oil on the ends. But forget about the hair - how about those elephants in the background?! I canNOT wait to share more about our retreats so soon. Stay tuned!! xo
PS: I'd love to know how you style your hair regularly. Do you use hot styling tools? Any special products? How do you wear your hair for yoga or working out?