When travel left me without my usual hair essentials, did I notice a difference?

In early 2024 I travelled to Europe for a couple of weeks, and did my best to pack as light as possible. It was our first international trip (and our first flight!) with the baby, so I wanted to make things as easy as I could, and not have too much luggage to haul about. So I decided to forego taking my own toiletries – I just took the very bare necessities for my skin (as my skin is fairly sensitive), and left it at that. I’ve done this before for shorter trips, and have got pretty used to using/putting up with whatever is available in the hotel or house I’m staying in.

This was really put to the test in our second week, when we stayed at a ski hotel in the Aosta Valley. Gorgeous setting, lovely hotel, ideal room. All of it worked great. There was just one exception – the ‘shampoo’ in the bathroom was simply handwash, and there wasn’t any conditioner! Loathe to bother buying a bottle of something that I would then need to either abandon or fit in my already bulging suitcase (it turns out babies need a lot of things!), I decided to just go with it, and use the soap for a week. How much difference could it really make? I’ve written before about giving up lip balm (read here), so I’m not averse to testing whether I really need the fancy hair products I use at home.

What worked

To my surprise, I didn’t actually see that much difference in how my hair looked. The ‘after’ photo above is from nearly a week in, and I really can’t see much difference! If anything, it perhaps looks slightly less greasy? I think the lack of conditioner helped to give my hair a bit more volume. I was expecting my hair to feel very dry and brittle, especially given that I was using a very basic, and quite hot, hairdryer that came with the room (it was one of those stuck on the wall types!). But my hair still felt pretty smooth, and looked pretty shiny! I was pretty amazed by how little difference the soap routine made to the overall texture of my hair, and it has made me question how much I really need some of my hair products back home. Maybe I don’t actually need to condition my hair every time I wash it? Or I could at least be a lot more sparing with it.

What didn’t

Where I saw the real difference was in the condition of my scalp. I have quite sensitive skin, and tend to use products designed to combat dandruff, not because I actually get dandruff, but because they’re a lot gentler and kinder on your scalp. Over the course of the week, my scalp got drier and drier, and itchier and itchier. Thankfully not to the extent to distract me too much during the day, but by the evening I could really tell that things were getting a bit sore. When I got home to my normal products, it took, I kid you not, nearly two weeks for things to return to some kind of normality. It’s strange because I was using the same soap for the rest of my skin (bar my face), and wasn’t moisturising (this was another thing I decided to take a risk with and leave behind), and I didn’t really notice my skin getting much drier. It just goes to show that the scalp can be a lot more sensitive than the rest of your body!

Takeaways

In some ways I was surprised by this little experiment. I really thought my hair would look a lot different, but really the only change was in how it felt. However this was a pretty big change, and not one I’m itching (excuse the pun) to repeat. So would I take this risk again? I think on balance, next time I’m travelling I will bother to buy some shampoo and conditioner if the place I’m staying doesn’t provide any. It was nice not having to worry about it, but the pay-off was enough physical discomfort (and healing time) for me to not mind potentially having to struggle to cram another bottle in my suitcase, or leave it behind.

The positive things I took away from this though were that it turns out from an aesthetic perspective, my hair isn’t as needy as I might have thought! I can get away with a very minimal routine, and don’t need to worry about conditioning as much as I have been. I may not completely bid goodbye to the regular condition, but I’ll certainly be a bit more sparing in future.

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What is your travelling beauty routine? What essentials can you not part with, even if it means having a bit of a nightmare packing? I’d love to hear about your experiences, and any tips you have, in the comments!