Sometimes normal life things don’t get put on hold for travel. I paint myself as a low maintenance person but partly because I am lucky and normally have hair that behaves with little effort. For the past couple weeks I have struggled with my hair. My normal shiney and nice hair (one of my good physical features) has been tangled and raggy mess. No haircut in 7 months and using whatever shampoo is lying around gets the blame for my hair being a wreck, not to mention bad water.
Since I am low maintenance I would not complain but I COULDN’T EVEN REALLY PUT A BRUSH through it without pulling out gobs of hair.
I need a haircut but I am in Portugal. I run a google search and find a place one subway stop away that has decent reviews from tourists that stopped in.
My stylist speaks no English and I no Portuguese. I learn the word for cut (Corte) and mimic cutting my ends and then say lavar (which I think is Spanish for wash) and she gets it and takes me to the sink to shampoo. I decide asking for layers and thinning my hair out is way too complex to translate and could lead to very bad results if misunderstood.
While she is combing out my rats nest I get out my google translate to try to make jokes about my hair. Split ends doesn’t translate but bad hair does. She smiles. I broke the language barrier. She asks me a couple questions I don’t understand at first but we eventually figure it all out.
Now my hair is freshly trimmed.
She blow dries it straight which I don’t love. After my next shower I feel the difference. My good hair is back for now.
I also broke down and bought some argan oil. It is in a glass container and is more weight for my pack but I didn’t bring a ton of other beauty products so this will be my one sacrifice (until I get tired of carrying it!)
Yea for good hair again.
Growing With Leala 