Maintaining My Type 4 Hair While Abroad

With all the travelling I have been doing in this program, it gets difficult to effectively care for my hair. If you have type 4 hair like me, it takes more time to style every morning and requires the appropriate products to help your hair grow and stay moisturized. In Europe, it is hard to find the suitable products for my hair. Luckily in Freiburg, I found a store called Muller, where I bought Garnier shampoo and conditioner. I was not able to find a leave-in conditioner for my hair at that store, hence I ordered my leave-in conditioner from Amazon.

In Freiburg, I could not find any hair braiding stores to get a protective hairstyle, hence I was left with the only option of wearing my natural hair. For readers who are not familiar with what a protective hairstyle is, it is one that tucks your natural hair ends away so that it is not exposed to sun, heat, and prevents you from combing your hair every day. Protective hairstyles include but are not limited to braids, weaves, and wigs. I had a protective hairstyle at the beginning of my program, however, I took it out because my natural hair started to grow quickly, allowing the protective style to not look neat as it used to. After taking out my protective hairstyle, I often put cornrows in my natural hair or wore it in a high puff to go to class, however, styling my hair every week became time-consuming. Travelling throughout the European Union, especially in Madrid, Lisbon, and Rome, I saw many black women with protective hairstyles, hence I could have gotten another protective style in these cities, however, I refused to do so because of its costly price. Instead, I continued to style my hair each day.

While being natural abroad is difficult, it is not impossible. Some days I wish that I had a protective style to prevent me from combing my hair everyday to save me time when travelling in this program however, I also appreciated that I did not have a protective style because my natural hair got the chance to breathe when I let it loose. For my sisters of color who have type 4 hair and are thinking about studying abroad in the future, I recommend that you purchase your hair products from home or pack hair that you can do protective styles with in your suitcase so that you can style your hair on your own while in Europe. These options would not only be less expensive but they would also be more convenient considering the busy traveling schedule you will have in this program.