Dye-ing to Travel: Maintaining Your Hair Colour Whilst Backpacking

If your hair colour isn’t exactly, er… natural, this is quite a big thing to consider before you head off. How exactly are you going to maintain your hair colour? It’s something you can easily forget until you’re out there and realise that you have 2 inch black roots and there’s not a bottle of hair dye in sight. Error.

So should you bring dye with you? No. I don’t think so anyway. (You thought I’d be all for it right?) Well you have enough clothes and gadgets and toiletries to cram into your toploader as it is – without carrying around a box of hair dye that will inevitably burst and leave an explosion of bleach over your every belonging. Not a good look.

So how are you going to prepare for this? Sort out your look before you go. I dyed my hair my natural dark brown before I left so that I wouldn’t get roots showing through whilst I travelled Asia. Then I dyed it again when I got to Australia, where I was in the vicinity of a bottle of Loreal Creme Gloss. That’s your first option anyway. Dye it your natural shade, or at least close to it, to avoid the dreaded dye line.

What else is there? Well you’re in luck girl because ombré and dip dye is still in fashion. So roots can be good! Yes! But don’t get carried away now. You can’t just go out there with a full head of highlights and talk yourself round to the fact that any roots are on trend. Because they’re not. An inch or 2 of dark roots then a visible line of where highlights start are not hot. Get the dip dye or the ombré done before you go. That way, as you’re hair grows, it will still look intentional and damn awesome.

So what if you’re a natural blonde or red head with dyed brown hair? Well, that’s a horse of a different colour. This ombré thing doesn’t work in reverse. So what are your options? I’m afraid it’s either – go natural or get your roots done out there.

But getting your roots done out there, completely depends on where ‘there‘ is. As I said, I dyed my hair a lot in Australia but that’s because it’s the western world – there’s hair dye in every chemist and a hairdresser on every corner. No dramas. Except I should note that hair dye is 3 times the price in Oz.

The developing world is a different sitch altogether. You can always go where the locals go but chances are they’re not used to your hair type, don’t use western techniques and will not use a colour you are going to approve of. Of course you may find a gem somewhere but just don’t get your hopes up. Plan for this situation.

Now here’s where the backpacker nazis chime in – ‘Leave it to grow our naturally’; ‘No-one cares about their hair out there’; ‘Your hair will be up everyday anyway’; ‘Just get dreads!’. Ok they might not all say that last one. But you get the point. And they do have a point. When you’re travelling around remote places, exploring temples, water sport-ing it up and the like, you won’t care about your roots and neither will anyone else. So why bother? The photos. I’ve been back in the real world for 5 months now and it really annoys me that some of my travelling photos aren’t nice enough to frame. That probably sounds silly but you’ll care about these things when you’re back home, trust me!

My advice? Dye it your natural shade or ombre it up before you leave then don’t worry about it throughout your trip. You won’t be worrying about roots, you’ll have fun and the photos will be fabulous.