My hair is very long and curly, frizzy and knots easily. I wash my hair every day or I'm not able to brush it, and I use hair spray/wax/mousse every day (which adds to the difficulty of brushing without showering, but even without it I get lots of knots). I'm planning to spend the next few years (hitch)hiking around, so I definitely won't be able to take care of my hair very often. I've been thinking about getting dreads, and while I don't dislike dreads, eventually I will want my natural hair back and then I'll have to cut it all off.
So, any femanons who have also travelled full hobo style, is it possible to combine unruly hair and travelling, and if so, how?
>>1088523
Shave it and wear a cap. Honest advice.
Not only will it be easier to manage, you can take a bar of soap to it and consider it done. Also you gotta think of safety, if you're gonna be tenting it and hitchhiking as a female, youve got to look tough, and nothing says "dont fuck with me" like a shaved head and tats.
I know that it isn't the most /fa/ choice, but looking like a tumblr dyke is way better than having a flea infested knot of nappy greasy messy hair on your head. And it will get that way if you don't have daily access to a shower.
With dreads you'll just look like another tryhard train kid or methed out cyber goth. You'll be discriminated against way harder than if you're a skinhead, not to mention the inevitability of lice, mould, and parasites. Dreads need to be washed and conditioned daily or they get real bad.
>>1088523
As the previous Anon said, shaving is really the best, though you could just cut shorter.
Shaving is easier and cheaper to maintain as you can shave yourself. Cutting shorter may make you feel better in terms of feeling feminine but it's harder to keep it short by yourself (you'll likely have to go to a hair saloon or whatever you call it).
>>1088523
>So, any femanons who have also travelled full hobo style, is it possible to combine unruly hair and travelling, and if so, how?
Sure...
You go hitchhiking you will stop to give a fuck about your hair after 3 days max. No hairspray, no wax no mousse.
Just brush your hair with a comb and do a simple ballet bun or a ponytail, looks good enough and is done in less than 20secs.
If you really care, you will find a hairdresser that will do a simple wash, cut tops and styling for 1-5€ almost anywhere outside of western europe.
>>1088540
Yeah I wasn't planning on using products, but I can't just comb it in a few secs, combs even break when I use them on my hair haha. So I thought about braiding it every day to minimize the tangles, but I'm not sure what will happen to my hair if I braid it all the time.
>>1088542
Try it at home, wash your hair only every third day, leave most of the products away beside a good shampoo (should be way easier to comb after a few days) and see how it looks in a week or two.
>>1088523
I have the exact same hair type, if i don't detangle it regularly I have dreads within a month. I went a summer without doing anything to my hair and i ended up not able to fix it afterwords and had dreads for a year before i got tired of the weed jokes and shaved my head. I looked horrible with a shaved head but i wore beanies everyday and after a few weeks i actually liked the freedom of no white girl affro. My hairs shoulder length now with the curls but i do miss how low maintenance it was before. I'd say leave it in a bun or braid most of the time and if it does dread and you hate it just cut them off, you might end up liking super short hair anyways like I did. Hair always grows back.
>>1088523
Dreads actually require heaps of maintenance, shave your shit or keep it a few inches at best and wear a baseball cap.
>>1088552
Also if you go with dreads a good way to keep them from getting nasty is to seperate them as they form so they stay smaller. The thicker the dread the longer it takes to dry and the more potential for nasty build up and mold in the center. You ideally want a little bigger than a dime but no bigger than a quarter. Also you can keep them relatively clean washing them once a week with dish soap. Sounds gross but as someone that had them it works fine and you get less buildup from shit in shampoos that makes them smell. You're gonna wanna wash your scalp more often like every other or every third day but i would use just water and really message your scalp. Expect oily hair for awhile but it goes away once it adjusts. Pretty low maintenance if you do it right compared to curly hair but nothing is easier than a shaved head.
>>1088523
You're taking care of your hair type wrong to begin with though. It's frizzy because you wash it everyday and use shampoo and brush it everyday. You should detangle it in the shower with your fingers and only brush it out once every week or two. Shampoo dries the crap out of curly hair making it frizzy and unruly you can clean your hair just fine without it. You should only wash it every other day at most. Get a conditioner that has no sulfates in it or just put in coconut oil an hour before you shower when you notice your hair getting dry then wash it out with either water or castile soap and coconut milk and always let it air dry. I had horrible hair when i was younger doing what you're doing but I actually looked up care for my hair type and it's never frizzy and curls beautifully now. What works for me might not work for you so try things till it fits but i can tell you for sure what you're doing now is awful for your hair.
>>1088523
your problem is washing your hair every day, that strips it of its natural oils and makes the scalp go into overdrive to replenish what was lost.
Spray was and mousse make it worse.
My hair is nearly to my ass and curly, used to be frizzy but only the front parts are frizzy now.
You want to wash it about once a week, maybe once every 4 days if you are doing anything very filthy.
You ideally want to be using a very heavy conditioner, like africas best or anything for black hair care, you want to leave it on for atleast an hour to get the deep conditioning. Its time consuming but worth it, it makes your hair smooth and not frizzy (unless you actually have black hair, idk what it does then), makes your natural waves and curls retain themselves without devolving into frizz after brushing.
You also want to be using a leave in conditioner and oil after washing. I personally dont use much oil as its easy to make my hair greasy but I know that some hair copes with it better than others.
If you cant be bothered with that, then it will be better to go bald, but desu most chicks cant pull off the bald look, you have to have god tier face to manage it.
I have not travelled full hobo style, but regardless how you are travelling, ditch the wax etc, as that shit causes more problems than it solves and would be annoying to carry around.
If you cant get your hands on black hair conditioners, then just use the thickest heaviest one you can get and leave it on as long as you can stand it.
Once your hair has had several deep conditionings in a row, you can switch to just leaving it on for five minutes. But really you should deep condition as much as you can.
>>1088528
Good God, she'd be hot with long hair.
>>1088523
If "very long" and "knots easily" then you need a trim. Your hair is damaged, and the broken parts are snagging each other. You should also clip it up when sleeping or even wear a cap.
Curly hair is not brushable when dry, fact. The trick is that you wash your scalp twice when and if you do shampoo, and you use leave in conditioner, oils, and shine product, not the crap you are using that cements it or makes it tacky and sticky. To redo curly hair on the 2nd day you use like a curl activator, which is really just like wetting your hair down again, and combing it as you would right after a shower. One product easily found for 2nd day hair is BedHead After Party. There is also brushable/reworkable hair spray such as Nexxus, for like old ladies that set their hair once a week, brush it out, respray and fix the lumps.
If you want to do your curly hair right, you use very little product actually. Go look at lines like DevaCurl to get an idea of the range of products (for non-black people) for curly/wavy.
What I do for my hair (strawberry blonde), took me a lifetime to figure out. Blow dried hair stays cleaner longer (oils don't distribute down the shaft as fast). I wash well since my skin is oily. On the next shampoo I use RenPure conditioning cleanser. My foolproof technique is a touch dreadlike if I want the curls. I put the product in, and then twist sections away from the face like ropes. Then difusser or air dry. You can pin them up for sleep too. How would you do this outside of civilization? Spray with water, or douse with water. Even put in some conditioning shampoo and rinse with bottled water. Twist, air dry. For speed, I do alright with a tight twisty bun of wet hair, sleep and air dry the rest of the way in the morning. You can also do the wrap around a headband trick. https://www.pinterest.com/explore/headband-curls/
>>1088523
>I wash my hair every day or I'm not able to brush it, and I use hair spray/wax/mousse every day
Male anon with long and extremely wild hair here; I used to wash my hair with shampoo every day as well, and used to have the same problems.
Then I went no-poo out of curiosity, and now
>my hair doesn't get greasy
>it no longer looks like I put my fingers in a power outlet
>it hardly knots
I do rinse it with water, mind you, but that's it, doesn't smell, and the maintenance level has dropped dramatically. Took me a good few months to taper down and adjust, but it's been smooth sailing since then. Would recommend.
>>1088559
What an amazingly insightful response.
How should I take care of my hair? Naturally very straight and very thick. I generally shampoo it every two or three days at wherever I'm staying. It's getting super dandruffy lately (what evven causes that?) and is generally pretty oily unless I shampoo it in which case it gets super dry and more druffy.
Some good posts in this thread. Im a guy with curly hair. Used to be long but now it's sort of like an afro available.
Those people are right about not shampooing every day. You dobt have to cut off your hair, just work with what you have (aka curls). It's funny cause we want straight hair and people with straight hair love curls.
Btw anons, any advice for getting rid of dandruff? I'd like to wash my hair like once every 3 days but I need to wash it every other day because of dandruff
