Packing a suitcase is easy, right? You’ve been daydreaming about going away for the past month and sleep talk your way through a checklist every night out of excitement, but there’s one category that often gets forgotten about: holiday haircare.

See, here’s the thing, our hair doesn’t exactly experience a vacay in the same way we do. All those hours spent in the sun and sea make our souls sing, leaving us wanting more and more. But our hair? It’s had enough by day one after going flat, frizzy, and dry, and would jump on the first flight home if it wasn’t attached to our head.

To keep your hair as happy as you are on holiday, here are our favourite haircare essentials for travelling that you’ll want to add to your checklist asap.

1. Volume Spray That Limits Moisture Absorption to Hold Styling for Longer

Anyone else craving that hot, humid air that hits you in the face as soon as they open the plane doors? It’s how you know you’ve arrived at a tropical destination and it’s time to switch to holiday mode. But you know who doesn’t crave humidity? Yup, you guessed it, our hair.

High moisture in the air tends to return our hair back to its normal state pre-styling, which for many of us is kinda flat. One moment you have big, beautiful hair and the next it’s looking sad AF.

One of the best ways to take care of your hair whilst travelling is to carry a volume spray that helps to minimise moisture absorption to maintain volume. If it doesn’t, it’s just a total waste of suitcase space that you could be using for other haircare essentials for travelling.

Mini Volume Spray 60ML – €14.00

Specifically made to be travel-friendly, Curls N’ Clouds Mini Volume Spray is a holiday hair product that deserves a spot in every suitcase (and even carry-ons as it’s under 100ml!). It features ingredients vinyl acetate copolymer and PQ 11 that deliver long-lasting volume by inhibiting the hair’s ability to absorb moisture and block humidity, whilst remaining 100% vegan, cruelty-free, and CGM approved.

2. 2-In-1 Hair and Scalp Sunscreen for UV Protection

That’s right, SPF is no longer just for your skin. Regular UV exposure can weaken hair and make it more prone to damage, dryness, and split ends – basically everything you don’t want to be dealing with on vacay. It can also lift colour right out of your hair, so if you spent a lot of your holiday prep sitting in a salon chair getting it coloured, you won’t want to skip out on SPF.

As for the scalp, it’s the highest point of our bodies closest to the sun and more likely to burn. And as painful as that is, it’s not the only thing you need to consider. Like the rest of your body, skin cancer can also occur on the scalp. To reduce the risk of serious harm, top up your scalp with SPF every time you touch up the sunscreen on your body.

3. Microfiber Towel to Reduce Frizz

It’s no secret that our hair gets frizzy when humidity rises, but why? To understand why hotel towels are a no-go, you first need to understand why frizz happens. Without getting too sciencey, when the air is humid it has a high concentration of water molecules with hydrogen atoms. When these water molecules enter the hair, they increase the number of hydrogen bonds and send your bonds into complete chaos, aka frizz.

Using a regular hotel towel as part of your holiday haircare routine will only double down on frizz as the hard texture will rough up your strands even more, which is why we’d never go anywhere without packing a microfiber towel.

Microfiber Towel – €9.00

Curls N’ Clouds Microfiber Towel is made from 100% microfiber for ultra-softness to reduce frizz wherever you are. To take care of your hair whilst travelling, we recommend keeping one in your hotel room and slipping another in your beach bag to help tame frizz after an ocean swim, so you don’t have to sprint back in the heat after every dip to do damage control.

4. Coconut Oil for A Post-Beach Hair Mask

After a day at the beach, our hair often feels extremely dry as the salt in ocean water strips hair of its moisture. As part of your holiday haircare routine, smothering your hair in coconut oil for 10-15 minutes before you jump in the shower to wash it will help to restore moisture levels, leaving it super soft and silky ready to take on another day of playing mermaids – does anyone actually still sunbathe anymore?