Life
/ July 2017

When I Can’t Travel I…

Disclosure: This shop has been compensated by Schwarzkopf #KeratinColor #KeratinCares

It kills me to say this, but it has been THREE WHOLE MONTHS since we have went on a vacation somewhere! We made the decision at the beginning of the summer to hold our travel plans till winter time. Winter in Erie lasts forrrrreverrrrr, but the summers here are just gorgeous. So we have been trying to soak in the summer here and pad our bank account a little bit for the winter when we need to escape.

Instead of traveling I have been planning our upcoming trips. So far my ideas include Christmas in Florida, a month in a beach town somewhere during Kris’s elective rotation in February and a cruise when he graduates in May. If just one of those happens I will be thrilled! When we go to Florida we always fly discount airlines to save money, but they only let you bring one small carry on item free. The first time we went we paid $50 for a small extra bag. But on our most recent trip we decided to see if we could pack everything in our three small, free backpacks.

Kris didn’t think I ws going to be able to pack enough stuff for four days and four people into three small bags. So of course I was even more motivated to prove him wrong. I did it and was so proud of myself (I am usually the queen of overpacking). I thought I would share my ‘secrets’ with all of you on how to pack light when you are traveling with kids.

Also a bunch of you asked on Instagram how I colored my hair with the Schwarzkopf Keratin Color I got from Walmart so I shared 4 easy steps to do that at the bottom of this post!

Packing Light For Travel With Kids

1. Designate a space for each person in your bags. Kris got one bag, I got one bag and Zander and Zoey shared.

2. Don’t bring extra clothes! Skip the emergency outfit, if you happen to need something else for yourself or kids you can always get something cheap from Walmart.

3. Calculate your outfits precisely. I often just throw all my favorite clothes in a suitcase and figure out outfits when I get to my destination. For this trip I knew what Zoey, Zander and I were going to wear, every day (mostly bathing suits) and I didn’t bring anything extra.

4. Roll your clothes! When you pack them, roll them into tight little bundles. It takes up less space.

5. One pair of shoes per person.

6. Skip accessories, other than one pair of sunglasses and whatever you can wear with you on to the plane.

7. Bring just enough diapers for the trip and buy the rest when you get there!

8. Bring just the food the baby needs and buy airport food the rest the time, a little overpriced, but totally space saving!

9. One or two small toys per kid, or a device that will entertain them. Zoey played on her iPad the whole time.

10. Go light on the beauty products. I did a post about that last week so you can go back and read if you want to know exactly what I bring for beauty. But basically I skip everything that isn’t essential. Recently I colored my hair with Schwarzkopf Keratin Color (for the second time) and it left my hair soft, healthy and glowing. I don’t need any hair products other than shampoo and conditioner, which saves a lot of space traveling.

Speaking of hair, here are some super quick and easy instructions for highlighting your hair the way I did. You can see the before and after picture below. I did this all myself and it took about an hour from start to finish. I got Light Pearl Blonde 12.0 and loved how the color came out.

Highlighting Hair

1. Pre-Treatment

First put your gloves on! Then cover the ends of your hair in Keratin Color Pre-Treatment. The Pre-Treatment

2. Mix the Color Cream and Developer

Mix the color cream and developer together in the applicator bottle (2b). Before applying it to your hair do a patch test on your skin to ensure you won’t have an allergic reaction to it.

3. Color Your Hair

This is the most complicated step, but it wasn’t difficult! You just have to really pay attention to the instructions! Since I was touching up my roots I started by parting my hair far over to the right. I applied the color using the applicator tip along my roots and brushed it through my hair about 3 inches down to completely cover my new growth. Then I parted my hair a few inches over and repeated the process, I did that till I made it over to the left side of my head and had completely covered my regrowth in color. I used 2/3’s of the bottle for my regrowth and then I let it process for twenty minutes. At that point I saturated the rest of my hair with the remaining color and left it in for 15 more minutes.

4. Condition

The kit comes with a bottle of Keratin Care Complex Conditioner. It is an extra strong conditioner specifically designed for after coloring your hair. First rinse all the color out of your hair and then apply the conditioner. Allow it to sit in your hair for five minutes. My hair has been extra dry lately, so I did two rounds of conditioning. It has up to four treatments in the bottle.

Coloring my hair with Schwarzkopf Keratin Color was sooooo easy and it definitely is good way to keep up a healthy summer glow. Not to mention it saves you a lot of money. The box I got was only $10 at Walmart.