Christmas is coming, and as a result of Christmas coming, that often means that you may be traveling. It may mean that you’re with family for a number of days or close friends. I certainly am, I always am, and this is why I’ve made this article because I wanted to give you guys a few tips of things that I’ve learned in the past to avoid when the Christmas season is happening and New Year as well.

So a little bit of background, pretty much every year of my life, I’ve always gone to either my Nan’s or my mom’s. Neither of them live near me, so it was always going away for about a week, sometimes more than a week. So I had to plan in advance, and sometimes I made a few errors, and I don’t want you guys to make the same.

Now let’s look at a few of the mistakes I made to make sure that you guys don’t make the same mistakes. The first time I went with a hair system, I did Christmas, and I went to my Nan’s, was there for a week, and I didn’t take any of my hair system maintenance products. That was such a big error because literally on day two, I got a lift, and it was a pretty noticeable one. The tape that I decided to use actually wasn’t the best bond; I think it was Walker red at the time, and that started coming loose as well. It really made the next 5 days of being at my Nan’s tricky because I was constantly worried about the hair system coming totally loose. There was one day where we ended up in a pool as well, like a swimming pool. I was like, ”I can’t put my head underwater because I’m worried that this thing’s going to become so loose or even more loose that it might be easier to come off, and people might notice.” It was quite an anxious trip as a result of that, and I don’t want you guys to go through with that. So please do make sure that you take some basic hair system maintenance accessories with you. What would I recommend? Carry some glue; I use Ghost Bond, so if you’ve got Ghost Bond, take a little tub of that with you. Also, take a little brush or a glue stick, whatever you use to apply the glue to your head. Also, what I’d recommend is taking some isopropyl alcohol and some cotton balls. Why should we do that? Because when you get a lift or when and if you get a lift, I should say, there’s still going to be some loose glue on your scalp where the lift is. You want to make sure you remove that because if you don’t remove that, the new bond will not be as good, and obviously, that’s not what you want. When you’re re-bonding, you want to have a solid bond so it doesn’t happen again in the next couple of days. So you want to make sure you’re using isopropyl alcohol, put on cotton wool, and just clean the area where the lift has been. And then once that’s dried, reapply. I usually do like four layers of Ghost Bond to make sure I don’t get a lift within the next few days. So in summary, Ghost Bond or whatever glue you use. I wouldn’t recommend taking tape because that makes it a little bit longer in terms of maintenance. So glue, isopropyl alcohol, and cotton balls. That’s all you should need.

Now, the second thing that you should avoid, in my opinion, if you’re going to be away for a long time or if you’re going to be super busy between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day — as in you might be out of the house, you might be doing social things with friends, you might be on holiday, who knows — but if it were me, I would personally have my hair down. And I feel kind of hypocritical saying that because I’ve got my hair up right now, but this Christmas, I’m actually not going away. I’m going away for a day to my in-laws, but other than that, even though I’m busy, I’m going to be in and around the house. So if I do have a lift or something, I can just deal with that as and when. But for people who are going away and don’t have much free time or won’t have much personal space, I’d really recommend just having your hair down because if you do have a lift, you can kind of get away with it, and you don’t have to worry too much. You can just keep your hair down. I mean, to be perfectly honest, if you’ve been following my corner for a while, you’ll know that I go through phases of having my hair up, I go through phases of having my hair down. I really don’t care. I think both looks look awesome. So if you’re away for a number of days, just have the hair down. Obviously, you can still take your products, your accessories, and stuff like that, but it’s a really great way of getting out of a sticky situation. And if you do have a lift during the festive season and you’ve brought all of your accessories but you’re just not getting the time, the privacy to do that, if you have a lift, just push it down. Take a paddle brush with you, and you can push it down and sort of mess up a little bit, and no one will be any the wiser. They might be like, ”Oh, new hairdo today. That looks cool.” So stuff like that. Those are two things which you can really consider.

And the third and last thing to avoid with a hair system during the festive season is to make sure you’re not too lax around your maintenance in the lead-up to Christmas. If you’re going away or if you’re super busy, I wouldn’t personally leave my system on for two weeks before the Christmas week between Christmas Day and New Year’s Day because the longer you have a hair system on, the weaker the bond gets over time. So if I were you, I would personally recommend that you do a full clean and full rebond, set aside a couple of hours the day before Christmas Eve if you’re going away on Christmas Eve or even two days before just to make sure that you’ve got the firmest bond going into that week because it’s busy. You’re not going to get much time to yourself. I mean, you might do, but in my experience, me and all the people that I know have stuff to do during that week, and we don’t have time, necessarily, all the privacy to basically keep doing rebonds during that festive period.

So guys, in summary, number one, avoid leaving your hair system maintenance products at home. I’d say bring some basic ones: glue, isopropyl alcohol, and cotton balls. Secondly, have your hair down if you’re going to be away for a long time. Have it down or if you may have even noticed a lift and you don’t have the time with privacy to sort that lift, just have your hair down. And thirdly, just avoid being too lax with your maintenance in the lead-up to the festive season. So make sure that you’re doing a full clean and rebond one, maximum two days before Christmas Eve.

I hope you found that helpful, guys. What are you doing during Christmas? Are you seeing family? Are you seeing loved ones? Are you seeing not so loved ones? We’ve all got them. Let me know in the comments box below, and if I don’t speak to you before Christmas, I’d like to wish you a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year. Bye for now.