"This should be no surprise to anyone who's watched me get my dental work done in Thailand or my tattoos in Colombia," Wright said.
tiktok.com/@bryn/elise
The TikToker Bryn "Elise" Wright has gone viral for touting her love of "beauty tourism," which she calls her "favorite life hack."
Case in point: Wright recently chronicled a trip to Turkey to have hair extensions installed because she said it was cheaper than going to her local salon in the US.
"This should be no surprise to anyone who's watched me get my dental work done in Thailand or my tattoos in Colombia," she said in her June 26 TikTok, "but I'm obsessed with beauty tourism."
In the video, with 7 million views, Wright voyaged 6,217 miles to the Ferdi Karatay Hair Studio in Istanbul, where she paid $500 for the extensions, she said.
Wright told followers she's been traveling to Turkey for hair extensions since her US salon hiked its prices, quoting her $4,450 for keratin bond extensions. In Turkey, she claimed she got 300 pieces of 22-inch keratin bond extensions — with bleaching and styling — for $500.
Wright attributed the price difference to the strength of the US dollar and higher supply and labor costs in the US.
Factoring in travel and lodging, Wright said flights to Istanbul could be as low as $700, and an Airbnb can be between $200 and $300 per week. She also shared that her food costs are roughly $150 per week.
Viewers were intrigued by this hack.
"Me, a flight attendant, taking notes on this," one commenter wrote; "If you're going to spend $4500 on your hair this is definitely the way to do it," another added.
Some said they, too, travel to maintain their beauty routines.
"I do the same every year when I travel back to Brazil to see my family," another added.
Wright said her extensions last four months, and this is the third time she's traveled to Ferdi Karatay. On this particular trip, she said, she spent three months in Turkey and got her hair done a second time before heading back to the States.
"Instead of getting beauty services, medical, or dental in the US we go abroad for everything and put the money saved towards AMAZING trips," she captioned a previous video.
While Wright did not immediately respond to Insider's requests for comment for this story, last year, she told Insider that she left her waitressing job in Arizona to travel the world. She was able to do so by selling used textbooks on Amazon, raking in $140,000 in revenue and almost $90,000 in profits in 2021.
