Brazilian Portuguese is my native language and a central part of my life. I was born and raised in Brazil, lived there almost my entire life, and visit once a year. I work with the Portuguese language every day, teaching, reading, writing, speaking, and learning. Yet, now I am in Brazil on vacation and I find myself having to think about words that insist on coming to me in English.
Today I wanted to buy a leave-in conditioner and could not remember how to say it in Portuguese. Common, everyday words can sometimes escape my mind. Funny how our brain works.
Back to the leave-in shopping experience, I asked the salesperson:
Você tem aquele tipo de condicionador que você deixa no cabelo?
= “Do you have that type of conditioner that you leave in your hair?”
She looked at me kind of funny and asked:
“Condicionador sem enxágue?”
There! That is how you say leave-in conditioner in Portuguese. Literally it translates to: “Conditioner without rinse”.
The verb is enxaguar = to rinse.
You can also say: creme sem enxágue.
- Creme = condicionador = conditioner
And a lot of the products will actually just say “leave-in” on the label.
Creme also means lotion.
- Creme hidratante = lotion
Have fun shopping in Brazil!
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