This week’s Beauty 101 is focusing on packing the perfect getaway bag, be it for a week, a month, or just an overnight stay. You had questions, and, once again, your fellow readers have come through with the answers.
Your fellow readers have assembled quick essential lists for a variety of travel situations. A sampling:
Airport-Friendly Travel:
From commenter Roeroica:
I travel for work a lot and initially I packed a lot, but now this is what I take: Moisturizer, liquid foundation (so I can mix with the moisturizer), mineral foundation, blush, eye liner, mascara, and Clinique Like Mink shadow. It all fits nicely in one of those small giftbags that Clinique gives out too.
For Airport friendly, I just omit the moisturizer and foundation and I add some solid perfume I bought at Lush. I swear by that stuff so when I greet my BF after a day of flying he’s happy I’m back and not thinking how smelly I am.
Samples, samples, samples. If you’ve got a Sephora insider card you can get deluxe samples for every 100 points, and there’s usually a decent makeup, cleanser, lotion, whatever. And if you order online, in addition to the insider sample, you get three small samples. Most of them aren’t great for travel, unless you get a perfume you like. Also, if you look for coupons online you might get more stuff. You can also buy starter kits and gift sets that have deluxe sample sizes in them that are great for travel.
I’d also recommend dual purpose items wherever possible. Tinted moisturiser instead of foundation and moisturiser. I personally like E.L.F.’s tinted moisturiser ([www.eyeslipsface.com] it’s cheap, it’s smaller than most others I’ve tried, so it frees a lot of room in that ziplock, and it feels a lot nicer on my skin than the others, but YMMV. A stain instead of lip color and blush. Stila ([www.stilacosmetics.com] and Benefit ([www.benefitcosmetics.com] both have good ones. Stila also has the convertible color compact ([www.stilacosmetics.com] which covers both.
Palettes are great for eye makeup. Pretty easy to find, loads of companies make them. I’d personally recommend Stila (yet again) simply because they have these great travel palettes ([www.stilacosmetics.com] that include the aforementioned convertible color. There’s five total, the last one comes out next month.
Perfume, if possible I’d suggest a roll-on version, if not, Sephora has an atomizer ([sephora.com] that’s pretty cheap. I think they have black in store, though I only saw pink on the site. I had a hard time figuring out how to fill mine. If you can’t open the perfume bottle, spray directly into the funnel that comes with the atomizer.
Shampoo, conditioner, lotion, or anything else you’d need, if you can’t find a travel size, the empty bottles you’d find in Walmart or Target are excellent. I think they’re even slightly bigger (but still airline approved). If you dye your hair at home, the conditioner they give you is usually WAY too big for what you really need, if you reuse the same one a couple of times when you redye it, can save those up for travel. You need even less when you haven’t just washed those harsh chemicals from your head. Travel toothbrushes are cheap and fairly easy to find, and if you don’t need a particular hairbrush a pop up travel brush ([sephora.com] is great.
From commenter windmilloflove:
Everyone’s pretty got the travel kit covered but one word of advice I have for airplane trips is to bring couple washcloths inside of two ziploc bags. When you are on the plane you can use those on your face to wash or to scrub and freshen/wake up in the airplane bathroom. Then the wet ones can go in the second ziploc and the dry one’s in the first ziploc.
I recently went on a 10 day trip to Greece, so mine is for an extended vacation and an airport friendly carry on:
First, I recommend a trip to Target for travel bottles. There are these really small tubs that are perfect for holding face wash and moisturizer.
These are the must haves:
-Face Wash & Moisturizer (in travel containers)
-Mascara
-lip gloss
-Cheek glaze or highlighter
-Eye Make-up remover (towelettes)
-Compact Mirror
It sounds like a lot, but I can fit everything in a small make-up bag (think the Estee Lauder gifts from Dillards). And I suggest cheek glaze over blush because you can use your fingers to apply, and the highlighter can do double duty for your eyes.
And for all you other black women, don’t forget that doo-rag! On long flights, I use a brown one to wrap my hair, so I don’t look like a hot mess on arrival =)
If you tend to forget things, for an extended trip it helps to start around a week in advance and every time you use/apply something, decant it into the small travel size and toss it into a bag. Travel day comes and you’re done.
There are makeup remover cloths (CVS, I think) that are dry and you wet to use them — I have a thing about using hotel washcloths on my face. I fold these and pack a small supply in a travel soap container.
Someone below mentioned shampoo bars as a way to get around the airline liquid limit. LUSH makes a bunch, but most of them seem to have SLS in them. J.R. Liggett makes one without SLS: [www.iherb.com]
Don’t be fooled by the packaging. It’s actually a pretty good shampoo in its own right. It is also gentle enough to use on your face and as a body bar too.
I also like powdered facial cleanser for travel. It’s less messy and is yet another way to get around the liquid limit. I really like DHC’s Washing Powder. HABA, Komenuka Bijin and Fancl make powdered cleansers too. And there are a few sellers on etsy who make their own. Just search for “washing powder” or “cleansing grains” in the Bath & Beauty section.
From commenter SomeAuthorGirl: