travel skincare

Travelling on planes with only hand luggage can be rather difficult if you're as into skincare as us beauty-obsessed folk are. Trying to jam all these tiny bottles of various lotions and potions into one see-through bag is a trial I have to deal with every single year, so this time for my get-away I attempted to only take the bare essentials with me. 

A good makeup remover is a necessity, and rather than risking buying a miniature bottle of something I'd never tried before and end up hating it I decanted some of my L'Oreal Skin Perfection 15 Second Miracle Cleansing Oil (this stuff is brilliant, you can read my full review here) into a spray bottle. For my cleanser I took the Mario Badescu Seaweed Cleansing Soap with me, although ideally I would use a hot cloth cleanser as the second step when I do a double cleanse at night but taking a muslin cloth and having to clean it every night seemed like a bit of a bother. Plus I had this sample of the Mario Badescu cleanser in my stash and it does the trick, even if it does smell a little like bathroom cleaning products. 

I didn't actually bring the Bioderma primarily for taking off makeup, but instead for cleaning up winged eyeliner with a cotton bud. A very specific use, yes, but the bottle is so tiny that it takes up next to no room. The cotton buds also came in handy to scrape the last out of my Origins Super Spot Remover, which is on its last legs now and I need to purchase a new one as it is so so effective.

Surprisingly I couldn't find any samples of moisturiser in my stash - I'm usually overrun with them - so I had to make do with the Simple Hydrating Light Moisturiser that I bought in Superdrug in the travel section, which from what I can tell after using it for just over a week is rather good. The consistency is nice and light, perfect for a hot climate (although annoyingly it doesn't contain SPF) and provides a good base for makeup.
Weleda Skin Food is just an all-round must have. It's a basic intensive moisturiser that can be used to solve all manner of skin-related woes; I like to use it as a lip balm at night and on any dry patches as well as using it as a moisturiser if my skin is feeling particularly dehydrated. There are a few other creams out there that do the same job, but I already had a tube lying around that was just the right size to bring with me.

I also make sure to chuck a few sachets of various skincare products into my bag as they don't take up any room, and they're great if I feel like my skin needs something extra. A face mask or two always work their way into my bag (I'd already used them by the time I took the photo) as well as a few intensive moisturisers, including the Origins High Potency Night-A-Mins and the Yon-Ka Hydra No.1 Creme*, Serum* and Masque*. 

Other necessities that aren't strictly skincare include a lip balm with SPF, hand cream and antihistamine cream to soothe the many inevitable mosquito bites I end up with.

*PR Sample.