Love your skincare routine but hate leaving it behind on trips? Don’t sacrifice glowing skin while traveling! This guide offers practical tips and tricks, highlighting travel-friendly heroes like EYURS for dehydrated skin (including Beauty of Joseon Glow Serum), Tabor + Olive’s detangling spray and Mint Shampoo Bar, and the Lea Black Beauty® Beauty Bundle Trio.
Whether you have normal, dry, oily, or sensitive skin or hair, travel can stress it. You might keep later hours, drink a little more, be exposed to new pollutants, spend more time outdoors or in humid conditions, and bathe with a different type of water.
The easiest way to look your best for your Instagram posts or TikToks is to keep reasonably close to your home beauty routine.
For Your Face
Daily Moisturizer
With Round Lab’s Birch Juice Moisturizing Sunscreen, you might be able to leave your day cream at home and use this as your moisturizer. It has SPF 50 and is hydrating enough that it serves as both moisturizer AND sunscreen. Plus it comes in a handy TSA and tote bag friendly tube.
I know it may seem excessive, but I travel with two kinds of face moisturizer. My Kiehl’s daily face moisturizer has SPF 30. I still add sunscreen, but I start every day with an extra dose of SPF just to be safe.
And then I have a night cream because even if I’m camping (just to be clear: I’m NOT) I don’t need sunscreen while I sleep. Starlight regenerative cream by N8iV uses organic acorn oil, grape seed, aloe vera and jojoba so you can repair your skin while you sleep. In a bed.
Hydrating Mask
If you regularly get facials, or do at home treatments, don’t skip this on vacation. On trips of a week or more, I always pack a sheet mask. This is an easy way to boost hydration and treat skin that could be suffering from excess partying, less sleep, or exposure to different allergens or pollutants. I like Karuna face masks, which are easily to use, biodegradable, and reasonably priced.
SheBuysTravel Tip: bring an extra mask for your traveling companion – spouse, friend, daughter. Everyone deserves a little pampering!
Hydrating Serum
Serum seems like something you can maybe skip if you are limiting your beauty bag, but I urge you to reconsider! First of all, most serums come in teeny tiny bottles that are no bigger than a tampon. Second, they pack a punch. Just a couple of drops can transform your skin and because the air on planes can be very dehydrating, I always pop my serum into my carryon. And since menopause I have no reason to pack an emergency tampon or 12, so I have plenty of space for this elixir. Beauty of Joseon Glow Serum helps with enlarged pores and skin redness. Glow Deep Serum evens your skin tone and both serums add extra hydration.
CBD Skin Care
CBD skin care is often quite pricey, but Lea Black Beauty’s face skincare kit, the Beauty Bundle Trio, includes face wash, anti-aging serum with hemp CBD, and a CBD face moisturizer. The collagen and antioxidants work particularly well for mature skin.
Korean Skincare
K-Beauty product from EYURS
I recently had two flights where I changed planes in South Korea. I was hoping to spend some time shopping for K-beauty products at the source, but there was no time. Luckily, EYURS, an online marketplace offering authentic Korean skincare products, has a section of products for dehydrated skin that are a must-have for long-haul flights.
Unlike most Korean skincare companies, EYURS is US-based. It was started in 2022 in Los Angeles. Because the products ship from the US, they arrive faster, which is great for last-minute travel planning.
Even better, EYURS offers plenty of gentle formulas at affordable prices, with many items under $10. My recommendation is to buy a sampling of products to test before you go away.
For Your Hair
Wind is the enemy of many hair types. My wavy hair suffers during long rides in a convertible or a boat speeding across a lake. I know, First World Problems.
Tabor + Olive’s organic (and vegan!) leave-in conditioning spray keeps fine, thin hair and thick curly hair, plus everything in between, soft and knot free. With no silicone and ingredients you find in your herbal tea, like chamomile, rosemary and ginseng, you can feel good about what you are putting on your hair.
Note that the silicone-free Tabor + Olive spray doesn’t come in a package under 4 ounces, so you can’t carry it on a plane, but you can pack in your checked bag.
Shampoo Bar
What you CAN bring onto the plane, or on any travel adventures save a SpaceX flight, is a shampoo bar. These eco-conscious choices don’t use plastic, but they wouldn’t be suitable for spaceship travel since they require water. But for home or pretty much every other kind of travel, these bars are great.
I have ‘soft launched’ a bar from Naples Soap Company. I’m not ready to fully commit since I also have a (plastic) jug of my long preferred shampoo. But so far I have been pleased with the result from the Moroccan Oil bar, with its hypoallergenic fragrance and natural ingredients like cocoa butter and coconut oil. These are also vegan, paraben-free and phthalate-free, as are Tabor + Olive’s mint shampoo bars. Tabor + Olive’s non-toxic shampoo bars use cocoa and shea butters, jojoba, and peppermint and tea tree essential oils, ideal for those with normal to oily hair.
For Your Hands
I am addicted to Kiehl’s Ultimate Strength Hand Salve. This rich cream saves my hands from drying out when I am using more sanitizer on the go. And in a pinch, I slather it on my feet after a day of hiking or walking around a city.
Final Thoughts
Keep it Clean
One of the most important things I always have in my carry on bag is a makeup remover wipe. At home I prefer a makeup remover and reusable washcloth. But if you’re on a long flight, or train or car ride, you might have makeup on for hours longer than usual. Which means if you don’t remove it, you could be starting out on your vacation with a pimple or rash.
Although I normally avoid single-use, individually wrapped makeup wipes, Fig.1 micellar water wipes disintegrate in water and come in compostable wrappers.
For the rest of the trip, I have a couple of MakeUp Eraser cloths, which I also use at home. They clean with just water, so no need to pack makeup remover or cleanser. And you can use each cloth a couple of times, then wash them out and use them the next day.
Pack It Right
I always have the same conditioner and hair products with me, and instead of relying on samples, I invested in a stash of Humangear’s Stax. Stax refillable containers are leakproof (except for makeup remover, which you shouldn’t need anyway) and much more economical than buying small sizes. I’m all about the giant containers of my favorite body lotion, sunscreen, conditioner and curl cream at home, then transferring them to TSA-approved containers under 3.4 ounces.
One More Tip
I always have my cosmetics ready to go. The key is to refill anything you are low on when you unpack. I top off my containers when I get home, and check everything so I’m ready to hit the road at a moment’s notice (this also means saving the last ¼ of a tube of toothpaste at home to throw in so my teeth are taken care off, and checking that my floss isn’t on its last few inches).
Happy travels!
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