Keeping my frizzy hair smooth in San Gimignano, Tuscany
Right now I am super busy putting this summer’s Glam Italia Tours together.
I’m already thinking about what to pack, as I will be away for 6 weeks this time, and I always want to travel lighter. It’s not easy!
Part of the travel equation, and especially the international travel equation, is keeping your beauty game on point. You want to pack fewer things than you use at home but you want to look and feel fabulous. I try to scale back my hair products and tools, but at the same time I have to put extra effort into keeping my hair smooth and frizz free while I’m away. I also try to get more mileage out of each blow out so that I’m not wasting perfectly good travel time doing battle with a hairdryer.
I was talking about this with my hairdresser, who just got back from Europe and totally gets the dilemma. She added another salient point – you want to land with good hair, not smushed up, flat, or jacked up hair.
She gave me the best idea ever – travel with a silk pillowcase.
When you sleep on a cotton pillowcase it leeches moisture out of your hair, making it more susceptible to frizzy-ness and shortening the life of your blowout, as well as giving you the un-sexy version of bedhead.
Cotton pillowcases also leave creases on your face and are thought to contribute to the aging process. Your hair stays smoother when you sleep on silk, your blowout lasts longer, you don’t wake up with crinkles in your skin, and every night you spend sleeping on silk is a night that your complexion will love you.
When you are taking a long-haul, international flight slip your nasty airplane pillow with it’s scratchy cover and dubious cleanliness, inside your silk pillowcase, and arrive looking refreshed and lovely.
Summertime is all about heading out on vacation. I’m packing at the moment for a month in Italy leading two Glam Italia Tours (make sure you follow us on Instagram!) so it seemed like a really good time to talk about Travel beauty Essentials.
Travel is tough on your skin. Air travel is tough on your skin. Just being in a different climate or in a place with different water can be really tough on your skin. No one wants to deal with crazy breakouts (hello humidity!) or look dried out like the crypt keeper while they are on vacation. Especially me! So I have 8 beauty essentials that travel with me everywhere I go in the world as well as here in America, to make sure my skin looks great, which in turn makes me feel great!
Remember too that especially for summer travel you really don’t want to be cavorting around with a full face of makeup on, trying to cover up breakouts.
This is one of my all time favorite skin care products and is just the absolute greatest thing to have with you when you are flying, especially on long haul/international flights. In fact it is the holy grail of travel skin care products! I don’t wear makeup when I fly (just brows and a bold lip) because quite apart from the fact that makeup looks hellacious when you land, your skin is fighting enough battles at 38,000 feet in hours of regurgitated air – it doesn’t need to battle foundation as well. When you have bare skin, even if that means cleansing your face after takeoff, you can pamper, or at least hydrate your skin by spritzing this gorgeous mist during the flight.I swear you can feel your skin relax every time you do! The full size bottle is allowable in your cabin baggage, but many of the Tatcha products including the Dewy Skin Mist also come in travel size.
I got my hands on the Indigo collection from Tatcha a few years ago when winter weather was tearing up my skin. The Indigo collection are healing products, and to this day I still travel with a travel sized tube of Tatcha’s Indigo Soothing Silk Hand Cream. In flight it keeps my hands and cuticles from getting dried out and nasty, and the tube is small enough to keep in my handbag while I’m out and about.
I have tried so many lip balms, but this one I keep coming back to. It’s nice and heavy, doesn’t dry out or strip your lip, and softens and moisturizes like no other!
Have you ever had a good look at people deplaning from a long international flight? They always look beaten up around the eyes. The same goes for when you’ve spent time out in hot weather, be it pool-side, at the ocean, on a boat – you name it. I am a huge fan of eye gels. I use them on the plane (if people around me are sleeping), sometimes I will slip them on and then put my sleeping mask over top. I use them while I am away too. What they do is super hydrate the under eye area, depuff, revitalize, and make the under eye look refreshed. I’m not sure that they say they take out the blue/grey under your eyes, but I am convinced that they do. Maybe they get the blood circulating through the area or maybe the nutrients just reflect off something glorious, but either way they are wonderful! I buy my eye gels online at Memebox. They are very inexpensive and worth their weight in gold!
I treat myself to Tatcha’s Camellia Facial Oil when I travel. It comes in travel size, so you don’t have to break the bank to get it. I use it during the flight and also every day while I’m away. It super hydrates and nourishes the skin, so your complexion looks luminous, but it also has a dry finish, so you don’t look slimy. It is fantastic!
Have you ever smelled Oribe products??? They smell heavenly. Have you ever smelled hair after a long haul flight?? Quite apart from the fact that your hair looks lank and flat after a long flight, 8 hours plus in that stale, over-circulated air makes your hair smell. It’s gross. Especially gross when you are standing in long lines of humans waiting to go through passport control. Especially gross when you are going to be met with a big, long hug on the other side of customs and immigration. So I always pack the travel size of Oribe Dry Texturing spray in my hand luggage. It works like a dry shampoo to give your hairdo some body, and it smells so fabulous you won’t be worried about anyone burying their face in your hair.
This one is a recent addition to my travel arsenal, but it is fantastic! When you deplane after a long flight your skin has a nasty grey hue to it. No one (who hasn’t flown first class) looks fantastic after a long flight, everyone looks hellish. If you try to put color back into your complexion with a bronzing powder it sits on top of that ashen skin and looks orange.
Last year I started using Stila’s Aqua Glow Perfecting Bronzer gel and I totally love it! You just put a tiny amount in the general area of the apples of your cheeks and buff it out with your finger. Run a little across your forehead where the sun would hit you and you instantly look lovely. The great thing is that you don’t have to get all perfect with it. It’s really sheer and buildable, and just looks like gorgeous skin. The color is lovely too, and it doesn’t get streaky or turn orange.
This is one of my not-so-secret travel beauty secrets! When I arrive at my hotel or vacation rental I take 20 minutes of quiet time with a sheet mask. (of course you cleanse your skin first!). Sheet masks infuse your skin with nutrients, are soothing and cooling and hydrating, leaving your skin luminous and glowing every after a trans-world flight. If I’m going somewhere humid I know my skin is going to break out or give me some form of grief, so I pack some sheet masks that deal with black heads or breakouts. If I’m going somewhere beachy I know I need some extra hydrating. If I get too much sun or sand has left my skin feeling gritty or sensitive I use an aloe based sheet mask. They are very inexpensive – only a couple of dollars each, and they are slim and lie flat in your suitcase so they take up no room at all, making them your perfect travel companion! I order mine online at Memebox, and always add a few into every order I place. (And I place lots of orders at Memebox!)
Intensely nourish and sooth skin, hands and hair with
Neal’s Yard Organic Argan Oil.
I love Neal’s Yard Organic Argan Oil.
It is sourced from South West Morocco, the only area in the world where the argan tree grows. in 2007 a small co-op of women started up and use traditional skills to collect the world’s first Fairtrade Argan oil. The income from this co-op helps improve the socio-economic conditions of the region and provides valuable income for the community. And I love to support that!
The Neal’s Yard Organic Argan Oil can be used on cuticles, can be warmed in the hands and masaged into the face, or can be used to de-frizz, replenish and revitalize hair. It gives glorious shine and bounce and makes hair both look and smell divine.
Packaged in 1.69 fluid ounce bottles makes it perfect for travel too!
