Wolf & Stag

A Consciously Curated Approach to Style, to Home, and to Life

My Favourite Travel Beauty Buys (and how I collect travel-sized items)

Stag and I are off to Helsinki over the bank holiday weekend, which may just be the only other place colder than London in the summer. Joking aside, I am incredibly excited and may or may not have been packing since Monday. Having already been to Oslo, Copenhagen and Stockholm — and all 3 cities constituting my favourite places to visit — I have been dying to tick Helsinki off my list.

And no one does cool street style better than the Scandi countries.  *Commence me throwing all of my clothes around the room, Stag coming home, finding me crying in an empty suitcase and wailing about how I have nothing cool enough for Scandi countries because I am a nerd who likes Legend of Zelda tees over culottes.*

However, here within lies a problem: apparently I need no less than 2,000 items to make my face look ‘normal,’ and the airport liquid allowance is just way too small for the arsenal needed.

Weirdly enough, one of my favourite parts about packing for a weekend city break is getting together all my travel beauty bits. Ever since getting my Muji reusable airport liquid pouch (a bargain at £3.95) the whole process has become more enjoyable.

However, here within lies a problem: apparently, I need no less than 2,000 items to make my face look ‘normal,’ and the airport liquid allowance is just way too small for the arsenal needed.

As a result, I have become somewhat of an expert at collecting travel beauty, enough that I have a whole box full of little items (sad but true). I’ve had many friends ask me how I have such a ‘nice’ selection of travel beauty items. And because I do things like blog now, I thought I’d share my secrets to my wonderful readers.

Favourite Travel Beauty Buys (and how I collect travel-sized items).

Sign up for beauty stockists emails, and plan your beauty buys around their ‘treat times.’

Many beauty companies (Clinique, Clarins) and stockists (Boots, Cult Beauty, BeautyBay, Look Fantastic) will have ‘treat times,’ or special offers for when you get a certain number of free samples with an order. If you sign up for the emails, you’ll be notified when this is happening.  This is also a good tip for ensuring you buy your beauty buys during the sale times — the same products for 10-20% off!

You know those little ‘tester’ packets you get in magazines or when you buy a beauty product? Save them; they’re perfect for 2-day mini-breaks!

Seriously, this is by far the best tip I’ve put into practice.  Many beauty stockists (like Selfridges, Space N.K) will just give you some free sample packs even if you aren’t buying anything. They are so incredibly handy for 2 day trips, and they take up so little space in your plastic bag at the airport. Take it from me: try to resist the urge to rip into those samples right away and save them for a good use!

Buy travel sets when they go on sale.

Yes, I know, many people scare at the thought of actually buying travel-sized beauty items. However, many of the larger ones will last you ages (i.e. the Caudalie mutli-tasking oil that I’ve had for about 2 years now). As a general trend, some of the first beauty items to go on sale are travel and gift sets (rather than full-size anything), and often these are packed with great travel-friendly items. I often buy one in the after-Christmas sales and am set for the year.

— My Favourites —

Korres Greek Wonders Skin Kit

Decleor Hydra Floral Discovery Kit

First Aid Kit FAB Faves To Go Kit

Muji make amazing plastic reusable bottles. These are your new best friends.

My beauty secret: I cannot live without my Bioderma cleansing water. It’s how I wash my face in the morning and take off eye makeup at night.  Seriously, I’d marry it if I wasn’t already married and some person would have me committed for doing so. However, the ‘small’ bottle of Bioderma is actually quite large.  My happy solution: this £0.95 Muji reusable bottle.  I just squeeze some in the bottle and, presto, I can travel without panic.

In general, the Muji range of reusable bottles are amazing: they are high quality and never ever leak.  If you’re looking for chic travel buys that make you feel like Business when you’re painfully, irrevocably Coach, Muji is a great option.

Invest in multi-tasking products.

This may be a “duhhhh Eire” moment for many of you.  But it’s one of the most useful things one can do when selecting travel beauty.  Caudalie’s divine oil is great for hair, body and face (I mostly use it on my hair and body). Stila’s convertible colour is both a blush and lipstick (I love ‘Poppy’).

Bring bars instead of liquids.

Another crazy, revolutionary thought I had not too long ago: not all beauty products have to be liquid.  I literally was standing in front of my beauty cabinet and went, “LE GASP?” This is when I discovered that you can bring solid deodorants and bar soaps that don’t take up space in your precious plastic travel bag.  This applies to makeup wipes and other non-liquid forms of cleansing and not-smelling.  Why did it take me so long to think of this?!

— My Favourites —

Neal’s Yard Organic Facial Wipes | £5.50

Dr. Bronner’s Organic Rose Soap Bar | £3.19

Soap Co Black Poppy & Wild Fig Bar Soap | £7

My Travel Beauty Essentials

Clockwise from top left:

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