Writing a best travel beauty tips story feels great, since the pandemic has put serious brakes on our holiday plans in recent years. In the wake of its peak, the Financial Times reports that more and more of us are (cautiously) booking flights and finally heading off on new adventures. Even with Omicron looming and threatening to derail everything once again, luckily travel is still only restricted in certain areas.
We say bring on the holidays, whether local or travelling north, south, east or west. Enjoy our best travel beauty tips to keep you looking fresh and gorgeous no matter where you are spending your holidays this year.
Before you go
Whether you’re headed to cooler climates or Southern hemisphere warmth, hydration is key. The best travel beauty tip we can give you is to drink water, and plenty of it. If your body isn’t well-hydrated from the inside, there’s not much point in applying loads of skincare to try and combat both internal and external dehydration.
Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate
If you’re doing a long-haul flight, start hydrating your skin and body at least 24 hours before you take off. Seem a bit excessive? Not at all. The humidity in an airplane is roughly 20 % less than that of a desert (yes, really). Add to that wearing a mask for the duration of the flight, and it’s better to be hydrated than sorry…
- Drink up! Most of us don’t drink enough water anyway, but we really miss the mark when flying. To see how much you should be drinking daily, have a look at this water intake calculator, as well as a few great tips for getting in enough water each day. Remember that you’ll need to up this amount, as you’ll be sitting in a very dry environment for hours.
- Avoid excessively salty foods for a day before as well as during the flight. Too much salt dehydrates your body, leaving you with puffy skin as well as feeling lethargic.
- Lastly, prep your skin for the journey and the climate you’ll be arriving in.
Top of the list is an exfoliated skin
This will ensure any products you apply will penetrate and deliver the desired results. Our Clean Slate Exfoliating Pads contain active ingredients that dissolve dead skin cells and clear out your pores for a perfectly primed – but never dry – complexion. The formula is so gentle, it is even tolerated by sensitive skins. Centella Asiatica and English Chamomile extracts work together to fight inflammation and irritation, while green tea leaf extract and arginine reduce the signs of aging, and sodium hyaluronate restores the skin’s moisture levels.
Heading for a winter or summer holiday? Pack your beauty kit accordingly
Your essential kit, whatever the season:
- A face cleanser, like our Cloud Factory gentle foaming cleanser
- A gentle chemical exfoliant, like our Clean Slate Exfoliating Pads
- A face Serum, (we personalize our serums to suit all your skin needs!)
- A day cream (we personalize our moisturizers to suit your skin)
- A night cream, (our personalized night cream is designed for your skin, too)
- A deeply nourishing eye serum, like our Eye Love You Eye Serum
- And finally, an SPF30 sunscreen – our Sunny Side Up sunscreen mist is a must for powerful sun protection as well as on-the-go reapplication every 2-3 hours!
Summer holiday beauty kit add-ons
Think light textures, sun protection and oil-absorbing properties… Hot weather, especially if steamy, is going to leave your skin slick and shiny with oil and sweat. Keep skin clear and glowing, not greasy, by using a lightweight gel-based moisturizer and toning after cleansing with our Bounce Back Balancing Toner. Exfoliate once or twice a week to prevent blocked pores.
It goes without saying that daily sunscreen is a must. Avoid direct sun between the peak sun hours between 11am and 4pm and use protective clothing, UV-protective sunglasses and broad-brimmed hats!
Winter holiday beauty kit add-ons
Think nourishing, protective textures and sun protection… Cold air, windchill and central heating all conspire to rob your skin of moisture, so look for soothing , hydrating cleansers and thick, rich moisturizers. Ensure you slather on a nourishing night serum and night cream at bedtime to help your skin recover.
Wherever you’re going, you need to wear sunscreen if spending lots of time outdoors, especially on a skiing trip.
Buy when you get there…
Save your luggage space for all those gorgeous finds you’ll buy on holiday. Buy bulky items like body cleanser and lotion, hand cream, shampoo and conditioner at your destination. Take some dinky travel sizes for use while travelling.
On board
Before you settle into your flight, splash your face with water or spritz with a hydrating water mist. While it’s still damp, apply a layer of hydrating serum, topped with a rich, nourishing face cream. Damp skin is more permeable, so the product will penetrate more effectively than applying it on dry skin. Focus on the area where your protective mask rubs against your skin.
- Serum is important. Our personalized Face Serum is the best flight companion, as it contains both super-hydrating ingredients, as well as potent antioxidants to protect your skin from free-radical damage. A repairing face cream is a good option for long-haul, as it will help prevent the skin from getting shrivelled from the dry, dirty, recirculated air (two pros to wearing masks: better filtered air, and you can camouflage a lot!)
- Moisturizer is key. Our personalized Night Cream features an ideal combination of actives to nourish and regenerate your skin while you’re on a flight. It’s lightweight, so it will melt into your skin without leaving you looking greasy or sticking to your mask. Reapply as needed throughout the flight to keep your skin supple and hydrated.If it’s a short flight, choose our personalized Day Cream instead. It delivers the same nourishment and protection, only in a lighter formula.
- Take care of your eyes. The skin around your eyes is thinner than that on the rest of our face, with fewer oil glands. This makes it more susceptible to dryness, which results in dehydration lines. It needs plenty of hydration to stay supple. Our Eye Love You Eye Serum contains aloe vera and biotilys to deeply hydrate and protect the skin, rose damascena bio to soothe and prevent irritation, as well as a host of other actives to brighten and rejuvenate this delicate area. Apply a layer every hour you’re in the air, giving the area a gentle massage with the cool metal tip as you apply it. This will help drain any excess fluid from around the eyes and reduce puffiness. Keeping your eyeballs hydrated is important, too, so make sure you have moisturizing eye drops to hand.
- Pay your lips some service. They don’t contain sebaceous (oil) glands and have only very fine skin to protect them, so they’re on their own as far as hydration goes. Dry environments like aeroplanes can make them dry out far quicker than usual. Add a mask on top of that, and you’ve got a recipe for a painfully cracked disaster.Look for a lip balm with nourishing ingredients like shea butter and vitamin E to soothe and protect. Reapply often for soft, plump lips when you land.
- Never forget SPF. If you’re travelling during the day, make sure you apply a broad-spectrum SPF as harmful UV rays can penetrate the windows, and the UV levels are incredibly high up there, so protect your skin. Our water-based Sunny Side Up SPF30 Mist is ideal: The mist applicator allows you to apply without disrupting any skincare or makeup you’re wearing, and makes for easy reapplication on-the-go. The amazing formula avoids all the usual downfalls of sunscreen – no white cast, no shine and it won’t cause breakouts.
Prepping for descent
To land at your destination looking like you’ve had 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep, we swear by these tips:
- When the cabin starts waking, slip into the bathroom quickly to do your morning skin routine. Double-cleanse cleanse your skin with a gentle and effective cleanser that won’t dry out the skin you’ve worked so hard at keeping hydrated during the trip, such as our Cloud Factory Cleanser. This light, foaming cleanser boasts 5 fruit acids to gently slough away any excess oil, dirt and SPF residue, as well as niacinamide to soothe and even out the complexion. Sugarcane extract minimizes the appearance of blemishes and keeps the skin moisturized.
- Once your skin is clean, give it a glow boost with our Bounce Back Balancing Toner. This clever formula combines a blend of 5 minerals, niacinamide, Epidermist (a natural plankton extract) and vitamin B12. These work together to nourish your skin while balancing pores, preventing breakouts, evening out skin tone and promoting healthy skin renewal.
- Next up, do the same steps you did earlier: apply a layer of Face Serum to hydrate and soothe.
- Eye Love You Eye Serum follows to perk up those peepers. Massage the serum in well to drain any excess fluid that might have accumulated during the pressure change of the descent. Then apply a layer of either our Day or Night Cream, depending on what time of the day you land, and what your plans are once you leave the airport.
- Finally, if you’ve landed during the day, top this off with a good spritz of Sunny Side Up SPF30 Mist.
Now all that’s left for you to do is disembark looking as fresh-faced as you did when you left home.
Do you struggle with breakouts while you’re away? Have a look at our 7 Skincare Travel Tips to Prevent Breakouts
Bon voyage!
