Girly Post: makeup

I know some girls like to wear loads of makeup but I'm not keen on carrying an entire Sephora display around with me when I travel so I limit myself to what are my essentials. Everything must fit easily into a small bag. Here are my top ten picks, in order of most to least important. The first three are MUSTS, #4 through #6 are the things that help me feel a bit prettier, and the last four I can live without but would be nice to have.

1. Neutrogena Cleansing Cloths - these cloths make it easy to freshen up on the plane since there's no need to rinse.
2. L'occitane hand cream - super portable and crazy moisturizing so a little goes a long way.
3. Aveeno tinted moisturizer (in 'fair to light') - it's a 2.5 oz bottle (perfect) and you kill two birds with one stone because you get your face lotion and foundation in one product.
4. Urban Decay bronzer (in 'baked') + fluffy brush - I like bronzer because it makes you look fresh and sun-kissed and wakes up your face, all with v. little effort.
5. Fresh Magic Wands Mini Mascara Duo + eyelash curler - this mascara is decent and they're so tiny.
6. Lip balm and lip gloss - I like softlips brand because the balms come in thin tubes, which I find to be space-saving. For gloss, I like juicy tubes because they smell (and taste) good, though like all lip glosses, they're sticky!
7. Stila Precious Pearl Palette + Bare Escentuals shadow primer
8. Stila Liquid Eyeliner
9. Sephora Travel Brush Set - this is no longer available on Sephora, but there are other travel sets out there. I love these brushes because they're really soft, great quality, come with a case, and are so portable.
10. Clear nail polish - it's a bad idea to try to maintain a manicure on a trip so a low-maintenance substitute is to just slap on clear nail polish to look a bit more put-together. Plus, you can use it to stop a run in your stocking or read up on these other random uses.

Typically when I've spent a few hours on a plane, I feel a bit disgusting and greasy and not so attractive so about an hour before landing, I'll start to freshen up. I'll give myself a refreshing wipe down with a cleansing cloth and then put on some moisturizer and maybe a bit of makeup so that I'll look fresh and decent for my arrival.

And for those of you who MUST have all of your beauty products with you at all times, check out 3floz. They sell tons of TSA friendly-sized beauty products. It's a bit pricey because they sell mostly fancy luxury brands but maybe you're in the mood to splurge.


Other handy dandy items I never travel without:

• Tide to go mini
• Sewing kit (I tend to ask for sewing kits at almost all hotels I stay at and collect them for future use)
• Plastic ziploc bags in all sizes - I use the huge gallon sized ones to zip up and seal my dirty laundry, the small ones are good for toiletries so if they explode in my bag I have some insurance, I separate different currencies when I'm abroad, there are really so many uses!
• Evian Mineral Water Spray - travel sized, of course; I love this spray because it refreshes your skin so quickly. It's great for dry airplane-air skin, sore sunburned skin, and cooling for sweaty hot skin.

And a product I'd like to try: DuWop Flight Stick

Ciao.