How to Pack Skin Care for Travel: 5 Tips
Whether you’re hitting the road for business or pleasure, you don't have to leave your skin care routine at home.
With some small adjustments to your routine, you can maintain your skin’s health and beauty no matter where you are.
We have five of the most important tips on how to pack skin care for travel. If you have additional questions, we’d love to talk with you in more detail — just schedule a skin consultation!
1. Never forget your sunscreen
There’s no tip more crucial for your skin’s overall health than remembering to pack your sunscreen. While we commonly associate sunburns with skin cancer, your risk increases every time you spend unprotected time outdoors (yes, even the times that you don’t end up tanned or burnt).
Wearing the right sunscreen can make an enormous difference — reducing your risk of developing skin cancer while also keeping your skin looking radiant and youthful for as long as possible.
There are three components that make up a quality sunscreen:
- A sun protective factor (SPF) of at least 30
- Broad spectrum protection against both UVA and UVB radiation
- Water resistance
Sunscreens have more benefits than just protection, so you have plenty of options to choose one that works best for your skin. With moisturizing ingredients and different tinted options, some sunscreens can double as a light foundation.
Remember, it’s crucial to reapply sunscreen as directed. If you’re sweatier than usual, are spending extra time outdoors or will be in or around the water, you’ll want to reapply your sunscreen more frequently to maintain its protective benefits.
2. Always cleanse your skin
Just because you’re on vacation doesn’t mean you can forget about your skin. In fact, it may be even more crucial to cleanse your skin while you’re on vacation; you’ll might be sweating more than usual (especially if you’re in a warmer environment) and encountering different environmental toxins your skin isn’t used to.
Plus, with additional sunscreen comes the increased likelihood of clogged pores and breakouts — something you don’t want to deal with while on vacation. We recommend packing a gentle cleanser, which helps to cleanse those impurities from your skin without being too harsh. Just make sure to pay attention to TSA standards when packing!
3. Make sure to hydrate
Between the stress of travel and the dry cabin, your skin can really take a beating, even while you relax. Hydrating your skin outside and inside is essential to keeping it healthy and stress-free.
One way to do this is to boost the amount of moisture you’re giving it — using a slightly heavier-duty moisturizer while you’re traveling. Recovery Lotion is an excellent option when you’re learning to pack skin care for travel, as it protects, hydrates and replenishes skin on a deeper level.
You’ll also want to make sure to drink plenty of water while you’re traveling! Hydration of the skin doesn’t just happen from the outside — your entire body needs additional help while you’re outside of your normal routine (especially if you're enjoying a cocktail or two while traveling). Try to carry a water bottle with you; it can serve as a reminder to hydrate more.
4. It’s okay to minimize
One of the most helpful hints we have for packing skin care for travel is that your travel skin care routine doesn’t have to look exactly like your everyday, at-home skin care routine. It’s okay to minimize and pare down your routine when you go on vacation.
Packing just a basic cleanser, a hydrating serum (especially one with hyaluronic acid), a supportive moisturizer and a sunscreen is just as effective as trying to find TSA-approved bottles to put all your regular products into. Our Jetsetter Kit includes a TSA-approved cleanser and Recovery Lotion.
If you need to pack one extra product, we’d recommend a spot treatment that you can use if you do have any blemishes pop up. Otherwise, keep it simple!
5. Treat yourself
Whether you have some downtime in your hotel room or some time to yourself just after returning from vacation, take a little time to treat yourself. Skin gets stressed when you’re outside your normal routine, so giving it a little extra love and attention is beneficial.
Kick your feet up, pour yourself a beverage, light a candle and put on a face mask — like our Clay Time polishing charcoal mask. Packed full of ingredients that will brighten, polish, smooth and clarify your skin (like salicylic acid, kaolin clay, charcoal, lavender and gentle quartz), you can detoxify and purify your skin.
Once you’re done, finish with your moisturizer. Your skin will thank you, and it may even help to prevent some of the post-vacation breakouts that so many of us end up with.
In summary ...
Want to learn how to pack skin care for travel? It’s not as hard as you may think. Just take the five tips we’ve given you into account, and you’ll be able to have a stress-free vacation without your skin causing any drama.
For more help crafting the perfect skin care routine or finding the right treatments to help you achieve your skin goals, book a skin consultation with us!
Peer review
This article was medically reviewed by Chelsie Rogers, PA-C, a board-certified physician assistant with 6 years of experience in cosmetic dermatology.
SOURCES:
Sun Protection | The Skin Cancer Foundation
How to select a sunscreen | AAD
