Travel Guide - How to travel light and have more fun

Travelling for long periods of time, especially overseas makes you value how much you value space and weight. So that's why whenever I travel, I try to pack as little as possible (which of course frees up more space in my luggage and allows me to buy more products along the journey to take home with me :D)

So if you are curious with what I brought with me for my 4 weeks of travel, take a look at the photos below. I must say looking at them, I think I still over-packed, as I have bought more toiletries and skincare products from Watson and Sasa to compensate for all the decanting and travel sizes I brought over! A beauty addict like me just never seems to learn ><

With clothing, I usually pack light shirts and natural fibre tops like woolen sweaters that can be worn in mild weather or layered if it gets colder. I always pack 2 pairs of jeans and get a whole week's wear between them before they get washed. I also bring a cardigan for those strange weather days or cool evenings, leggings that can be worn on its own casually or under a skirt in the evenings and a weather proof jacket for those wild rainy days which offers some protection when it's too hard to trek around lugging an umbrella (and your shopping bags and camera).

Jeans, North face jacket, a few woolen knit tops, hats and scarves (I'm heading to Sapporo in winter) are all fairly lightweight items in my suitcase. 

With beauty products and toiletries, sample or travel sizes are my favourite products to take away (this is where all those gift with purchase products get used). Decanting full sized products into smaller sized pots, bottles and jars are also another favourite options of mine, especially if the original packaging isn't very travel friendly (eg. made of glass, awkward shaped etc). And remember you don't need to bring your whole bottle of shampoo because if you do run out and not stuck in some remote part of Africa or some other far flung exotic locale, you can always duck into the local shops to pick up a replacement and even try their local offerings (and treat it as part of the travelling experience).  Wet wipes are always handy to have to remove makeup, clean and refresh your face and hands on the go so I always have a pack of that in my bag whenever I'm on travels.

Travel sized skincare

Products in the bag:

• Kiehl's Creme de Corp body cream for my dry skin
• Guinot Biological Peeling radiance gel for a evening facial when my skin is stressed and worn out. 
• Kiehl's ultra facial cleaner. This isn't a travel size but I couldn't decant it and love how it's gentle but gets rid of all grease and grime in one easy wash
• Abivon - my French gem of a vitamin A cream for evenings to keep my skin supple and those fine lines at bay. 
• La Roche-Posay Melt-In BB Cream - I love this non-greasy lightweight BB cream that gives a natural finish to help with minor imperfection and all day round SPF protection. A must when travelling. 
• Bobbi Brown hydrating eye cream - emollient and rich, the perfect cream for restful eyes whilst travelling 
• Estee Lauder Advanced Night Repair Eyes - intense hydration for times when I need more stronger skincare and given it's so small, I'd probably finish it in a week's time anyway. 
• Origins Ginzing refreshing eye cream - because I'm obsessed with eye creams and this little tube will only go another week after my other two finishes up. 
• Pelativ Facial Refiner Deep Cleansing Scrub - for days when I need to exfoliate my face of the dead skin cells but don't want my skin feeling raw afterwards. 
• *edit* I forgot to include earlier but the Clinique bottle is actually my diy vitamin C serum that I've decanted into the small bottle to take with me for this travel. It normally sits in big bottle in the fridge at home. I'll post a post on the how to make the serum over the new year! 

I carry minimal cosmetics products whenever I travel as I find I don't have time to do my face in the mornings and even when I do, by the time I'm finished walking around all day long, my makeup looks smudged and worse for wear. So my only products that I carry for travelling liquid eyeliner, mascara, tinted lip balm/gloss with UV filters, concealer, BB cream, pressed powder and oil blotting paper. I also carry a long wear lipstick for evenings when I do want staying power on my lips.

Minimal makeup kit

• Estee Lauder concealer - this cream base concealer is the best for hiding dark cirlces and imperfections without budging once set. It's my new holy grail concealing product this year. 
• La Roche-Posay Melt-In BB Cream - I love this product so much I've included it twice in this post! Great for a light hydrating, coverage and sun protection and shade #2 is a surprisingly good match for me, I can't sing the praises of this product enough. 
• Clinique Super City Block SPF 30+ - this isn't makeup I know, but I always have a tube of sunscreen in my makeup bag just in case I don't use any makeup, at least my skin is still protected, especially when travelling]. 
• CoverGirl pressed compact - its convenient, has a built in mirror for quick on-the-go touch ups. I can't ask for more. 
• Kiss Me Heroine liquid eye liner - my hero liquid liner that I never stray from 
• Lancome Hypnose Drama mascara - this deluxe travel size means its easy to carry and won't dry out before I finish using it. I love how this particular one gives me intense thick lashes that are non-clumpy and easy to remove. 
• Lancome Tresor EDP miniature. I haven't put this to use yet so thought I may as well bring it with me. I am after all going to be spending NYE in Hong Kong in a potentially swanky place, I should come prepared. 
• L'Oreal Shine Caresse lip gloss in Juliet - a deep berry shade that lasts hours without drying lips. It will be on me for NYE for sure.  

Is this too much products to bring for 4 weeks? Do you travel with more or less?  If you want to see what I've been buying and getting up to in Asia, head over to my Instagram for the glory pictures.

Quick tip on cleaning facial brush heads

If you use a cleansing brush to wash your face with, you'll enjoy the deeper cleansing that they provide, being able to remove dirt, grime and makeup residue better than manual hand wash can.

But after a period of time, the brush heads themselves gets quite dirty with the makeup residue (even after removing makeup before using the brush) and becomes grimy. Like makeup brushes, it's important to keep the brush heads cleans so that you don't have bacteria sitting on it and introducing it onto your skin when you go to use it.

You can clean your makeup brushes using the face wash itself but I find that wasteful and not the most effective as these cleansers are made to be gentle on skin. Instead I find foaming hand washes and makeup removers are the most effective brush cleansers.

dirty face brush heads getting a foamy wash

Here are my two favourite cleansers to revive the those worse for wear looking brush heads:

Dove Foaming Makeup Remover 155ml - RRP A$11.57

This makeup remover is great to use only only on your face but also if the bristles of your facial brush are starting to look more brown than white. Makeup removers have the ability to take away the residues of waterproof makeup and this  foam based one makes its easier to disperse and work into the bristles to quickly remove the grease and makeup build-up so the brushes look clean and white again.

Dettol Touch of Foam antibacterial handwash* 250ml - RRP A$3.49

This handy softening foam hand wash is strong at killing nasties but gentle on hands and with a sweet cherry blossom scent. Use this on your brush heads for clean, fresh bacteria-free bristles, eliminating the chance of spreading any germs back onto your face. The large pump means it's easy to dispense the right amount of airy foam for use as a hand wash or a brush cleanser and I've used it to wash a few of my eye makeup brushes as well.

The other things I always do is remove the brush from the body of the cleansing device and allow it to air dry properly. I find this is more effective that drying the brushes attached to its body unit, and means I can wash the unit of any soap scum

With proper care, you an pro-long your brush heads and not have to change them as frequently. The recommended time frame to change the brush head is after 3 months of daily use, but I find that I can get away with an extra month or so before I have to change brush head when I look after

Clarisonic (right) and Panasonic Visa Pure brush head after cleansing. Looking new again

Dove Foaming Makeup Remover and Dettol Touch of Foam handwash are available at supermarkets, leading pharmacies and Priceline.

* Product provided for editorial consideration

Clear Skin Series: Busting Back and Body Acne

I was recently asked by someone what I would recommend them to treat back-acne.

Well, I have a confession to make. I suffer from the condition too – not severe, but enough to make me think twice whenever I need to consider wearing strapless or backless clothing.

Suffering from acne anywhere on your body can be debilitating, whether it be on your face, back or chest that can be hidden by clothing, it ultimately can have the same effect and lower your self esteem and affect confidence levels. Acne on the body is generally caused by hormonal imbalance, where to body is producing too much sebum and the best thing is to try and keep the oil and grease off the skin so it does not clog the pores and hair follicles on the body.

Here are my tried and true products that I use to keep my body blemishes at bay.

Back-Acne Busters

1. Wash skin with an anti-bacterial cleanser on a daily basis. I recommend anything with benzoyl peroxide as an active ingredient as it will help to kill off the bacteria on skin and remove excess oil. Benzac AC 5% Face and Body Wash is a good place to start and it's not too drying on skin.

2. Incorporate into your cleansing  routine a body wash with AHA to help with removing dead skin cell build-up and unclogging pores. The ASAP Revitalising Body Scrub is great for this as it contains glycolic acid (a type of AHA)and micro polishing beads to manually exfoliate skin leaving it baby smooth without all those layers of dead skin that blocks pores. I recommend using the product 2-3 times a week in place of the anti-bacterial body was.

3. As a further step of exfoliating the skin, try a dry body brush to brush off oil and grease from the body and is especially handy for those hard-to reach areas like the back. The Manicare Cellulite Bristle Brush will do the job perfectly and help with removing skin cells and help with blood circulation. I haven't really used it as a cellulite reduction brush and cannot say how effective it is for that but for exfoliating, it is amazing.

4. Sometimes, all the over-counters products will not be enough to treat your problem if it is persistent and severe. Don't be afraid to call in the help of the GP (you don't have to be dying of the flu to see them!). I recently did just that and was prescribed something topical to help with treating the pimples. If you suffer severe cases, your doctor may be prescribe you oral medication. I use Epiduo Gel which contains 2.5% benzoyl peroxide to kill off the bacteria and 0.1% adapalene, a retinoid to help unclog pores as well as reduce inflammation and swelling of bumps and cysts.

5. The other thing to keep in mind is to wear natural fibre clothing so that excess moisture and oil can be absorbed by the fabric and still let the body breath comfortably. To that end, I recommend wearing cotton, bamboo or woollen materials over the synthetic and polyester clothing.

I hope that these tips will help you keep you skin clear and blemish free (or at least reduce the number of nasty bumps on you skin). Let me know if you have other methods that works for achieving clear skin on your body.

Stocklist Information:
Benzac AC 5% Face and Body Wash 200ml - RRP A$16.99 is available at pharmacies.
ASAP Revitalising Body Scrub 200ml - RRP A$39 is available at selected salons and online at the SkinCareStore.
Manicare Cellulite Bristle Brush - RRP A$14.95 is available at Priceline, Kmart, Target, Big W and selected pharmacies
Epiduo gel is a prescription-only drug and available from your GP upon request.

In the next skincare series, I'll review some great scar treatment products.

Improvising with Beauty Items

I recently went a mini getaway for the weekend and decided to pack light. I only brought one small toiletry bag with my makeup essentials and a few makeup brushes.
In my attempt of practising a minimalist approach and due to haste, I forgot a few key items and my beauty routine looked like it was going to go awry for the weekend.

My minimalistic travel makeup/skincare kit all in a small toiletry bag

Thankfully, after calming down from the initial shock and horror of the forgotten items, I realised that I did have all the key items in my tiny bag, even if I had to improvise a little.

Here's what I learned:
When you leave your facial cleanser and makeup remover at home...
Grab a tube of your body lotion and apply a thin layer of your body lotion or cream, and rub into face in a circular motion, this will remove makeup, and oil with ease and then rinse off to leave face soft and also moisturised.

For the delicate eye areas, remember to be gentle and if you have cotton balls handy, pop the cream on the cotton ball and then wipe it gently across your eyes to remove shadow colours and mascara.

If you do not have body lotion handy, use your moisturiser or even hand cream instead as this cream cleansing method can always be used to clean your skin.


If your brow pencil goes missing...
I have very sparse brows and absolutely must darken my brows to provide a frame for my face if I want to look anything decent and was quite horrified when I realised that I didn't bring my trusty brow pencil and began hunting around my bag for a substitute.

Usually  in such situations, I would use a deep brown/black or grey eye shadow to fill in my brows but my mini Lancome eye palette were filled with light bronze and mauve colours that was not going to suit brow use. The only dark item in my kit was my Max Factor False Lash Effect black mascara.

Macara to fill in brows

Desperate times calls for desperate measures right? Well it worked at treat. Lightly wipe a brow brush against the wand of the mascara (a cotton swab could also work), and after brushing off excess colour onto the back of hand, use the remaining colour on the brush to fill in brows. It stayed on for the entire day and looked as natural as my normal brow pencil (this would obviously not work as well if you have light hair colours but you could probably get away with a brown mascara).

If you lose your lippy...
Or you have just plain forgotten and you have a lip liner handy, just line your lips and fill in lips with your lip liner. Blot with a tissue and then apply a lip gloss/balm on top for glossy lips that are coloured and well moisturised. Another substitute for lip colours are creme blushes lightly patted over lips followed by lip gloss.

Lessons learned
I think next time I'll create a list to tick off when I go away to avoid forgetting key items but it was good to know I had trusty beauty products that could double up in use in times of needs.

What other unconventional uses do you have for your beauty products?