I was going to start this post by apologising for all the Canada spam which I swear is probably going to span the rest of the year but you know, got to get that content somehow right?! Anyway. If you follow me of Facebook or Instagram you’ll know that before I went away, I was asking for advice on simple holiday hair & make up options. Here’s what I settled on…
Skin
I’m not someone who piles the make up on, on a daily basis, but I have really naturally uneven skin tone, which, without any kind of foundation, does not look cute. I was going to be outdoors a lot, possibly doing lots of walking an potentially getting quite hot (or wind and snow beaten as it turns out) so I didn’t want to cake my face in foundation. Similarly, I was going on the holiday of a lifetime and still wanted to look pretty in the pictures.
Space was a premium for us so I decided to really just take the bare minimum; lightweight liquid foundation, powder foundation, eyeliner, mascara and a really nifty pallet I got for free with 2 purchases of No7 products in boots which contained a couple of different eye shadows, primers, bronzers etc.
The absolute holy grail item I took the plunge and bought for going away though was the Stila one step correct. At £24 it’s way more than I would usually spend on a single item but the reviews were SO good and you can spread the cost over 3 months with Beauty Bay, so £8 a month didn’t feel quite as salty.
I’ll admit when I first got to Vancouver I was still hiding behind my make up. I was quite badly jetlagged on our first couple of days and there’s no primer strong enough in the world to manage my tired eyebags. The more we were away the more comfortable I became and by the time we made it to the mountains in Revelstoke I was foundation free. In fact I dd a little before, after primer, and after eyeliner/mascara/bronzer to show you how well the primer worked for me.
I think the only thing that would have made it better would be if it contained an SPF but hey, you can’t have everything. My more watered down routine, plus the beauty filter Dave accidentally turned on on his phone made me pretty happy with the millions of selfies we ended up taking…
Hair
I’ve talked before about my hair journey and what a labour of love it’s been trying to grow it out and embrace my more natural waves. It’s now finally a length I’m happier with (although would ideally like it a bit longer) but since it’s not a neat little bob anymore it means it needs a little more care and attention to stop it looking too stringy.
One of the things I’m sure Dave would say frustrates him the most about when we go away together if him sitting around waiting for me to get ready, so I was keen to try and minimise the getting ready time. I decided to take my straighteners (because let’s be honest, I couldn’t live without them!) and my curling tongs to switch it up a bit but to be honest, I shouldn’t have bothered, I only used them once and they took up space that could have been used by something else.
So I decided I was going to wash and straighten my hair every other day, then plait it for bed the night before on the days inbetween so it had some nice beachy waves.
I’d been given a lovely beauty set from my mates at work for my birthday in July, which had some travel bottles of Palmers Coconut oil shampoo. This was an absolute life saver! My hair had completely dried out thanks to the aircon on the flight and the hard/softness of different water sources abroad doesn’t react well on my fine strands. Once that ran out I used some White Company shampoo and conditioner I’d been given free at a hotel I stayed in in Eastbourne which I was less impressed with. It was low sulphates which I loved but in terms of cleaning and softening my hair it didn’t do as well as the palmers so wouldn’t recommend.
In the birthday set from my workmates was also a coconut oil spray from Lee Stafford which claims to turn hair ‘from straw, to silk’. It doesn’t. It was daft of me to take something with me I’d never tried before other than an old tried and tested faithful but it felt like a luxury product that would like nice in my picture. I didn’t like it at all and other than making my hair smell nice (it did smell lovely) it only made my hair greasy, especially at the roots. Lesson learnt.
So, top tips for light and effective make up and hair while travelling?
- Make the bare minimum; primer, mascara and blush/bronzer if you need it and you’ll being to fake the appearance of wearing make up
- Invest in a good primer, even if you have to spread the cost over 3 months
- Don’t take products you’ve never used before just because you think they’ll look good to the hotel cleaner
- Have a fab time and don’t worry too much about what you look like? – I’m still working on this one!