The Beautiful Traveler is a monthly series featuring the beauty products I love to travel with. After two years on the road, I learned that you might be able to skimp on clothing and get by with a couple pairs of shoes, but there’s no substitute for taking care of your skin, hair and health while seeing the world. And this month I’m giving away a tasty beauty product to one of you! Read on…
Pinch Provisions Minimergency Kit
I have to thank the thoughtful team at Tieks by Gavrieli for introducing me to my favorite new product of the summer – the Minimergency Kit! It’s the perfect gift for bridesmaids, brides, new moms or travelers – and I can’t help but wonder, where was this fabulous little pink bag when I traveled around the world?
At only 3.5″ x 2 ” x 2″, it’s the tiniest useful item you can bring on a trip. It has the power to transform you from gal with a rip in her shorts (oh, was that just me?) or backpacker who’s run out of deodorant the day she meets a cute guy at an un-air-conditioned airport, to the MacGyver of the travel world. With this little Pandora’s box of 17 itty bitty, oh-so-useful items, you can tackle any mini-emergency.
So what’s in the bag? In mine, I found hairspray, clear nail polish, nail polish remover, an emery board, lip balm, earring backs, clear elastics, a safety pin, a mending kit, Shemergency® tape, stain remover, deodorant towelette, pain reliever, tampon, breath freshener, dental floss and an adhesive bandage. So that pretty much covers everything except bomb diffusing, right? MacGruber!
There’s an excellent chance I’ll never board a flight again without a Minimergency Kit. And not that it makes a huge difference because it is so adorably wee, but it comes in a ton of pretty colors, prints and yes, monogrammed (the sorority girl in me is all like, OMG).
Depending on exactly what you’re preparing for – be it college, a wedding or diffusing a bomb (good luck with that), this kit is clutch.
Beauty Bursts from NeoCell
I’ve been in the sun quite a bit this summer now that I’m back to being a strawberry blonde Floridian, so I’ve been on the hunt for products other than sunscreen and hats that will protect my skin and hair from damage. For the past few weeks, I’ve been nibbling on Beauty Bursts from NeoCell, a chocolate mint chew loaded with collagen, hyaluronic acid and biotin. It takes a while for them to do their work, so I’m hesitant to sing their praises too loudly just yet; however no one can argue with a supplement that is good for you, claims to make you prettier and tastes like chocolate! And I love that these little supplements can easily travel on a short-term adventure. Throw a few in your carry on or makeup bag and maybe those jet-lag eye bags won’t be quite as pronounced on the way home. Chews are 40 calories for 2, are gluten, soy, GMO and artificial ingredient-free.
I’m giving away a bag of chocolate mint Beauty Bursts for a lucky reader to try – all you have to do to enter* is leave a comment and tell me the one travel product you can’t live without. It can be a shoe, a gadget, a food – I want to know what’s in your bag! I’ll randomly select a winner on September 1.
Conair Salon Shine Dryer
I’ve been known to call hotels before I visit to see what wattage their in-house blow dryers have. Doesn’t everyone? (For the record, the answer is usually: “Uhhhhhhhhhhhhh, blow dryers have wattage?”)
So I might be on the extreme end of the blow dryer requirement spectrum, but come on. Those ridiculous excuses for hair dryers that are attached to the wall in many hotels are an affront to all thick-haired lady travelers – how many of those have I shorted out in my lifetime?! If I’m trying to maintain any level of good-lookingness during a trip, I either need the hotel to provide a dryer with 1875 watts, or I must bring my own.
I go through a dryer at home every year or so, and the latest edition was a $70 model I got for Christmas. Unfortunately, it dies if you use it on the hot setting for longer than 90 seconds and it’s far too heavy to travel with. So you may have noticed a lot more hats in this year’s travel photos…
Cue my latest discovery, the John Frieda Styling Tools by Conair Salon Shine Dryer, $39.99, a lightweight, travel friendly dryer with 1875 beautiful, powerful, quick-drying watts. It’s got all the buzzwords that a good dryer has these days – ions and ceramic and titanium. I actually have no idea how any of those things affect my hair, but I know good blowdryers have them and junky ones don’t.
I was excited to try this compact purple dryer out because it has two attachments – a diffuser for curly days and a concentrator for straight-as-a-board blowouts. And guess what? I replaced my $70 model with the Salon Shine Dryer after my first use. It makes my hair shiny & straight, has enough power to cut drying time down noticeably AND it doesn’t add much extra weight to my carry-on. Sold!
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So those are my top beauty travel picks for August – what do you think? And what are your favorite travel beauty goodies?
Don’t forget to leave a comment for the chance to win NeoCell Beauty Bursts!
Some products featured in Angie Away’s Beautiful Traveler series were provided complimentary. All opinions are Angie’s.
*For this giveaway, you must be 18+, live in the Continental US and like chocolate mint!
