Getting your beauty routine right when you travel can already be a struggle – whether you are subject to 100ml limits in your hand luggage or need to decide which of your favourite items can actually fit weight-wise in your suitcase. But, it feels even harder when you want to choose sustainable beauty products too.
Our guide below helps make your packaging both a little more planet-friendly and stress-free, covering the best sustainable beauty products for travel that the CF team recommends. Including products from Face Halo and Ethique, every step of your routine will be maximised when you are on your travels.
Not only is Face Halo's reuseable mitt more planet-friendly than using cotton wool pads or cleansing wipes to wash your face, it also means you don't have to worry about bringing multiple cleansers with you in your beauty bag. The soft fibres gently, yet thoroughly, remove your makeup using just water, so you can use it alone when packing really light, or alongside your favourite cleanser for a deeper clean.
To avoid having to lug around all your separate bronzers, blushes and shadows while travelling, Kjaer Weis' palette offers an all-in-one solution, which is also tailored specifically to you, as you can choose the shades you put in it from the brand's wide selection. What's more, it's also refillable so you top-up, try a new shade, or replace one you're not going to finish, without having to buy a whole new palette. Leading to less wastage overall, its a chic eco-conscious option too.
By choosing a refillable makeup palette, you not only limit the space your cosmetics take up in your bag, but also help reduce wastage, which is good news for the planet and your beauty routine.
Shampoo bars have come a long way from the tricky-to-use, overly-stripping options we had a while back, which is great news considering the bars are super travel-friendly and cut down on both water and packaging waste. Now, you can trust them to thoroughly wash and nourish all hair types, and if you pick one from Dr. Organic you'll be guaranteed one that smells great too.
I was first introduced to the concept of toothpaste tablets while raiding a hotel's amenities, and it has completely changed how I travel with hand luggage-only. You chew on the tablets like a mint and with the help of your wet toothbrush you have a quick and easy travel-friendly solution to a cleaner smile. I also like to use them to freshen up on long-haul flights – just throw the tub in your carry-on, freeing up space for other essentials in your liquids bag.
Full-sized cleansers tend to be the most bulky of your skincare essentials, but before you are tempted to switch to wipes to make room in your suitcase, you don't need to compromise on deep cleansing or eco-consciousness when on-the-go. Organic beauty brand Pai specifically released its hydrating yet blemish-tackling cleanser – powered by gently exfoliating PHAs – in a smaller 28ml to make travelling and trying the product easier. Plus, there's still more than enough in the bottle to last a full week's trip, so you can ensure a thorough, planet-conscious clean.
Natural, aluminium-free deodorants have never been more popular and with large aerosols or roll-ons often becoming a pain to travel with, now is the perfect time to embrace the trend. The CF team have a host of suggestions for you to try, including the award-winning Salt of the Earth and luxury brand AKT, but we particularly love the chic packaging of Fussy, which also comes with easy-to-use refills for extra style and sustainability points.
Single-use sachets can make travel skincare simple, but they have a bad eco-reputation because you use them once then throw them away. Luckily, Noble Panacea is turning the skincare sachet sector on its head. The sachets themselves are made from recyclable paper, which when finished can be returned to the brand in place of new refills, while the reuseable starch-based statement case gives you somewhere to store them when at home. Most of all though, each sachet contains green chemistry-backed skincare you'll actually want to use, with lots of options covering cleansing, moisturising, brightening and exfoliation.
Make travel skincare easy (and effective) with these sachets. They are helping innovate within the single-use product category – previously known as being unquestionable bad for the planet.
No one really wants to carry around a full bottle of their favourite perfume when they go on holiday, and sometimes that isn't even an option when you fly hand luggage-only. Travel-size fragrances are a great option for that reason, but if you don't want to invest in lots of smaller bottles (which is not that planet-friendly), Creed has refillable atomisers that you can use to decant your favourite scents (Creed or otherwise). They will keep your fragrance wardrobe looking chic on your travels too.
Bodywash tends to be one of the first products to be left behind if you are travelling light, but one of the latest innovative solutions within sustainable bodycare could make that a thing of the past. Concentrates – yes, a little like how you make a glass of squash – transform from powders to foams, helping cut back on plastic packaging, water usage, and weight – meaning they can make travelling easier too. Ethique, which also does great body bars, is one of our favourites embracing the trend, and the formulas smell great.
Considering early morning flights, late night adventures, and a hefty amount of jet lag, under eye masks can be the difference between looking puffy or refreshed in your holiday photographs. To make the little treat a little more eco-friendly, VOYA not only uses 100% organic seaweed (a natural carbon sink) to help refresh your eyes, but also has packaged the masks in materials that are compostable and recycleable.
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