Having just returned from her own campervan travels, these are the beauty essentials our beauty editor recommends packing if you’re planning a USA road trip this year.
Including multitasking makeup and innovative tech, these are the best road-trip friendly products to have on your list. Best of all, they are versatile enough to take you from beach hopping to city sights (and back again).
First in our beauty editor's travel makeup bag: a tinted sunscreen. Importantly, this provides much better SPF protection than any foundation with added SPF, while still giving you the blemish-blurring, glow-boosting effect you want for some lit-from-within summer radiance. Heliocare's formula won't cause break outs either, we promise.
Road trip skincare essentials should be all about keeping your skin as healthy and hydrated as possible, while keeping irritation at bay. Consider taking a break from more aggressive actives such as retinoids and exfoliating acids, and switch in a nourishing, antioxidant-rich cream instead. This one from Allies of Skin provides a suitable holiday moisturiser for a tired, dry complexion with multiple peptides, antioxidants and skin brighteners to instantly refresh and plump.
Even if you are otherwise totally barefaced, a swish of mascara can instantly wake up a sleepy-looking face, and this one from Maybelline provides length and definition to even your shortest hairs to maximise results. Choose the waterproof version and you can take a dip in the ocean or experience humid temperatures without worrying.
When you're road tripping you may notice how quickly the water conditions in your shower changes – from hard to soft, and coming out at different pressures. That can play havoc with your hair, making it harder to properly wash out products. Leading hairstylist Adam Reed introduced our beauty editor to this unassuming-looking brush before her own trip; it makes brushing out knots and adding shine easy.
However luxurious you make your road trip experience – and there's plenty of ways to ensure you don't feel like you are compromising on-the-go – it's always a good idea to slip some hand sanitiser into your purse (or rucksack). This Aesop mist actually smells nice with a citrusy aroma, and doesn't leave that annoying sticky feeling on your skin afterwards.
This best-selling lip balm – which has over 10,000 positive reviews on Space NK – is a favourite of both our beauty and fashion editor, and it's really like rehab for your pout. Deeply moisturising, it makes light work of dry, chapped lips and the glossy finish means you don't need to apply lipstick if you don't want to.
It might not be the first product you think about packing, but if you want to look instantly put together in minimal time, don't overlook a slick of tinted brow gel, like this one from brow expert Anastasia Beverly Hills. With only a few tiny brush strokes, it can subtly define and lift your eyes and leave you feeling suitably groomed.
Electric toothbrushes provide a way more efffective clean than a manual, but they tend to be annoyingly bulky to bring away with you. Not with Philip's lightweight, battery-powered solution that produces 3,000 microvibrations per minute for deep yet gentle brushing. The hand luggage-friendly case is a bonus too.
If you only have room for one hair styling product in your road trip-friendly cosmetics case, make it a texture spray – perhaps the most multitasking of all the hair products available. Not only does it help volumise and prolong the life of your chosen style, but it can give a beachy charm to your post-swim curls, and even work like a dry shampoo when spritzed onto your roots to absorb oil between washes. Oribe's is a CF team favourite.
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