9 Tips For Traveling With Your Makeup

Travel can be stressful, especially when you consider the fact that many of us are traveling with super spillable products that have the potential to destroy the rest of our stuff. However, when it comes to makeup, there are definitely solid tips out there for how to pack your makeup when traveling.

If you're like me, even when you try to stay neat and efficient when packing hair and makeup products, you still somehow end up with way more than you ever actually need and way less order than you ever intended. I have also spent way too much time in life cleaning spills and stains off of my clothes from products that spilled in transit, or even just cleaning the inside of my makeup bags because for some reason nothing ever stays inside whatever container it came in when I travel.

That's why, after one particularly harrowing makeup travel experience a couple years ago that resulted in a ruined favorite dress, I began actually planning ahead of time for traveling with makeup so that I would never have to rush around looking for an emergency dry cleaner in an unfamiliar city ever again. If you also have had some terrible past experiences with traveling with makeup, or are getting ready for an upcoming trip and just want some solid tips, here are nine travel hacks for packing your makeup that should help.

1. Get A Good Makeup Bag

Travel vlogger and YouTuber Sonia Gil stressed that a good makeup bag is extremely important for efficient and stress-free makeup packing. In her YouTube video Travel Tips: How To Pack Your Makeup, she listed pockets as a majorly helpful tool in a travel bag to help keep your brushes and various products organized, as opposed to throwing everything together in one big disorganized mess. She also notes that if you can, look for travel bags with plastic interiors to make cleaning up any spilled product super easy.

2. Make A List

XoVain Senior Editor Alle Connell is a huge advocate of making a list before you begin packing to ensure nothing is forgotten, as well as that nothing is packed that you didn't really need. "To make a list of the beauty products you’ll need on your trip, go through your daily facewash/shower/hair/makeup routine in your head and write down everything that you use. I mean everything — brushes, pins, sprays, lotions, the works," she said. "Once that’s down, go through and see what you can jettison without feeling a major loss."

3. Plan Around Your Outfits

A helpful piece on traveling with makeup on the travel advice site Travel Fashion Girl, said to plan your makeup choices around your outfits and to make an effort just to bring the few shades that match your ensembles. This will help minimize and simply what you pack and not lead to just bringing stuff for the sake of bringing it, ultimately cluttering your life.

4. Use Multi-Purpose Products

Sonia Kashuck Lip & Cheek Tint, $10, Target

A tip on the Julep.com blog recommended packing as many multi-purpose products as possible in order to streamline the process. According to the blog, "A pale, shimmery eye shadow can work beautifully as a skin highlighter, a cream blush can also work as a lip or eye color, and lipstick can be blended out as a cheek stain" They also recommend packing a few extra tubes of lipstick in various colors, since lipstick is super easy to travel with and can help create many different looks.

5. Bring Facial Wipes Instead Of Facial Wash

Neutrogena Oil-Free Deep Clean Makeup Remover Wipes, $9, Amazon

This is a personal favorite of mine and is also featured on Cosmopolitan's 11 Tips To Try When You're Traveling. Facial cleansing wipes are great at removing makeup and dirt and grime from the day, and also mean you don't have to travel with a potentially bulky and spillable bottle of face wash.

6. Cushion Your Compacts

COVERGIRL Makeup Plastic Powder Puffs, $3, Walgreens

The Julep.com blog also recommended cushioning your blush and bronzer compacts with either a cotton ball or the application pad that came with the product by placing one inside the compact with the product. This will help act as a "makeshift shock absorber" and help prevent valuable product from breaking off.

7. Use Reusable Travel Bottles

Mon Image 3 oz Travel Bottle Pack, $9, Amazon

Connell at XoVain also recommended investing in reusable travel bottles for your liquid products, like favorite shampoos, conditioners, and moisturizers, and notes that not only do a lot of your favorite products not even come in travel-sizes, but that travel-sized products are usually much more expensive per ounce than their full-sized version. "Instead, I make my own travel-sized things," she said. "Anything that comes in a huge bottle gets poured into small clear plastic bottles for instant, personalized travel minis."

8. Use Your Clothes As Extra Padding

In an article for Real Simple, Samantha Brown, Travel Channel host, recommended using your clothes as extra makeup protection. "I wrap perfume bottles in my socks and pack them inside my sneakers," she said. In the same piece, Lisa Trotter, New York City-based adventure-travel company Lindblad Expeditions founder, said she packs all of her makeup in resealable, waterproof bags, and if she has any waterproof rain gear packed, will then wrap her makeup bags in them for additional protection against leaks.

9. Ziploc Bag It

Ziplock Freezer Gallon Bags, $4, Amazon

In a piece for the Huffington Post Style section, Mally Beauty founder Mally Roncal, said she relies heavily on basic Ziploc bags for packing her makeup. "I like to separate my makeup into several Ziploc — one for face, one for eyes, one for lips, one with my brushes and other tools, and one that has all of my everyday essentials — so I can easily find everything when I'm on the go," she said.

Packing your makeup doesn't have to be an ordeal, nor does it have to end in globs of product at the bottom of your suitcase. With a few basic items, like resealable plastic bags, and a little planning, you can check makeup off the list of stressors for packing for your next trip.

Images: Sharon Wesilds, We're Have Moved, Apotek Hjartat, Justin See/Flickr; Pexels (2)