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Making It Work: How to Travel Light and Still Look Fabulous

Getting all your must-have body products into a single hiker’s pack can seem as impossible as a Project Runway challenge. But where there’s a will – and a little creative thinking – there’s always a way. Here are five of my best discoveries for how to get extra mileage out of the stuff you carry anyway (and how to cut down on the stuff you can do without).

Shampoo. Unless your hair is super short, I do NOT recommend substituting bar soap for shampoo. I’ve done this, and the result is a tangled stringy mess. What I DO recommend is substituting shampoo for soap. After all, shampoo is just a special kind of body wash. Hair can be picky about the kinds of products it likes, but any soap out there will clean your skin.
Making it work: bring a bottle of your favorite shampoo and forget soap entirely. If you feel weird about using shampoo as body wash, pack an “official” shampoo-plus-body wash product like Philosophy’s Coconut Frosting.

Lotion. If you’re at all prone to dry skin, chances are you’ll want to carry at least a travel bottle of lotion. Fortunately, that means you can forget packing the hair gel. Ordinary hand lotion works wonders at eliminating static, taming fly-aways, and adding subtle texture to hair. Unless you want the sticking-straight-up spiky look, lotion is usually enough.
Making it work: Bring lotion that is suitable for the most sensitive part of your body. For example, if you use face lotion, hand lotion, and body lotion at home, pack your face lotion only. I know this is more expensive, but if you cart around tons of products, you’ll end up spending any money you save on yoga classes or massages once you get home. Be careful not to use too much lotion in your hair or it will look greasy. Apply lotion to your face, hands, etc, then rub your hands through your hair to create manageability and texture.

Toothpaste. There’s no way you can skip this one, so why not figure out how to make it do double-duty? Toothpaste has great drying properties, so it works as an emergency acne cream. Making it work: dab toothpaste over a blemish before going to bed and by morning it will be smaller, less swollen, and less red, making it much less noticeable.

Toothpaste (again!). This stuff turns out to be super useful. Because of toothpaste’s mild abrasive properties, it does a great job polishing silver jewelry. Like other jewelry polishes, toothpaste won’t hurt harder gemstones but you shouldn’t use it on jewelry with soft gemstones like pearls or opals.
Making it work: squeeze a small amount of toothpaste onto your tarnished sterling silver. Use your fingers to rub the toothpaste over the jewelry’s surface; the process is working when the frothy paste starts to darken in color. Rinse your jewelry and dry it well (if you’re not squeamish, using your toothbrush to scrub your jewelry is even more effective – just rinse the toothbrush really well afterward). The minty-fresh shine won’t last as long as the shine you get from real silver-polish, but it will make you sparkle for a night at the club.

Lip balm. Lip balm is formulated to moisturize and protect some of the most delicate skin on your body, so why not put it to use on other delicate skin? Lip balm makes a very effective – and much cheaper – substitute for cuticle cream.
Making it work: rub lip balm lightly over your nail beds, especially before bedtime – a little is plenty. The lip balm will moisturize your cuticles as well as seal the skin against the atmospheric drying that causes torn cuticles and hang nails.