Travel Beauty!

Travel Beauty! by elbonner featuring a foundation brush

I'm about four days away from my trip to England and I'm furiously packing and re-packing my things to figure out what should go where, what can stay and what can go. It's maddening, I tell you! Plane travel can be exciting or can be a soul-sapping suck-fest that makes you think that humanity is disgusting and deserves all the bad things that happen to it. Make plane travel a little nicer with an on-board skin care routine to keep your skin from getting dull and dehydrated!

Cleanse 
From my personal experience, trying to use face wash on a plane = the ultimate disaster. Airplane restrooms are just pee-strewn germ factories, so if you want to keep your skin urine-free, stick with cleansing wipes. Here are my favorites:

Pacifica Coconut Water Cleansing Wipes: They get all the makeup off, they make your skin feel super clean and are totally biodegradable so the extra waste they produce is sort of counter-acted. 

Simple Facial Cleansing Wipes: Great for sensitive skin, takes off your makeup and cleanses away oils without over drying or irritating your face. Available almost anywhere (maybe even the airport).

Ole Henriksen Truth To Go Wipes: Loaded down with vitamin C,these wipes pack an extra skincare punch when using them. They leave skin brighter, happier, and less dull.

Hydrate + Treat
 Have 9 hours to kill with fuck-all to do? Do a face mask! Red-eye flight or not, face masks put back in what dry, horrible , recirculated plane air takes out. It can do a number on already dry skin and it needs to be replenished! 

Sekkisei Radience Boost Sheet Mask: One of about a billion of great Asian sheet masks that are super portable and really effective. You may look like a creepy modern zombie, but Asian girls have been doing these masks on overnight flights forever and have beautiful skin because of it. A challenge for the brave with the bonus that probably no one will bother you, let alone speak to you!

Yonka Masque No. 1 Anti-Age: This is my favorite moisturizing mask and is made to be worn overnight. For the not-doing-the-scary-sheet-mask traveler, this stuff goes on clear and creates a barrier between 20% humidity and beautifully hydrated skin. This also smells like jasmine which makes it calming while you're three rows deep into Hell.

Mario Badescu Glycolic Gel: Need to exfoliate on the go? This gel is gentle enough to use in the dry air,though I would recommend this more for oily-skinned people. Glycolic acid eats away dead skin cells accumulated during a long flight so that when you wipe it off at the end, it's smooth sailing! 

Refresh

Minis make reapplication on the plane a no-brainer and it gives you something to do when you just can't read or play Risk on your iPad.

Dior Show Mini Mascara Duo: This primer/mascara duo of my favorite formula/brush combo make fabulous lashes achievable at 30,000 or 5,000 if you want to look good WHILE YOU'RE PLUMMETING TO YOUR DEATH! Just kidding! They're so cute; just buy them already!

Smith's Rosebud Salve: chapped lips? Rosebud salve. Frizzy hair? Warm up some rosebud salve in your hands and smooth. Crusty-ass knuckles a la Emily? ROSEBUD SALVE. It can be used for so many things from dry nostrils to cuticle treatment. Good to have everywhere, all the time.

Olay Fresh Effects BB Cream: I gave this product so much shit after I first bought it. I thought it had no coverage and wrote it off to my friends as a no-no. I have since come to really love this stuff for the natural coverage and superior moisture that it provides and think it would be great for the plane. It's got color, moisture, and a sunscreen which knocks out three products and makes it one.

Fresh Sugar Lychee Rollerball Perfume: It doesn't have to be this scent, but get your favorite in a roller ball. You're not being a complete ass by spritzing your perfume in anyone elses' face and it's just easier to carry. This one smells of fruit and freshness so it's uplifting whilst not so heavy that it makes anyone around me heave (my worst nightmare).

Benefit Bronze Of Champions Palette: It's got your bronzer, it's got an eyeshadow, it's got a lip gloss, mascara, concealer, and highlighter all in a tiny package. Leave you're big palettes in your suitcase and opt for an all-in-one palette like this for pre-landing touch-ups.

Bobbi Brown Basic Travel Brush Kit: Leave big brushes at home and invest in a good brush kit to take to the skies. Bobbi Brown seems to do everything right in my eyes so this brush kit goes without asking. It has eye brushes, it has face brushes, it has all the brushes your head needs! They are pricey, but they are good-ass brushes. 

You don't have to look fancy at the airport, but how dumpy do you feel when you're bumming around in your sweatpants as a well put-together, super traveler passes you by after a flight from Singapore to New York?! Do your face a favor and take care of it in the air as well as on the ground!

Follow me on Instagram @e_bythesea !

My Love Affair With Samples: Glossybox

There are few things in life that are truly satisfying: finding a loving partner, eating warm bread/chocolate chip cookies, visiting a beautiful place, and free samples. With sample testing services such as Glossybox, you can try high-end products without committing to a giant bottle or something you might not end up liking. I think this is a genius idea because I am a beauty junkie. I like to try all sorts of cool new stuff, but sometimes I get stuck with products I don't really care for and feel the need to use up even though I hate them. Companies like Glossybox take that anxiety away and send me a cute box full of surprises every month! EVERYONE LIKES PACKAGES AND SURPRISES; it's a law of nature! This month's came with some awesome samples:

 Above: Nicely packaged and so much fun to open

My stash for this month including Ole Henriksen's Truth Serum which I've wanted to try FOREVER, but didn't want to risk spending a bunch of money on a big one. This will be the perfect travel size which is what I use a lot of my Glossybox stuff for.

 Now this is what I'm talking about. A full-sized Illamasqua nail polish in "Taint" (whoa now) that will be great for fall. I have no brown polishes and this one reminds me of Nutella (never a bad thing).

With services like this, you often get to try brands you've never encountered before. I've never heard of Ellis Faas, but I love with bullet shaped lipstick (please excuse my Vienna sausage fingers). It might even be pointy enough to hold of an attacker: win-win!

There are so many  companies doing this same sort of thing for all different budgets and interests. There are only limited quantities of Glossybox and they differ between countries. Either way, get yourself on their newsletter list and treat yo'self to some samples!

Allow Me To Exfoliate...

Allow Me To Exfoliate... by elbonner featuring Clarisonic beauty products

Kate Somerville face care / Dr Dennis Gross Skincare bath body product / Ole Henriksen body cleanser, $135 / The Body Shop body cleanser / Body cleanser, $7.92 / Mario Badescu Skin Care body treatment / Elemis bath body product / Clarisonic beauty product, $285 / ALPHA beauty product / Origins beauty product

Exfoliation is the key to happiness. I know I already posted about my homemade scrub, but that's not the only exfoliator that I use to keep me silky smooth and baby-faced. It takes an arsenal of face and body care products to keep my annoying dry, flaky skin at bay and this is how I do it!

For may face, I've used a couple of exfoliators that I really enjoy. I've used grainy scrubs and acid-based products that eat my dull skin away for me. I like both for different reasons and use them at different times, but I will go over which and when once I get to the descriptions. So without further a-do I'll start my list:

Face Care

1. Origins Modern Friction. This face scrub is used on dry skin and it utilizes corn and rice granules to get you face funky fresh and soft. I use this primarily in the winter when my skin isn't sunburned or wind-chapped because this stuff is the real deal. Using it on dry skin is what makes it so effective and to make it a bit more gentle use it with water. Only use this scrub like 3 times a week because any more than that and you might not have any skin left on your face, Crypt Keeper. IT'S THAT INTENSE. Not really, but close!  

2. My next favorite is an acid-based exfoliator which is actually in a different container, but I couldn't find a decent picture for it. It's Alpha H's Liquid Gold with glycolic acid. This is worn at night after cleansing and it eats all of your dead skin away! Great in the summer time when you want to exfoliate,but are apprehensive because your skin might be a little sensitive because of sun damage. The only drawback is that if you want it to work you can't use a moisturizer with it, it's just like putting water on your face. So if you hate that not-moisturized feeling this might not be your best bet,but it makes your skin look awesome and really helps me with acne and blackheads.

3. This Glycolic Gel by Mario Badescu is a lot like the one from AlphaH, but in gel form. It's easier to get a hold of than Alpha H and is a big cheaper. It's worn every other night like Liquid Gold and has a bit lighter exfoliation.

4. ExfoliKate by Kate Sommerville is the whole shebang; grainy exfoliators, plus enzymes and acids to eat away all the nasties. This comes in the original formula as well as one suited for acne and a lightweight version for sensitive skin. I friggin' love this stuff, but the price tag is a bit steep. When you will stop at nothing to get smooth skin, go with this one.

Body Care

1. I love The Body Shop. They have singular scents that smell like the real deal and this coconut scrub is great fora light to moderate exfoliation. It smells like suntan lotion and doesn't leave you or your bathtub a greasy death trap. So if you want smooth skin and don't want your family to find your naked lifeless body positioned unattractively in the bathtub after you've fallen, get this scrub!

2. One of my pet peeves with sunless tanning is all the scrubbing I have to do to get all my rough spots soft again. This product exfoliates AND tans you AT THE SAME TIME. Dr. Dennis Gross's Alpha Beta Glow pads are available in body and facial sized cloths that get you tan and smooth at once and don't look orangey or fake.

3. Ole Henrikson's Rub'n'Buff is one of the best smelling and most effective body scrubs I've ever used. It smells clean and fresh and uses salt to scrub away grossness. It recommends you use it on dry skin and skin that hasn't recently been shaved or you'll be a'hurtin.

Tools!

1. GET A CLARISONIC. I can't stress it enough; it's a sonicare toothbrush for your face and every dentist on earth worth their potatoes uses a sonicare toothbrush. It doesn't spin, it sonically shakes the dirt off of your face. You can use this every night, it has brushes for every skin type and feels like a massage every time you use it. It only needs to be charged once every 6 weeks and the brush heads get changed every 3 months. Easy peasy!

2. Using a body brush before you shower or bathe has been said to up your circulation and reduce cellulite. It can't hurt to try. I can't say it has  made my cottage cheese disappear (I'm not afraid to admit it!), but it makes my skin and my keratosis pilaris (chicken skin) much much better. These can be found in just about any bath and body store, so if you want an exfoliation that really gets you to wake up try a dry brush.

3. Lastly, these gloves are all over the place and really do a good job when you're traveling. It's not a liquid so it's safe for the plane, you can use them on wet or dry skin, and then dry quickly so I like to have them when I go out of town instead of lugging another bottle of body scrub with me.

Well, that's my list. I hope it was helpful and gave you some news products to try out. Now get get out of here and scrub off!