[Kara] Minimalist Toiletries

Do I have drawers and drawers of assorted toiletries at home?  Of course.  Do I use them all?  Of course not.  Was I nervous about living for six months with only a tiny portion of what I have at home?  Yes.  Was I particularly nervous because I knew we'd be taking lots and lots of pictures and I'd want to look nice in them?  Yes! 

Has it been hard?  NO.  It's been awesome.  I get ready every morning in five minutes flat because I have no choices to make.  Let me show you what I have.

Hair Care

I left my curling iron at home (sniff) and just brought a brush, some hair ties and travel-sized shampoo and conditioner (which I've replenished when possible from hotel rooms).  I also recently bought solid shampoo and conditioner bars from Lush and they will work in a pinch.  I will do a review of those in the next couple of days.

I also have a small bottle of powdered dry shampoo because dry shampoo is amazing and I don't want to live without it.

Of all hair issues, I was most nervous about keeping my hair colored on our journey.  I found compact, super convenient hair dye in Thailand and bought several packages to keep me un-gray through the end of our trip.  Now that we are in Europe, hair dye is easy to find at large supermarkets.

Makeup

I'm generally a minimalist with makeup, but I have to have my brand of eye liner and my brand of lipstick.  I bought brand new eye liner and lipstick right before our trip began and they're lasting just fine.  I also wear mascara and eyeshadow, so I brought one option for each of those.  A few times I've wished I had concealer, foundation or at least pressed powder.  But only a few times.  It isn't worth it to me to carry those.

I love makeup remover wipes and I couldn't leave them at home.  But I've learned that I can re-use them for a few days in a row if I only wipe the makeup-y parts of my face with them (for me, that's under my eyes and around my lips).  After wiping off the makeup, I just re-fold it and tuck it back into the container.

I also have a bottle of nail polish and a small bottle of nail polish remover.  The nail polish is for my toe nails because I'm wearing sandals most of the time.  HOWEVER, an even more important use for the nail polish is to mark hotel room keys so that when we have multiple rooms we can tell the keys for the different rooms apart (sharpies don't work on the slick surface of credit-card style room keys).

I was nervous about carrying nail polish remover and risking it spilling in my bag, but I found this handy bottle in Nepal.  Under the screw-on cap is a stopper shoved into the mouth of opening, and I've carried it for a few months now with no problems.

Skin Care

I've never found a daily moisturizer/sunscreen that I LOVE, so I brought this Aveeno one along with me.  It's advantages are that it's relatively large, so holds a lot of moisturizer, and the pump top locks when you turn it to the side.  No leaking in my bag!  I did run out of this and replaced it while we were in the US for a few days.  However, finding face moisturizer/sunscreen isn't too hard around the world.

I also like to use eye cream at night.  Again, I'm not loyal to a particular brand.  This Olay container has lasted me a long time, but its almost empty.  It will be easy for me to replace it here in Europe.

Finally, I love having a nice quality tube of hand/body lotion.  Ahh.  A little bit of the good stuff goes a long way.  I have two right now that I'm using (one I brought and one was a gift from an AirBnB host).

Miscellaneous

Interestingly, some of the hotels we've stayed in have put out disposable razors and small tubes of shaving cream in their bathrooms.  That's kept me in razors for shaving my legs.  The shaving cream doesn't last long, though.  I've used hair conditioner, lotion and even soap in a pinch.

Good deodorant is hard to find around the world!  (Even when we were in Australia they had a much more limited selection than we have in the States.) I started with a full container of a good one and when we were in the US I re-supplied because I was almost out.  Good deodorant is hugely important when five of us are living in very close quarters!

Toothbrush and toothpaste are basics, of course.  You can buy them around the world without any trouble.  (My current toothpaste is from Thailand and has lasted a long time.)

I carry a few Q-tips and a couple of cotton balls, also collected from hotel rooms, plus a few more personal items that I'm not going to embarrass either of us by sharing.  But my whole collection of toiletries fits in a medium-sized hanging bag.  All the liquid toiletries are smaller than 3.4 oz and all of them fit into a quart-sized ziploc bag that you can see from the picture that I can just lift out of this toiletries bag when I'm preparing to carry my luggage onto an airplane.  (Our extra travel-sized shampoo and conditioner don't fit in my quart ziplock, so Cannon carries them.)

Still coming up in this series of blog posts is an explanation of clothing, laundry supplies, food, first aid and tools we've brought.  Stay tuned!