Travel and Skincare
Summer holiday brings exhilarating adventures, outdoor activities, and travel to exotic destinations. While you’re hoping to look and feel your best during this time, travelling can take a toll on your skin. Interrupting your normal skincare routine, travel conditions, and excess sun exposure can leave your skin dull, breakout-prone, or dry and flaky. Luckily, your travel skin care routine before and during your trip can make all the difference. Follow this guide to learn more about how travel affects the skin and how to keep your skin happy and healthy during your trip.
How Travel Can Impact the Skin
Travelling and changes to your usual routine can be stressful, especially on your skin, travelling exposes your skin to a host of unhealthy circumstances.
Aeroplane travel is particularly dehydrating, with relative humidity inside the cabin as low as 5% at altitude. When your skin is accustomed to around 50% humidity, this change is extremely drying. Road trips can be just as punishing. Leaving the windows open can expose your skin to road pollution. Yet, if you close them and depend on the AC, you’ll significantly lower the humidity inside your car.
Humidity isn’t the only damaging factor that affects your skin during travel. These factors of travel also impact your skin’s health.
- Reduced movement increases puffiness
- UV exposure
- Weather changes
- Stress
- Diet changes
- Lack of sleep
Essential Travel Skincare Tips
How you care for your skin during travel has a significant influence on how your skin looks and feels. These travel skin care tips can help you look your best during business or holiday travel.
Prepare Your Skin for Travel
The day before you travel, help prepare your skin by sloughing off dead skin cells and giving your skin a big dose of moisture. Massage a gentle exfoliating scrub into your skin to remove dead skin cells and impurities. Follow up with a hydrating mask to add a moisture boost. Don’t forget to reduce salty food intake and increase your hydration with fruits, vegetables, and plenty of water.
Pack Familiar Products
Purchasing travel-size minis to take on your trip can tempt you into trying new products. Whether you’ve accumulated samples from a beauty company, have some gifts set aside, or think of your holiday as an opportunity to try a luxurious new cream, you may want to think twice before trying new products while travelling. Adapting to new products (even if they’re amazing) requires your skin to adjust. By sticking with your usual products, you can avoid stressing your skin.
Reduce Your Makeup While Travelling
We all want to look our best for holiday, so there’s no judgment here if you choose to wear makeup for your flight. Still, your pores will breathe easier if you keep products to a minimum. Apply a serum and sunscreen to your face and neck, and keep makeup as simple as possible for your time in the air or on the road.
Moisturize During Your Flight
If you have a particularly long flight or don’t mind going sans makeup, moisturizing your skin during your flight is an excellent idea. Before you settle in for your in-flight nap or film, use a pre-moistened facial wipe to remove all makeup.
Apply a moisturizer or use a sheet mask to moisturize your skin below the surface. Moisturize upon removing the mask for a glowing complexion when you arrive at your destination.
Choose Products Wisely
It’s not practical to pack skin care products for every potential issue that may arise during your trip. Consistency is key to maintaining healthy skin. By packing a few essentials, you’ll be more likely to keep up with a healthy routine.
This checklist includes the necessary essentials for travel:
- Sunscreen
- Moisturizer
- Lip balm
- Sheet masks for travel
- Facial cleanser
- Eye cream
Prioritize Skin Protection
Excessive sweat and sun can irritate or even damage your skin’s delicate surface. This can mean you’ll need to wash your face more often and use protective products frequently. Most people remember to apply sunscreen, but skip reapplication. You should reapply sunscreen every 2 hours whilst spending time outdoors, and every 4 to 6 hours during a day spent inside.
Hydrate from the Inside
Dehydration can be your skin’s worst enemy, and travel provides plenty of opportunities to come into contact with drying air. Combat dehydration by choosing foods and drinks that naturally increase your skin’s moisture. Before and during travel, drink plenty of water and avoid drinks with alcohol and caffeine. Choose moisture-inducing fruits and vegetables with snacks and meals instead of salty and processed foods to increase your moisture content. Your skin and your waistline will thank you.
Continue Care When You Arrive
Before and in-flight skin care can have your skin looking its best when you arrive at your destination. However, this won’t last if you kick your skin care routine to the curb as soon as you step off the plane. Continue your normal skin care cleaning and moisturizing routine throughout the duration of your trip. Be sure to make time to remove your makeup each night and moisturize generously before bed. Don’t skimp on sleep, and consider extra precautions for weather conditions you’re unaccustomed to. If you’re travelling to a sunny paradise, a new hat might be the perfect accessory to avoid damaging UV rays.
When it’s time to go home, treat your skin with the same care as you did before you embarked on your trip. Take special care to keep your skin clean and moisturized to arrive home with healthy, glowing skin that matches the rejuvenating effects of your holiday.
Whether you’re a makeup guru or your skincare routine falls on the minimalist side, travel can have a major impact on your skin. Any travelling environment is likely to expose your skin to dryness, weather changes, and excess pollutants. Preparing for these factors can make all the difference in how your skin looks and feels while you’re on holiday. Whether you’re travelling, working, or relaxing at home, your skin reflects the way you care for it.
Visit our blog for more tips on caring for your skin, and view all our cosmetic treatments on our website.
