Travel Skincare Routine

Having a good skincare routine during your travels is super important, especially because your skin becomes drier and your pores clogged. Having a good travel skincare routine doesn’t have to be complicated. In fact, with just a few essentials, your skin can glow at all times and be ready for those holiday photos everyone loves.

Finding the right skincare for your travels can feel daunting, especially because on the plane your skin become so much drier. Add the dust and dirt from all the transit airports and you end up breaking out just as you arrive at your destination. It happened to us too many times before! But don’t worry, we learnt a few tricks that now keep our skin clean and smooth even when we travel. Our routine is not complicated, difficult to follow and it doesn’t contain a million steps.

We know that travelling is about having fun, feeling carefree. So the idea was to create a fast and easy skincare routine that doesn’t take much time at all. For the past 7 years, we’ve been experimenting with an array of skin products during our travels and we think we have finally found our holy grail. So much so, that we now use the same skincare routine at home as well, when we don’t actually travel. This means our recommendations are solid, tried and tested, with brilliant results.

We treasure transparency and we want to stay true to ourselves and our readers. That’s why is important to mention that some of the products mentioned in this article have been gifted to us to try and test. Rest assured that we recommend them with confidence simply because we use them daily and we absolutely love them. We’d never recommend you something that we don’t 100% trust and love.

Let’s dive right in and find out how to get glowy skin when you travel!

Travel Skincare

Where do you even begin with your travel skincare routine? It’s so easy to get lost in an ocean of products all marketed and sold everywhere around you. Do you buy them at the airport? Do you trust your local cosmetic store?

There are 4 main steps you need to take when creating the perfect (quick and easy) travel skincare routine: Cleansing, Hyaluronic acid, Serum/Moisturizer and Sunscreen. Of course, you won’t need sunscreen at night, but this is a must as part of your morning routine when you travel!

After so many attempts to find the perfect ingredients, we have discovered the holy grail: Pure Obagi Cosmetics. Obagi or Obagi Medical were founded in 1988 in Long Beach California by Zein Obagi. Zein Obagi is a Syrian American dermatologist, credited with popularizing the idea of “skin health for the mass market” in the 1980s.

Step 1: Cleansing

The first step to smooth and glow skin? Cleaning! Let me talk to you about this one, because it’s the most important step of them all. My husband and I used to use cleansing wipes but we realised that, while convenient, they irritate our skin because of the friction movement between the wipe and the skin. They don’t cleanse very well and the result is irritated sensitive skin. Plus, there’s pointless pollution. A lot of it.

So we’ve started using cleaning gels. But not just any gels: the Obagi-C Fx Cleansing Gel with L-ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C). This incredible gel effectively removes makeup, oil and dirt to clarify the skin. I love it, my husband loves it, we’re obsessed. After cleaning our skin with this gel, our cheeks are incredibly soft.

There’s more to this than meets the eye, though. The Obagi Cleansing Gel incorporates Vitamin C, which means I don’t have to add Vitamin C serum to my routine. This saves space in my luggage, time and money! And I get the same results.

Step 2: Hyaluronic acid

Another important step in your skincare routine: making sure your skin stays hydrated and plump. I can’t believe I went on for years without using this product. If you’ve never used Hyaluronic acid before let me tell you what it does.

Hyaluronic acid is a gooey substance that retains water to keep your tissues lubricated and moist. It’s important to apply it on damp skin so the result is that amazing healthy and youthful skin. No more dry skin…EVER.

But after you use Hyaluronic acid you must seal it in with a serum or a moisturizer.

Step 3: Serum / Moisturizer

For so many years we’ve been searching for a serum or moisturizer that works for us both. I have oily/combined skin whereas my husband has normal skin. No two products ever worked for both of us…until we discovered: Obagi Daily Hydro-Drops™.

When I first got the product I thought “there’s no way this will work on my oily skin”. That’s because the consistency of the product feels quite oily thanks to the Abyssinian oil and Hibiscus oil content. Ooooh, how wrong was I?!

THIS product is the holy grail of our travel routine. We’re both obsessed with it because our skin is incredible. Obagi Daily Hydro-Drops™ is hypoallergenic, dermatologist and ophthalmologist tested. It contains Vitamin B3 which can help diminish the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles over time. Not to mention it’s so fun to apply because of the suspended hydro drops in the serum. And a little product goes a long way.

So you can tell we’re both pretty excited about this serum. It’s our go-to product when we’re at home or when we travel.

Step 4: Sunscreen

Want to prevent the ageing of your skin? Wear sunscreen! Apply it just before you leave your hotel room. You can apply it before your makeup or simply use a foundation containing the right SPF. Just a quick note, I don’t actually use foundation so it’s important for me to use sunscreen, separate from my makeup.

Before / After travel

Before I leave on an adventure and after I return, there’s one thing I really love to do for my skin: exfoliate. I use a BHA not more than once a week because it can really damage my skin. I know some people use BHA every day, but I don’t actually recommend it. Our skin is already going through enough with all the travel and dry air etc, I don’t want to put more strain on it. So BHA once a week, before you travel and after you come back. That’s more than enough. Besides, you don’t need to carry this product with you, saving you space in your luggage and time during your holiday.

Conclusion

That’s it! Seriously, that’s all you need to know about having epic skin. You now know the secrets to have glowing skin even during travels. All you need is the 4 simple steps we explained above and your skin will become incredible.

We’re really excited we’ve discovered Pure Obagi products and I’m so happy with the results. My skin is incredible and I’m so ready to start travelling again.

P.S. If you are in Germany, you can now order from Pure Obagi Germany!

Are you ready to travel with glowing skin? Let me know in the comments section below.