Hi friends! As I prep for my own mini covid-considered road trip, I wanted to share with you my pre-vacation beauty checklist. It’s kind of like a mini glow up, full of easy low-maintenance beauty hacks to prepare you for time away from home. This list is everything I do before I leave for vacation beauty-wise so I can make sure I feel and look my best for the entire time I’m away!
This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I may receive a small commission if you shop through these links at no extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting me through these links! For more information, check out the disclaimer here.
Why have a pre-vacation glow up?
As a travel and fashion blogger, my vacations are more than just getaways — they’re opportunities for content creation. Everywhere I go and every new place I see is something I’m likely going to want to share with an audience, so I like to make sure I’m prepared to look good doing it!
After all, it’s no fun to see all these new places and want to take amazing photos, then realizing you’re not feeling your best about your self-image. I do this pre-vacation checklist so my appearance is one less thing I have to worry about on vacation, and I can create content confidently!
My Pre-Vacation Beauty Checklist
1. Take a level five shower
I like to classify my showers as anywhere from a level one to a level five in intensity. Level one is a quick post-workout body shower, and level five is like the shower you take before a first date — full body shave, exfoliate, toning shampoo, hair mask, the works.
The night before I leave for my vacation, I always take a level five shower. I start off by exfoliating with a loofah and shaving with my absolute favorite razor from Billie. I’ve been a Billie customer for literally years, and their razors are affordable, cute, and offer the smoothest shave out there. Gone are the days of me using a three month old Venus from the drugstore because I don’t feel like dropping $20 and asking the cashier to unlock the razors for me. Billie sends me 4 new razor heads every three months (or at whatever frequency you prefer) for only like, $9. It’s amazing, and I can’t believe I used to live any other way.
(By the way, if you sign up with Billie through my link here for the Pink Tax Rebate program, you could help me earn some of the money back that we’ve spent on the pink tax as women — no purchase necessary!)
For my hair, I like to start with this clarifying shampoo from Neutrogena, just to remove any buildup or grossness I might have at my roots. This shampoo is another tried-and-true beauty hack for me, and my favorite shampoo to use when I really need my hair to feel clean.
Then, I go in with my favorite purple shampoo for blondes, my Fanola No Yellow shampoo. This shampoo is super pigmented, super messy, and super good at toning blonde hair. I like to lather this up as evenly as I can throughout my hair to prevent any patchiness (seriously, it’s very pigmented) and let it sit for about five minutes in the shower.
After I rinse that, I finish off with the tiniest little bit of regular shampoo, just to help me feel like I got all the purple out. I’ve been using this Argan Oil shampoo from Herbal Essences lately, and I love the smell so much I can’t take it!
2. Self tan
I could go on for hours about my self tanner routine, but ultimately, it’s probably the number one thing I do to glow up quickly and make myself feel better. If you’re extremely pale like I am, self tanner is such a good way to even out the appearance of your skin and make it look more flawless and glowy.
I’ve already mentioned all my favorite self tanners here, but in the interest of brevity I’ll give it to you straight. To glow up before a vacation, I always use my Tanceuticals Tanning Lotion in either dark or ultra dark the night before I leave. That way, I have the freshest and longest-lasting tan for as much of my trip as possible.
I love tanceuticals because it is a lotion, and it’s so moisturizing that it cuts that step out of my post-shower routine entirely. Typically, you shouldn’t moisturize before applying self-tanner anyway, because it prevents the tanner from absorbing into your skin. With tanceuticals you don’t have to worry about that cause it’s built right in!
To apply, I squeeze a little bit out onto a velour foam tanning mitt like this, and rub it in circles all over my body. I use the smaller mitt or a kabuki brush to spread the tan on my face and hands. Tanceuticals doesn’t have a color guide, so it’s definitely a little more advanced, but if you just focus on applying everywhere you can and rubbing it in thoroughly like a regular lotion, you should be fine!
For my back, I use my favorite ever tanning back applicator from Amazon. This thing makes it so so easy to reach my back, and I don’t have to bother my boyfriend for help so it’s a win win!
If I’m traveling by road or am going to be gone for a longer period of time, I’ll usually bring my self tanner with me just in case I need to touch up while I’m away. Just remember to pack some baggy clothes to sleep in if you do — no need to stain the hotel sheets brown hahah.
3. Touch up my hair color
As an extremely unnatural blonde, I always like to make sure my hair color is on point as a major part of my pre-vacation beauty checklist. While I like a grown out, rooted look, there’s definitely a point where it’s a little too much.
If I need a major brightness lift, I leave that to my professional. She’s amazing, and I’ve screwed up my hair too much in the past to try and bleach it myself, so that’s her job.
If my blonde is fine but I just want to punch it up a bit and make sure it stays cool, I make sure to shower with my Fanola No Yellow Shampoo. Like I said above, this stuff is super pigmented and can be truly transformative.
If I want to explore an unnatural color, I actually think before leaving for a vacation is a great time to do it. In the past, I’ve used temporary dyes like Overtone Pastel Silver and the Kristen Ess Temporary Rose Gold hair color. They were both amazing and lasted just a couple washes, perfect for a vacation!
4. Tint my brows at home
So much of this pre-vacation beauty checklist is doing things that allow me to feel beautiful without daily maintenance. As someone with extremely light brows, one of the things I always do before a vacation is tint my brows so I don’t have to worry about filling them in every single day on the road.
Fortunately, it’s super easy to tint your brows at home with one holy grail product: Just for Men beard dye.
Yep. Beard dye.
It’s cheap, it’s easy to use, and it’s formulated for facial hair already so you know it’s not the end of the world to put it on your brows (but still be very careful around your eyes!!).
The process of tinting your brows with beard dye is super simple. Just take your favorite brush you use to fill in your brows (I like this one from ABH), mix up a small amount of your dye, and fill in your brows like it’s 2014 and you just learned how.
Really. Just block it on. Your brows will look like a cartoon character, but after 10-15 minutes, you can take a makeup wipe and remove it.
Bam! Instant at home brow tint. So so easy.
While brow tint alone isn’t enough to keep me from filling in my brows with a pencil, I find that it makes that job so much faster and easier, which is huge when you want to look cute on vacation. Plus, on those no makeup days, I don’t look like a mole rat, so that’s a positive too.
5. Make sure I have lashes
So like I’ve said, the function of all of these pre-vacation checklist items is basically to keep my beauty needs on the road as low maintenance as possible. One of the biggest things that does that for me is having beautiful, full lashes.
I unfortunately was not blessed with these naturally, so before I leave for any road trip or vacation, I make sure I’m prepared by doing one of three things:
- Getting lash extensions
- Doing my own temporary lash extensions at home
- Stocking up on false lashes
Pre-pandemic, I was a regular with my lash girl to get extensions done. Since the lockdown though, I’m finding ways to save money and reduce my exposure by doing my lashes at home. Here’s a tutorial I have on how I do my own lash extensions with drugstore products at home! They’re of course not as good as real extensions, but they’re the perfect easy confidence boost and low maintenance beauty hack for a week long vacation.
If I’m not wearing lash extensions, I stock up on my favorite false lashes, the Kiss Jubilee lash. I love how fluffy and eye-catching these are without being too overwhelming on my smaller eye. I usually get this multipack so I have plenty to use and re-use over the duration of my trip!
6. Stock up on makeup
While I’m fully aware there are drugstores, Ultas and Sephoras in most locations I would go on vacation, I always like to stock up on a few makeup items and make sure that my makeup bag has all of my beauty essentials before I leave for vacation.
I like to make a pre-vacation beauty checklist within a checklist to make sure I have everything I would need for my trip, and nothing more — who has the space to overpack?
While I generally like to make sure I have all my main makeup needs to create a full face, here are four specific makeup items I make sure I always have in my travel bag.
- Freckle Tint — While Freck is definitely the best known, I’m personally into Lottie London’s Freckle Tint. It’s an amazing dupe and you get twice as much for a third of the price! As someone who naturally has freckles but they get covered by my makeup, I love adding faux freckles over my foundation to bring a little life back to my face. Plus, it’s such an editorial look for photos nowadays!
- Brow Pencil — I have this on my favorites page for a reason. This Wet N Wild Micro Brow Pencil is my absolute favorite thing for filling in my sparse brows. It’s a total dupe for Brow Wiz, Precisely My Brow, or any other high-end brow pencil you can imagine. I usually always have at least one or two backups of these cause they’re just so good.
- Foundation — There are days when you want just a light tint of makeup, and there are days when you want to go full beat. As counterintuitive as it may sound, I prefer to go full beat on vacation. With Estee Lauder Double Wear, I don’t have to worry about my makeup sliding, melting or wearing throughout a busy day exploring or creating content. And as I’ve said the whole post — the lower maintenance, the better!
- Lip Balm — Okay y’all. I have dry lips. There’s nothing I can do about it, I’ve tried everything on the market, I chug water on the daily. I just have dry lips! I’ve given every lip balm from high end to drugstore a go, and my absolute favorite is this Blistex Lip Medex. It seems to just work best for me, and I never leave my house, let alone for vacation, without it!
Those are the six things I make sure I always do before I leave for vacation. Comment below if you found this pre-vacation beauty checklist helpful!
