Travel Bedtime Routine

 

My love affair with sample sized beauty products started with that tiny, waxy pink bullet of Avon lipstick in my Grammie’s bathroom. The pink was unearthly, but the feeling of opening that white tube and smearing those perfect corners over my lips sent me to another world. Any time she would have a little something from her lady, I’d beg and beg to try it.

As a hair stylist, I loved trying sample products. Usually they’d come as full sized “back bar” samples, so the whole salon could use them and we could coax our clients into purchasing the retail version when they checked out. But my beauty sampling really came to life at the Clinique, Estée Lauder, and Lancôme counters at our mall. Can you say “gift with purchase” without smiling? Cosmetic companies truly understand marketing to women…I would always up my purchase to walk away with a cute bag stuffed with sample-sized accessories. I was an easy mark.

Oddly enough, I never traveled except when my husband and I made our escape to the beach every summer. I never really had a use for travel sized beauty products until I started learning hair extensions in 2018. Since then, I’ve traveled several times a year for continued education and events, and have an actual purpose for the samples I receive.  And while I adore trying new products that are sent to me with a purchase (I’m obsessed with the new YSL serums) I adultly purchase travel versions of my favorite products so I have them on my trips. 

One funny thing to know about my obsession with samples: during the YT/blog heyday of the early 2000’s, I subscribed to Allure magazine’s Sample Society, and later to Ipsy. If you’re not familiar with the concept of these “clubs,” you receive a selection of several sample/travel sized products each month. Brands do it as marketing, and the beauty-obsessed consumers get to try all the great new products we wouldn’t pay full price for for about $10 a round. 

I had collected so many of these samples, that during The Covid Lockdown of 2020, I created posts using the hashtag #tinybeautydiary so I could use them up and connect with my clients online. It was wildly entertaining and helped me declutter my beauty cupboard. Maybe I should bring it back??

However you enjoy beauty products, I hope you have a delicious nightly routine, whether home or away. But to be fair, I still think there’s something magical about a micro-sized tube of serum or face wash to make your trips feel extra special. Don’t you just love it?

xx, linds