Beauty Products and Hand Luggage Only

[Pandorapitstop]

Any tips on how to manage packing beauty products and toiletries in hand luggage only?
Where can I buy the correct size clear plastic bags?
Some products such as sunscreen will be over the allowed 100ml, so I thought of doing a Boots Click and Collect order, to pick up at the airport before flight?

I think they’re the 1litre ziplock bags. You can’t fit much in. I usually have small toothpaste, foundation, moisturiser, serum, nail varnish, maybe small facial spf. Bigger bottles of sunscreen and shampoo and conditioner I buy after security or at the destination.

Primark do a bag with small pots, a spray and two less than 100ml bottles with a funnel to help you fill them, all in a ziplock bag for a couple of quid. We used them for hand luggage only with no problem.

As long as the clear bag is max size 20x20cm and can be sealed then any will do. I used to use the small click and seal freezer bags but check the size of them.

I buy/take the bags from certain airports which do them slightly bigger than others, reuse for a dozen flights or so. I travel a lot.

I second the Primark kit. The equivalent of Boots where I live also has them.

In one bag I can fit one each of shampoo, conditioner, face wash, perfume, roll-on deodorant, BB cream, contact lenses liquid, anti-bac, hand cream and toothpaste. Some bottles are smaller than others (70-100ml) so I pack them non-consecutively IYSWIM.

All throughout the year I save hand cream and toothpaste tubs that are almost empty (eg still have 4-5 days in them) and those are the ones I use for travel.

If going somewhere for over a week, I buy generic supermarket shampoo, deodorant and toothpaste once there.

If you're cheeky enough at security, you place your (loose) coat right next to your liquids. This way you may avoid having to close the zip or seal the bag and can take more through. I couldn't fit all of the above in a sealed bag. An open one, yes. I'm probably 'caught' 10% of the time so worth the risk for me. You need to look confident and like you know what you're doing and they won't touch the stuff on your tray, just push it along. Security staff are thankful when somebody knows the deal and is in and out of their spot in less than half a minute.

If you have anything medical you need to take you can use more than one bag. Obviously this won't work if it's absolutely tiny (think: one sheet of pills), but if you have, say, an inhaler and a nasal spray, or a prescription cream - anything that looks clinical, use the benefit if gives you! Make sure you have a copy of the prescription. They can't restrict how much medical stuff you take, and it basically just muddies the water of what space you're then allowed.

I have done this many many times and it's never caused me any problem. Always two bags, sometimes three.

One of the items in my sealed bag will be my can't-live-without testosterone gel: on a different note re packing, will I need a copy of GP's prescription for this?
It has the pharmacy label on it, with my name and directions, etc.

Will you be taking it back or leaving it behind when you fly home? I'd personally carry a prescription especially to avoid problems at foreign airports. In some countries it's even the law to have this on you for any medicines that are not your bog-standard supermarket paracetamol.

Eileen, I'll be taking the gel back with me.
I'm going to Spain.

Take the prescription just in case. You almost certainly won't be asked for it.

Spain won't ask for the prescription, but if it's over 100ml and you don't want to risk it going in the bin, definitely have it on you. Can't hurt.

It's a 50ml tube.

You can get the bags on Amazon - it’s usually flat 20cm x 20cm (but check w airline.)

You will get a lot more products in if you use travel sachets (squishy flat bags) which you can get on Amazon, and click and stack pots (Amazon, muji - or Trinny London if you want them to last). Also worth taking stick deodorant so you don’t need to include that.

Sun screen you can buy after you get through security. No need to pre-order and I doubt you can for airport branches.

it’s usually flat 20cm x 20cm (but check w airline.)

It's not the airline who determines size and shape of the liquid bag. It's the airport. Check the airport website, no the airline.