Tara Singh
I work in product engineering at Celonis, and the way I think about building out a toiletry packing system for travel is exactly like how I would analyze a tolerance stack-up in an assembly. The key constraints are the size of your bag, the rule for liquids by the airlines, the length of your trip, and the actual bare minimum daily usage for each product. Once you write out the numbers for those constraints, the solution then becomes rather straightforward.
Here’s the system that I use for my 2-week long trips. It fits within a 1-quart bag and works for both checked luggage as well as for carry-on. It gets me through security in about 30 seconds. Try it!
Start with daily usage, not bottle size
1. Determine your daily usage for each item and then work out from there to find the smallest number of bottles you can pack to hold the right amount of items for your trip. In this case I figure out how much shampoo I need for 14 days and that is 90-110 ml for the 14 days. I round up to 120 ml for a bit of buffer, so for shampoo I will need a 120 ml bottle for the 14 days.
After that, calculate the daily amount for each additional item: conditioner (small), face wash, body lotion (if you travel with it, in a small quantity, 90 ml for 14 days), sunscreen (this one is the worst as it can vary greatly, 30 ml for each beach day and 15 ml for non-beach days). That helped too.
The actual numbers I pack for two weeks
Shampoo: 120 ml Conditioner: 60 ml Face wash: 50 ml Body wash: 100 ml (or other amount if using elsewhere in the world and soap provided at your hostel) Body lotion: 60 ml Sunscreen: 100 ml Toothpaste: 50 ml Deodorant: stick form, not counted as a liquid
Adding up the liquids to confirm: Shampoo (120 ml), Conditioner (60 ml), Face wash (50 ml), Body wash (100 ml), Body lotion (60 ml), Sunscreen (100 ml), and Contact Lenses and Solution ( approx. 20 ml). Also packing a tiny bottle of laundry detergent for washes at the laundromat and to clean swimsuits. Since the limit is 1 quart (1000 ml), this totals 540 ml or less than 1/2 of the allowed amount, with room to spare for other potential liquids such as hair gels or make-up.
Bottle selection matters more than you think
First off, I’ve found that the cheapest silicone bottles available at your local drugstore leak terribly. Why? The threads on these things don’t have enough turns and thus, when you compress the cap of the bottle, the liquid will leak out past the threads. I personally found this out the hard way while traveling in Mexico with a pre-filled bottle of shampoo that proceeded to empty itself out into my passport sleeve. (Note: when I’m wrong about travel-related things, it usually has to do with something that I assume will work just like it does at home).
My preference for travel liquids are the GoToob+ silicone bottles. They have a large upper opening to scoop out gobs of thick lotions, a positive locking valve that opens when squeezed (unlike most travel bottles that open when they are not intended to) and double sealed threads that never leak (I have never had one leak despite lots of squeezing and banging around). They cost quite a bit more than the cheap drugstore silicone travel bottles but are worth it for me because they eliminate the risk of passport items getting washed in a strange laundry.
When I carry specific, individual items for which I haven’t decanted a quantity into a travel bottle, such as the one prescribed moisturizer for my crazy-super-freakily-sensitive skin that my dermatologist really, really recommends (besides sunscreen of course) in an HUGE container of creamy white goo, then I wrap that one individual bottle up completely in a tiny travel sized microfiber towel and pack it into the bag with a large, quart sized, FREEZER BAG inside of a large, quart sized, FREEZER BAG and SQUEEZE that bag shut before packing the wrapped up individual bottle into the twice-bagged quart-sized bag as well. The outer bag can then be labeled as required by the airlines (as indicated below), stowed away in my carry-on as required by TSA security procedures, and it will meet both TSA bag requirements and airline stowage requirements for all travel.
The decanting routine that saves time
If you are traveling, you typically prepare your liquids for your trip the day before you depart. Assuming you are packing 5 products, it would take about 15 minutes to complete the following:
Lay out all empty bottles, labeled with masking tape and a sharpie. Thick items such as conditioner and body wash need to be filled with a small funnel. Toner and other very thin products can be filled using the bottle’s own pour spout. Fill the bottles 80% to 90% and leave the air space at the top of the liquid. This will allow for changes in air pressure during your trip and prevent the liquid from pouring out. Close, wipe the threads, and squeeze gently above a paper towel to confirm no leakage. Pack all bottles upright in a clear ziplock bag including a small piece of clothing to absorb any spillage.
What the airlines actually want to see
The key for security is that all products be 100ml or less (stated capacity of bottle), that all products fit in a single 1l clear bag, and that the bag come out of your carry-on for screening. That your bottle have a label of 100ml or less is important. Because most products are sold in metric, stick to metric labeled bottles (i.e. 100ml as opposed to 3.4oz).
It is extremely common for travel-size products to be labeled in both ounces and metric units. Thus, it is critical to pay close attention to the actual metric labeling to ensure that all items meet 100ml (or 3.4oz) or less standards. There are common items which are frequently packaged in two different sizes: 3oz (87ml) and 4oz (118ml). I can personally attest to the fact that both of these sizes of the very same brand of shampoo have been declared prohibited items by two separate airport security checkpoints. In both cases the travelers had carried the full products to the airport, only to have to discard them in their entirety before passing through security. This could clearly be avoided by purchasing the correct size (in this case 100ml/3.4oz) in the first place.
For me it is better to book the second option first. The first option will then sell out quickly for the subsequent days.
What I no longer pack
Solid soap and shampoo bars. These are travel products that sound so good, but for me have proven to be nothing but problems. In practice, solid soaps never dry out completely. They develop into a gooey mass that then proceeds to cover the inside of your ziplock bags in a layer of soap. And worst of all, they don’t lather well in ‘hard’ water, i.e. in all of Europe.
I never take aerosol sunscreens with me when I travel. The containers corrode in moist luggage and the pressurized liquid can become unstable at high altitudes. However, the worst part is the distribution of the active ingredients. The spray from an aerosol sunscreen forms a very thin layer that does not contain enough of the active ingredients to be of any value. The same amount of sunscreen is contained in a much smaller amount of a lotion.
Disposable razors: No thanks. I started using a small safety razor for traveling about three years ago, when I received a high-quality razor from my brother for my birthday. Blades for this small, delicate razor come in small tins that fit in a pocket and last for about six months – when you use your razor every day. I am allowed to bring my safety razor through security as long as the blades are removed and are packed separately in a clear, quart-sized ziplockable ziplock bag.
The summary
Toiletry packing is a constraint problem, not a taste problem. Toiletry packing for your next trip can be a bit of a hassle. By defining the constraints and working out a plan you can pack your toiletries once and have a reference point for future trips. Toiletry packing need only take up as much of your time as working out how much of each product you use for your daily routine, multiplying that by the number of days you will be away plus a buffer and choosing sensible containers that won’t leak under pressure and packing them in your bag upright in a clear bag with labels, etc. With a little work and a bit of documentation you can avoid repacking your toiletries for future trips.
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