By: Hannah Hartz
Hannah Hartz is a Chicago-based esthetician with 7 years’ experience. She currently works at CaTara Med Spa. Here, Hartz shares an in-flight skincare routine for your next trip.
It’s no secret that air travel takes a major toll on our skin’s coveted healthy glow. And with winter right around the corner, that glow is the last thing we can afford to lose! For many of us, holiday season also means travel season. So then, does that mean that we are doomed to spend the next couple months jumping on the plane to spend the holidays visiting family, friends and our favorite warm getaway spots with no choice but to let our skin suffer? Definitely not. Check out some of the best ways to look and feel beautiful – from your airplane seat. No trip to the spa required.
Your In-Flight Skincare Routine
Don’t Skip the Prep
No matter how early you have to wake up to catch that flight, make sure you start off on the right foot. Get plenty of sleep the night before and wake up to your full morning skincare routine. Give your face an extra little massage while you wash it and apply products. It helps to stimulate the skin and get the blood flowing. You may just want to drag yourself off to the airport as quickly as you can, but believe me, you don’t want to miss this first step. Waking up the skin helps to keep it healthy by stimulating the underlying muscles and delivering freshly oxygenated blood, which carries vital nutrients. Feel free to add in some extra hydrating serum, and make sure you apply sunscreen, too! For good measure, grab a Vital Proteins Collagen Water™ to drink on the way to the airport to make sure you are staying hydrated.
Your In-Flight Beauty Checklist
The key to maintaining your fresh face while flying is hydration and rest. Allowing time for hydration and rest gives your skin the ability to recharge itself as well as avoiding nutrient and moisture depletion. The longer the flight, the more critical these things are to keep in mind. While packing your carry-on, be sure grab these goodies:
Thermal Spring Water Spray
Cabin humidity levels in-flight are lower than 20%. Luckily, you can bring your own little bubble of air moisture with you in the form of a travel-sized water spray! Spritz yourself every once in a while, with this little refresher to soothe and hydrate your skin.
Sheet Masks
I always push the use of a sheet mask on the plane- no matter how crazy you may look to fellow travelers. Despite being a little slimy and weird, sheet masks are an amazing way to push luxurious and hydrating ingredients deep into the skin. They are comprised of a serum that’s drenched in a semi-occlusive barrier placed over your face, giving your skin a solid 20-30 minutes of product absorption without a chance to dry out from the low humidity. If that doesn’t sound awesome enough already – don’t forget that there are also sheet masks available for your under-eyes and lips! I basically just stock up on a bunch of them and throw them in my carry-on, so I am always prepared.
Sleeping Mask & Neck Pillow
Skin hydration is huge, but not the only factor for sad, dull skin after a flight. Without proper sleep, your skin cannot renew and replenish itself! Don’t deprive yourself of the necessities to make sure you get proper rest on a long flight. Additional benefit from the eye mask is that it helps to block harmful UV rays getting to your delicate eye area, as well as blocking light so that you get off the plane looking less red and puffy.
Glow Collagen Shot
This strawberry lemon elixir touts 7g of collagen peptides, 60mg of skin-loving hyaluronic acid, vitamin C and biotin. These ingredients are the perfect blend to give you the dew you’ve been after, year-round – anywhere and anytime!
SPF
No skincare blog post is complete without the mention of sun protection! Reapply your SPF every couple of hours while on the plane (unless its night time, of course). It’s easy to forget the necessity of sun protection while flying because you aren’t outside, but the UV rays still get through those windows, and in the air, you are much closer to the sun than on the ground. I love my creamy, rich SPF formulations, but if you are concerned with getting too oily when continuously applying sunscreen, try a brush-on mineral powder SPF.
Hand Sanitizer
Not that I encourage driving yourself crazy by compulsively needing to apply hand sanitizer, but I do strongly recommend packing some on the flight if you intend on applying any products to your skin. As always, whenever you touch your face (which should be kept to a minimum) you want to make sure your hands are clean so as to not spread extra irritants and pollutants and bacteria to your face. Though hand sanitizer will not be as thorough as actually washing your hands, multiple trips to the airplane washroom might not be convenient or even feasible.
Wrapping It All Up
When you finally arrive to your destination, wash your face! Give it a nice thorough double cleanse and ply it with soothing and calming products and lots of hydration. Skip the retinol or exfoliator, and just let it rest. Flying conditions can stress your skin, so you can allow for one night of no retinol and keep everything gentle. Give yourself one more spritz of that thermal water or a revitalizing toner and glow off into the world!