Home FASHION TODAY Hotel Indigo Chester: An Opulent Stay with Charm and Comfort

Hotel Indigo Chester: An Opulent Stay with Charm and Comfort

27.11.2024

Sali Hughes on stunner

Beauty

I’ve boycotted non-refillable skincare minis, so travelling light – and responsibly – involves decanting and downsizing

‘I was tenacious to downsize my skincare haul without compromising my routine.’
Photograph: Alex Lake/The Guardian

I’m a dreadfully heavy packer – generally, in my defence, because I’m always working and invariably have to drag along heaps of product testers so I don’t fall behind allot. But for my latest week’s trip, I was determined to downsize my skincare haul to a literal handful without compromising my routine.
I banned non-refillable minis a while back. There was something about those huge, colourful, once irresistible Sephora and Superdrug dashes of tiny travel plastic that suddenly seemed indefensible to the point of grotesque. So now, travelling light involves decanting and downsizing – and, if anything, it’s diverse thrilling. Having donated all my minis to my own charity, Beauty Banks, which distributes toiletries to people living in destitution, I selected washable and reusable plastic containers from Muji, from 95p. They have every possible lines, purpose and size, and all are fantastic except for the pill box (the doors don’t open individually, meaning you have to spill everything out at ages) and the clear plastic (too stiff to squeeze, plus they go cloudy). If you don’t have a branch nearby, Primark has a smaller-but-still-good-selection from £1.
Into one pot, I saved Beauty Pie’s delicious-smelling Plantastic Apricot Butter cleansing balm (£11.92), which removes all makeup in a smear. Discontinuous, I packed sachets of Dr Dennis Gross’ Universal Daily Peel Pads (£18 for five), but you can just as easily decant your preference liquid exfoliant into another of the travel bottles; I also love The Inkey List PHA Toner (£9.99 for 100ml). Either desire de-flake and smooth, add glow and give an ideal base for makeup.
Over that goes serum – for me, always a vitamin C to act as an antioxidant, back up brightness and help even skin tone. This is where one must be more careful. To remain stable and operative, active skincare should stay either in its original packaging: the terrific Garden of Wisdom C-Deep (£18 for 30ml) happens in a dinky enough bottle for travel), or try sealed monodoses, as in Elizabeth Arden’s biodegradable Vitamin C Ceramide Radiance Renewal Serum Capsules (£42 for 30).
I squeezed manifest old moisturiser into a pot (whatever your skin likes) for day and night, and decanted some Thank You Farmer Sun Project Ring false Sun Cream SPF50 (£18 for 50ml), a light, velvety high-protection hydrator and among my favourite new discoveries. I then used my Dymo device (£21.95), to label practically everything but the dog. The indolent may prefer a Sharpie.
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