Travel Makeup Bags for Different Personality Types

Travel Makeup Bags for Different Personality Types

Ok, guys. It's finally here! I'm super excited about this post, because I've been working on it for a long time to finally deliver well thought out suggestions to you. When I say long, I mean a couple of months. This idea first came to me in the summer, so it has been quite a while of playing around with different products and their combinations to come up with the best sets.

If you're like me you probably love to read about what people take with them to travel in their beauty bags and altogether. For me these posts combine my love for makeup and love for organizing, so I truly enjoy them even if I'm not traveling myself. When travelling we tend to take our best beauty bits with us which just get the job done well, we take our favorite products and also the ones that can be multi-taskers. So you could say that travel makeup bags are in a way a recommendation of the best most loved products. That's why I enjoy them so much.

However, we are all so different in terms of our makeup needs and preferences, leave alone age, skin type, tone, coloring etc. that these recommendations may just not be for everyone. We all know that, but I still wanted to offer something different on this subject, something that would speak to more girls out there, something, in which everyone could find something for themselves. So I thought of this idea to write a post about travel makeup bags for different personality types. And when I say "personality types", I mean "makeup personality types", so no serious psychology or philosophy involved here.

I don't think anyone has ever done a blog post like this suggesting a travel makeup bag based on your makeup personality type. At least, I haven't seen anyone do that, so I suppose it is going to be unique. I have to warn you though: It'll be a long post (definitely for those who love to read), but hopefully a helpful and an interesting one :). Sorry, for such a long intro, now let's get down to travel beauty business.

We're going to look at 3 personality types. There can be more of them but, if I included everything I thought about, this post would turn into a novel that nobody would read :). So here they are:

1. The makeup minimalist
2. The makeup maximalist
3. The makeup nerd

Makeup Personality Types

Makeup Minimalist

These would probably be the goddesses that I personally envy most. You either don't wear makeup much (if at all), or maybe you do but only for special occasions, or you wear minimum makeup trying to keep it as natural as possible. Maybe you're just very young and beautiful and don't even need makeup, or maybe you are just starting your way out in the makeup world. Chances are you have perfect or very good skin, so you don't wear much foundation and concealer, and when you do, it is usually in a very small amount and quite light. Your face structure and features are probably very well balanced and don’t need much makeup interference to look great as they naturally are. So your makeup routine takes you not more than 5 mins. You can't be bothered spending more time on it. You probably feel just as comfortable with no makeup on as you do with it (lucky you!). I bet you gravitate towards very neutral sophisticated colors and prefer high end brands. Classic simple natural beauty is your way to go.

If this describes you, congratulations! You are the makeup minimalist. When I think of a good example of one Ruth Crilly and Garance Dore come to my mind. Although you could be even more minimalistic :). These ladies embody chic to me. So if you fall into this category, you're in a very good company :).

For a minimalist I would suggest the following travel makeup bag.

"Minimalist" Travel Makeup Bag

See? Very few products and only 3 brushes. In these lists of products I'm going to list the colors I have and use for my very fair skin, but you can obviously change that for whatever shade works for you. It is more about suggesting the types of products to use than about specific products and shades.

Here's the list of products:

1. Bourjois Healthy Mix foundation in 51 Light vanilla (this is a great light to medium coverage foundation that can be built up slightly with a very natural satin finish)
2. Too Faced Absolutely Flawless Flexible Coverage Concealer in Vanilla (great concealer with indeed flexible coverage that can be used both for under-eyes and face imperfections, and you need just the tiniest bit of it)
3. Hourglass Ambient Lighting Powder in Dim Light (this is an awesome multi-tasker for pale skinned girls: it can be used as an all-over setting powder, as a contour, as a bronzer and as a natural blush/highlighter)
4. Stila Convertible Color in Lillium (beautiful natural universal shade of blush that can also double as a lip color)
5. Chanel Ombres Matelassées De Chanel Eye-shadow Palette in Charming (this piece is a great one to have, almost completely matte palette of your basic neutral shades from light to dark that can be used both for the eye-brows and for the eyes to create a variety of daytime and smoky looks. What to use instead if you don't have this LE palette? You can use one of the Naked Basics palettes, either 1 or 2, I'd prefer the 2nd one for its great potential brow colors, or any other similar palette)
6. Too Faced Better Than Sex mascara
7. Clarins Rouge Eclat lipstick in 01, Nude Rose (think of a great any occasion MLBB (my-lips-but-better) color for your lips)
8. Brushes:

• Wayne Goss Brush 02 (for all foundation and concealer you can use your hands, this brush is good for any face powder products, it can do it all)
• Real Techniques Base Shadow Brush (from the Starter Set, this one will do all the lid, crease and blending work for you. You can also use a well-known Mac 217 for this purpose)
• Bobbi Brown angled brow brush (this can do the lining, precision application and eye-brows for you)

"Minimalist" Travel Makeup Bag

All these products and brushes fit into this small makeup bag with enough room left for a few more items. Can you believe it? By the way, this is the makeup bag that I carry with me in my bag every day :).

Makeup Maximalist

This type, as the name logically implies, is a complete opposite of the previous one. The girls of this type are all into makeup. They are the experts. They love it, they know how to use it and they love experimenting with it. It is likely that if you belong to this type you might be a makeup artist or a beauty blogger, or something of that sort. You almost have a semi-professional interest in makeup. You know everything about the products and techniques, and you have an impressive makeup collection (and possibly an insane makeup brushes collection as well) for any possible look you can think of. You can be as natural and clean-looking as an angel, or as dramatic as a vampire queen. And that’s what makes you unique and always different and interesting. Playing with makeup for you equals to painting a picture for an artist. You know how to rock any trend on your face and make it look like it belongs to you. You can rock the colors like nobody’s business, yet you also know what’s appropriate in every situation and occasion.

So given all that, when you travel you want to have your options: the more, the better. After all, a girl can never have too many lipsticks, right? Plus, you never know what kind of makeup look you’ll be in the mood for tomorrow, so compactness is not really the factor to consider.

However, I can still suggest you the contents for your travel makeup bag that will give you myriads of options you need (especially considering your creativity) and save you space, that is unfortunately limited when you travel. And, you don’t need to carry your whole kit around to get the options you want :). So here we go.

"Maximalist" Travel Makeup Bag

Here’s the list of products:

1. Clarins Instant Light Radiance Boosting Complexion Base in 01 Rose (primer will help your makeup stay in place all day long, it can also work as a liquid highlighter when applied on top of your cheekbones at the end of your makeup application)
2. Estee Lauder Double Wear Light Stay-in-Place Makeup in 0.5 (it is always a good option to take a fuller coverage foundation if you want options in coverage, because you can always sheer it out by mixing it in with your moisturizer. That way you can always customize the amount of coverage you want)
3. Too Faced Absolutely Flawless Flexible Coverage Concealer in Vanilla
4. Bourjois Healthy Balance Compact Powder in 51 (this is a great setting powder as it is lightweight and lasts a long time, yet it is super-compact and can easily be thrown in your bag for touch-ups during the day)
5. TheBalm Cindy-Lou Manizer AKA "The Con-tour Artist" (this is a great product, as it can be used as a light blush for pale girls or as an actual highlighter over your blush and bronzer. It is also a very nice option to mix with other of your face colored products for an interesting effect)
6. Lorac Behind the Scenes Eye Primer (you need this in your life if you want your eye-shadow to last, especially for more complicated looks)
7. Too Faced A Few of My Favorite Things Palette (awesome, awesome palette for a variety of looks. If you don’t have this particular palette, opt for some other palette with many different neutral and colored eye-shadows and face products)
8. Anastasia Beverly Hills brow pencil in medium brown
9. Any 2 neutral-ish eye-liners of your choice (I happen to have some black one from Bourjois and a plummy-purple one from Loreal)
10. Too Faced Better Than Sex mascara (great all-rounder for separation, volume, length and drama in your lashes)
11. 3 lip products (I would focus on the lip products of different colors and finishes to get the maximum options when mixing and matching them together):

• Clarins 'Eclat Minute' Instant Light Natural Lip Perfector in 01 (this is a beautiful natural balmy lip-gloss in a light peachy-pink color)
• Lumene Raspberry Miracle Lip Sorbet in 10 Spring Beauty (great everyday easy to wear slightly deeper than your nude MLBB color. It is slightly pink, slightly mauve, slightly plum with great shine. It will look great on everybody.)
• Chanel Rouge Allure Velvet lipstick in 47 L'Amoureuse (gorgeous intense deep berry color in a comfortable matte form.)

   12. Brushes:

• Real Techniques Expert Face Brush (for foundation)
• Real Techniques Pixel-Point Eyeliner Brush from the Starter Set (for concealer)
• Wayne Goss Brush 02 (for any face powder products)
• Flat eye-shadow brush from Letoile (don’t remember the number)
• Wayne Goss Brush 03 Large Crease (great for blending and crease work)
• Pencil brush from Letoile (don’t remember the number, good for precision application and smudging, essential for smoky eyes)
• Bobbi Brown angled brow brush (for lining and brows)

So as you can see, you can really get a lot from this set of products. Yet they all fit in this makeup bag and there is A LOT of spare room for any extras of your choice.

"Maximalist" Travel Makeup Bag

Makeup Nerd

This is a very interesting type of girls. They’re kind of a mixture between the minimalist and maximalist, but they take different sides from both. This is the most picky type of girls, who know exactly what they want in a product and they won’t settle for anything less than perfect. They love makeup in the same way a maximalist does, they may even have the same huge collection, but they don’t want to take as much with them when travelling. They want only the best products with them and they only want to take what they know they will use. In this sense they’re similar to the minimalists. They want the maximum options with minimum space and minimum number of products. They may not experiment that much on vacation sticking with the well tried out great flattering couple of looks that they know will work for all occasions for them, so they usually tend to take more of the neutral shades with them when travelling, even though at home they might be the ones going wild from time to time. But when travelling, they are more rational and predictable and know what they’re going to wear most times, so they want to take only the tried and tested products with them to have the options they need, but at the same time not take ANYTHING extra. And guess what? These girls will always look stunning without carrying loads of stuff with them. I’m definitely more of this type of girl: I want all my options but it a most compact form possible.

So, how do you get maximum options with minimum space taken? Here’s how :). Oh, I actually have 2 versions for this makeup bag featuring 2 different palettes. They are completely different so I couldn't pick one.

So here’s version 1. I should point out that a lot of the same principles apply here as for a makeup maximalist, so I won’t include the same comments for the same products.

"Nerd" Travel Makeup Bag (v.1)

Makeup Nerd v.1:

1. Clarins Instant Light Radiance Boosting Complexion Base in 01 Rose
2. Estee Lauder Double Wear Light Stay-in-Place Makeup in 0.5
3. Too Faced Absolutely Flawless Flexible Coverage Concealer in Vanilla
4. Bourjois Healthy Balance Compact Powder in 51
5. Lorac Behind the Scenes Eye Primer
6. TheBalm Balm Jovi Rockstar Face Palette (I’m a fan of this super-slim and compact palette: it is great, you get so much in it yet it is so small. You’ll have all your eyes, cheeks and lips products here, yet so many different options at the same time. The products are great quality and there’s also a big mirror inside. It is a real space saver.)
7. Anastasia Beverly Hills brow pencil in medium brown
8. Any eye-liner of your choice (I happen to have the dark-grey one from Bourjois)
9. Too Faced Better Than Sex Mascara
10. Chanel Rouge Coco Shine lipstick in 54 Boy (in addition to the lip stains in the palette, it is also nice to have some universal nude or MLBB lip color that you can easily throw in your bag and carry around with you, knowing that you can wear it with any look)
11. Brushes:

• Real Techniques Pixel-Point Eyeliner Brush from the Starter Set (for concealer, because you can do the primer and foundation with your hands)
• Wayne Goss Brush 02
• Flat eye-shadow brush from Letoile (don’t remember the number)
• Wayne Goss Brush 03 Large Crease
• Pencil brush from Letoile (don’t remember the number)
• Bobbi Brown angled brow brush

And here’s version 2. The main palette here is different, so the whole set is a bit different.

"Nerd" Travel Makeup Bag (v.2)

Makeup Nerd v.2:

1. Clarins Instant Light Radiance Boosting Complexion Base in 01 Rose
2. Estee Lauder Double Wear Light Stay-in-Place Makeup in 0.5
3. Too Faced Absolutely Flawless Flexible Coverage Concealer in Vanilla
4. Bourjois Healthy Balance Compact Powder in 51
5. Lorac Behind the Scenes Eye Primer
6. Laura Mercier Luxe Colour Wardrobe Dual Decker Colour for Eyes and Cheeks (this guy is a star of this set, and it is stunning: it has eye-shadows, eye-liners, eye pencil, highlighter, blushes and eye brushes. What else can you ask for? The quality is supreme, and you don’t need to worry about where to put your eye brushes, as they’re all included. There’s also a big mirror inside as well.)
7. Too Faced Better Than Sex Mascara
8. 2 lip products:

• Chanel Rouge Coco Shine lipstick in 54 Boy (great universal nude shade)
• Lumene Raspberry Miracle Lip Sorbet in 17 Come Into Flower (beautiful berry shade)

   9.  Brushes (the great thing about this set is that you only need 2):

• Real Techniques Pixel-Point Eyeliner Brush from the Starter Set (for concealer)
• Wayne Goss Brush 02

All of this beauty fits into this white makeup bag.

"Nerd" Travel Makeup Bag

Phew. If you read till the end, I think you’re a hero and I want to thank you :). Really, because it was a looong post.

Now, obviously you may not be exactly one type or the other, you may be a mixture of a few or even all of them. Also, you may prefer or need different makeup products than what I listed. However, I hope it did give you some ideas about how you can optimize your travel makeup bag.

I do hope this was helpful and you took something from this post. If so, please, share your thoughts in the comments. Also, I would love to know some of your tips and tricks for packing makeup for traveling, so please do share those as well.

Thank you for visiting my blog and taking time to read this epic post :). I really appreciate it. Have a great day and good luck packing for your next trip.