What To Pack For A City Break

Hello! So as you may know if you follow me on Twitter (@emshelx), I am currently in Paris! Now I haven’t really explained what’s going on (sorry!) so here’s  a little bit of an explanation; in collaboration with O2, I’ve been sent to Paris this weekend to complete some exciting fashion and beauty challenges, I can’t tell you what they are as you’ll have to find out about that throughout the weekend but for now, I thought I’d put together a little guide to help you if you’re going on a city break anytime soon. Don’t forget to follow me on Instagram (@emshelx) so that you can keep up to date with what I get up to in Paris!

 

Mini Perfume: I always forget to take perfume with me on holiday because all of my perfumes seem to be huge and far too big to take away just for a week or a weekend. Miniature perfumes are great because you can just throw them in your bag or hand luggage. I particularly love this little perfume oil from The Body Shop. It’s super long lasting too because it’s an oil! 

Hair Bobbles: We all need to tie our hair up at some point and when we’re getting hot and sticky in the city, the last thing we want to do is ruin our hair. Invisibobbles are the answer. You may have seen me include them in my Greece post but basically, you can tie up your hair and get no kinks. These bobbles can literally transform your look from day to night, with no work. You can wake up and get a blow-dry, tie your hair up into a bun when it gets hot in the afternoon and then take it out for your evening meal and still be left with your perfect blow dry as these bobbles wont make your hair kinky at all.

Sun Cream: Even in the city, you’ll need sun-cream if it's a hot one. Luckily, there are lots and lots of miniature sun creams around at the moment. I absolutely adore Murad’s SPF 30 Essential-C Sun Balm, as featured on my Jamaica trip post but I cannot find mine anywhere, I appear to have lost it! I also love Nuxe, they do some great mini sun-creams.

Face Mask: Again, another mini beauty product. I absolutely love hydrating face masks and particularly when I'm on a busy weekend trip or city break as rushing around isn't very good for my skin! I love Nude's miracle mask because you can literally put it on for 10 minutes and your skin is transformed, plus this is a mini version of it too. Clarins also do an amazing mini hydrating mask. 

Face Wipes: I know lots of people dislike face-wipes but personally, I think they're the easiest things when it comes to travelling as you can throw them in your bag, wipe your face, cool yourself down and then if you need to quickly add a different colour lipstick for example, you can use the face-wipes to take off your current make up. I love this set from Murad, it's their Balance and Protect mini travel set and it includes all of the above. Personally, I think it's worth it just for the clarifying wipes alone and this will certainly be making the trip to Paris with me. It also includes my favourite primer EVER,in a mini, city friendly package. 

O2 Travel App: I couldn't be without my phone in England, let alone abroad and I was actually saying to a friend the other day that we cannot understand why it still costs so much to use the internet abroad on a mobile phone. Luckily, O2 are here to save the day. A reason for me going to Paris is to put O2's new travel app to the test. The travel app is basically everything you need for a city break, featuring content from TripAdvisor (my favourite site ever when it comes to travel!). It's available on both iOS and Android devices and mainly, it's free, hooray! It gives you access to city guides and maps to help you make the most of their European breaks - perfect to get me around Paris then! Through the new app, you can also sign up for the O2 Travel tariff which allows you to use data in Europe without having to worry about costs, or having to rely on access to WiFi networks. Pay Monthly customers will only be charged £1.99 per day for the days they use data in Europe.  Pay & Go customers get access to 50MB of data a day through the O2 Travel tariff and after this they can reset their daily allowance for a further £1.99. You can get more information about it here. 

Hand Cleanser: I literally never go anywhere without hand cleansing gel. I usually just use any that I can find, but this one from The Body Shop is flight friendly so it's perfect to take away with you on a city break (plus it only costs £2.50!) It makes me feel sick to think about how many people have touched things in public places so I always use hand cleanser to kill any germs, yucky, haha!

BB Creams/Tinted Moisturiser: I really don't like wearing heavy make up on Summer days, particularly when I'm running around a city! I always opt for BB Creams or tinted moisturisers and in Paris, I will be trying out this new Instaglam Skin Tint from Rodial, plus it's SPF 30 too! 

Eye Cream: My eyes always feel super puffy as I get myself exhausted from early mornings and late nights when I'm away, I love putting cooling eye gel on to combat any dark circles. At the moment, I'm using this one by Skyn, it's the Icelandic Relief Eye Pen and I'm also using a great cooling one from Elemis' Fresh Skin range. These both fit nicely into your hand luggage too.

Hair Mask: I get dreadful holiday hair, the heat and my hair just don't get along. I am big into my hair care, read my hair growth and strength tips post to find out what I love to use on my hair - because of this, I hate going away without any good hair care as I hate feeling like my hair isn't been treated correctly. Everyone knows that big bottles of shampoo etc wont fit into travel bags so I always use these sachets from Macadamia instead, I have their travel set which only costs £14.00 here it means you can have nice hair whilst you're away, without exceeding your baggage allowance. I have used Macadamia for years and swear by them.

Waterproof Mascara: This isn't 100% necessary but I find that normal mascara tends to melt a little bit in hot weather, even when I'm rushing around London all day, it transfers to my under eyes and looks silly. For this reason, I think waterproof mascara is good as it stays on all day and doesn't budge no matter how much sight seeing you're doing. I love the tecnico semipermanente mascara by Diego Dalla Palma. Watch this space as I have an exciting waterproof make up post coming up. 

Phone Charging Make Up Bag by Jadeco: Lastly, this is necessary if you're going to be Instagramming and using your phone on your trip. A portable charger in the form of a make up bag, erm, girl heaven?! This is particularly amazing for travel. The bag (roomy enough to fit in your make up essentials) contains a discreet, high capacity, rechargeable battery, to charge phones on-the-go.

They're available in some amazing colours, I got the ‘Gillan Battery Pouch’ in black just because it suits my Aspinal Travel Wallet then. It really is the ideal bag for cosmetics and travel essentials, plus it has enough power to provide most smartphones with one to two full charges, on-the-go! You can get them from Wowthem.com. 

Lots of love, Em x

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