Travel Now Insights
Looking good on the go: Cosmetic companies cater to travelers
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Recovery Cream, part of Guerlain's Blue Voyage skin-care line, is for male and female travelers
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August 18, 2000
Web posted at: 11:17 a.m. EDT (1517 GMT)
From Carolyn O'Neil
CNN Travel Now Senior Correspondent
(CNN) -- If you think traveling is tough on the bags in your hands, consider those under your eyes. Beauty companies are honing in on that ugly fact and tailoring their products to globetrotters.
| SKIN-CARE REGIMEN |
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"Not only is it stressful on the body (and) on your time schedule, but your skin reacts to it," says Lisa Debiak of the French cosmetic company Guerlain.
Low humidity in the plane's cabin dries out the skin, she adds, leaving it looking fatigued. That's why Guerlain says it created Blue Voyage, a skin-care line for all travelers -- women and men.
The collection includes a moisturizer, to be used in flight, and recovery cream, for more help on arrival. The packaging is created to not break in transit.
Beauty aloft
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Perfume in a stick prevents spillage in transit
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Other cosmetic companies have caught the travel bug. Bioelements, for example, sells Jet Travel, a product that works underneath moisturizer to keep skin hydrated.
For a "de-puffing effect," the company suggests chilling Jet Travel and applying it cold to eye area. Estee Lauder also has its eye on weary passengers, offering stress-relief eye masks sold in travel packs.
And for anyone who has ever had perfume spill inside a suitcase, Estee Lauder boasts fragrances in stick form.
Since time is of the essence on the road, actress Isabella Rossellini's Manifesto line of makeup includes eye shadows that can be used as blushes and vice versa.
"So I think that Manifesto corresponds a lot to my life," she says, "which includes a lot of traveling -- a lot of looking good fast."
Rossellini's line stresses practicality, a quality she says she inherited from her mother, Ingrid Bergman. Each piece has a tiny mirror on the back and colors that stack together. Foundation comes in capsules, so travelers can take as many as they need for a trip.
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Isabella Rosselini's Manifesto makeup includes versatile colors that can be used on the lips, cheeks and eyes
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Jules & Jane offers a chic, fun line of cosmetics that come in what looks like glue bottles -- containers perfect for traveling, notes Rebecca Resnick, Beauty Assistant at Vogue. And Aqua di Parma is coming out with a leather travel case with sample sizes that's really luxurious, she adds.
Sure, says Resnick, you could squeeze your make up and moisturizer into the plastic travel bottles. But why would you want to?
"It's a lot more luxurious to have the sample sizes ... than to squirt your own," she says. "You don't have to transfer beauty supplies; it's already done for you."
Soothing serums, salves
While most of the beauty products for travelers concentrate on topical serums and salves, there are some that are meant to work from the inside out.
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Each Manifesto compact has a tiny mirror on the back, and the pieces stack together
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The oral spray Travel Energe, made by Liddell, is one. It purports to "protect against the disruption of biological rhythms caused by jet travel, such as tiredness, dehydration, disorientation and sleeplessness."
Many carriers offer amenity kits and services to make passengers feel fresh as a daisy when they debark. Air New Zealand, for example, offers first-class customers aromatherapy kits to combat the effects of jetlag and fatigue.
It includes Nasal Gel, made of tea tree oil, cajput, eucalyptus and benjoin, to prevent stuffiness; Awake Gel, which uses the oils of rosemary and juniper berries to revitalize and reinvigorate; and for the opposite effect, there's Asleep Gel with lavender, neroli and camomile.
Revivals for arrivals
Virgin Atlantic Airways also gives its customers care packages with aromatherapy gels and balms by Vie, a sister company that manufactures a cosmetics and beauty line.
| IN-FLIGHT MASSAGE |
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For more pampering, the carrier offers travelers in business class massages or manicures at 30,000 feet. More than 250,000 passengers have taken advantage of those treatments in the past couple of years, says Sharon Pomerantz, the airline's industry and public affairs director. She predicts that number will grow.
"The in-flight beauty therapy program is so popular, we're expecting more than a half-million people to experience it in the next two years," Pomerantz says.
Virgin passengers flying into Heathrow Airport in London have an extra treat, the new Revivals lounge. The $3.2 million facility offers shower rooms stocked with moisturizers, shampoos, toothpaste and sundry personal-care items; services to steam suits and polish shoes; and a beauty salon where fliers can get 30-minute facials, wet shaves, manicures, and aromatherapy bubble baths for feet and legs.
And for those who desire more beauty sleep during flight, Virgin plans to expand the number of seats that convert to full-length beds late this fall.
Don't worry about bringing your own pillows -- or pajamas, for that matter. It gives out full-sized pillows, fleece blankets, sleepsuits and socks.
CNN.com Writer Mary-Jo G. Lipman contributed to this report.
RELATED STORIES:
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RELATED SITES:
Guerlain
About Isabella Rossellini's Manifesto
Virgin Atlantic Airways
Air New Zealand
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