Random aside: travel toiletries - Yellow Stick

Yellow Stick

A friend, Petunia, is about to head off for a week in the French countryside.

I am packed and ready for vacation. I feel like it took me all weekend to get ready. I'm an experienced traveler, it shouldn't take this much work to get ready for a little vacation. And I have packed way too much crap. I look at all my toiletry type items and I don't know why there is so much crap but I don't know how to reduce it. I have have hair stuff (conditioner and leave in shiny stuff), skin stuff (lotion for the body and lotion for the face, fake tanner), make up (basic BB cream, powder, mascara, eyebrows crap), toothpaste and toothbrush, mouth guard, various ailment things like antacids and ibuprofen. What can I leave behind? I don't want to buy stuff there because I already have this stuff and then I like my stuff. 

And I have too many clothes. But I need clothes to hang out in and clothes to go out in and clothes to sleep in and what if it rains? 

I feel like I have enough stuff for a week or a year.

To which another seasoned traveller friend, Cake, replied

Re: Packing

Leave the conditioner, leave-in shiny stuff, the body lotion, fake tanner and either the bb cream or the powder. 

Pack yourself a little bottle of olive oil or Yellow Stick (a 1 ounce solid stick of cocoa butter in a yellow plastic tube, usually a buck or so at CVS) and use that for all your moisturizing/conditioning/hair shining needs. In the summer I prefer Yellow Stick because it doesn't spill or count against my liquid limit and when I want to use it as an all over lotion I just warm it with my hands. The olive oil works well, too. It's actually pretty much all I use at home in the warmer months.

And because I'm intrigued, and because I've been on a bit of an online shopping spree, I thought I'd try this. Of course, including shipping here to Straya, one tube costs more like $7 than $1, but I figure it's worth a try. I'll report back once I find out what it's like.

And because I found the link, here's Cake's homemade body butter recipe from her tragically short-lived blog, After Plumcake. And here's more info about Yellow Stick from an earlier blog, Manolo for the Big Girl (scroll to bottom of the post). There, she said:

I first started using Yellow Stick, which is a solid tube of 100% pure cocoa butter, when I was a volunteer at the cold weather shelter and I needed something I could stick in my pocket without worrying about spillage or leakage. I needed to be able to use it on my hands, lips and any place that got dry, without it irritating my skin or smelling too strongly of anything I didn’t want on my face. Plus, it’s easy to disinfect with a Lysol wipe, which is always a plus in my borderline germaphobe book. I use it for everything now, especially my cuticles and lips, and it makes a great stocking stuffer…you know, in case the jumper cables don’t fit.

And when I checked with Cake and Petunia whether I could quote them, Cake generously added this:

I'm high maintenance and a fanatic about my skin but I also believe in traveling light. A large weekender carry-on will do me just fine for six weeks in five countries because I always try to pack items that do double (or triple, or sextuple) duty, like Yellow Stick. It's solid with a high melting point (I used it religiously through a decade of long Texas summers) so it won't melt or spill and doesn't count against my liquid limit.

I use it for pretty much everything. On the plane I give my face and hands (especially my cuticles which otherwise I might be tempted to bite if they cracked on a long, boring flight) a good application straight from the stick then rub some on my lips. At the hotel I'll usually warm it in my hands and use it as a moisturizer and run whatever's left over on my hands through my hair as non-greasy conditioner and frizz controller and of course I always put one in my pocket or handbag when I'm out and about. It's especially useful then because I tend to wash my hands a lot or, if I'm traveling in someplace less developed, rely on hand sanitizer. Both of those are hugely drying so it's convenient to be able to just pull out the Yellow Stick, roll it between my hands for a few seconds, pop it back in the tube and not feel like my hands are going to crack open. 

(They're both American, so please excuse their single 'l's in travelling/traveller, and 'z's in moisturise.)