Style file: Pack in the essentials

Don’t get caught out by baggage restrictions this summer. Streamline your beauty bag with a few holiday essentials, says Emma Akbareian

Estée Lauder

A holiday is usually the most eagerly anticipated event on the calendar, with the promise of sun, sea and sand without so much as an email in sight. But thanks to hefty airline baggage fees and liquid restrictions, they can be somewhat overshadowed by a fraught packing process that leaves you frazzled and in need of a holiday.

With our cosmetics cases full to the brim with various lotions and potions, editing down to a selection that will cover all bases – but won’t burst the clear plastic bag that has replaced St Christopher as a totem of modern-day travellers – has never been more important.

Luckily the beauty world is full of clever little products that can multitask. New at Yves Saint Laurent is the Baby Doll Kiss & Blush hybrid, which leaves not only a luminous glow when blended on to cheeks but also a bright slick of colour when applied to the lips. Tom Ford’s Skin Illuminator can be used as primer to give a glowing base before make-up, as a highlighter on cheekbones and brows, mixed with foundation for added luminosity, or even on its own all over the face.

Yves Saint Laurent’s Touche Éclat has long been heralded a miracle product for its concealing properties yet it’s a nifty product with many other uses: mix it with body lotion on the legs for glowing pins, apply it to the lips to emphasise your pout, and use it as a highlighter to contour the face.

The sun can wreak havoc with your skincare so the aptly named Beach Cream from Aerin is a holiday essential. It can be used simply as a body moisturiser but also doubles up as an intensive moisturising treatment for sun-ravaged locks.

Finally, a generous application of Estée Lauder’s Bronze Goddess body oil not only nourishes your skin, adding a subtle sheen, but also leaves no need for perfume thanks to its lovely scent of bergamot, mandarin and sandalwood.