Before becoming a mother I used to travel a fair bit, for work and for fun, anywhere from rooftop bar-focused city breaks to island hopping in the Philippines. I’m not saying it’s impossible with a young family, but it’s certainly a different kind of holiday. The idea of negotiating a 12-hour flight with a hyperactive toddler has me breaking into a cold sweat. So I’ve reduced my travelling in quantity and distance, but I still aim to retain a small slice of style thanks to luxurious toiletries such as Elemis skincare (more of which you’ll find in my post Travel Chic Travel Light). For a heightened sense of occasion there are a couple of products I only use when travelling, such as a facial oil from Evolve which I decant into the tiniest apothecary bottle. Every time I apply it, I associate its vanilla scent with being away from home. When it comes to enhancing my selection of travel toiletries, I find Aromatherapy Associates’ collection of mini sized edits perfectly fits the bill. Elegant, sleek, simple yet luxurious thanks to the glass packaging, the Support & Travel Edit adds a set of relaxing and soothing products to my toiletry bag.

Support & Travel Edit

Presented in a clear thick plastic travel bag, Aromatherapy Associates’ Support & Travel Edit contains five mini products aimed at ‘comfort and reassurance’. I’m not a nervous traveller so ‘reassurance’ doesn’t resonate with me, but comfort definitely does. Each product is designed to either soothe, calm, de-stress or rejuvenate – music to my ears. Before delving into the actual products, I wanted to highlight the travel bag itself, made of handy wipe-clean material with a rubber hand strap. I’m not clear on whether it follows airport regulations (it’s not a gripper bag for a start) but I reckon it’s close enough that you’d probably get away with it. Speaking of which, one of my colleagues manages to smuggle two gripper bags stuffed with toiletries. To go through security he places each one on a different tray, so it looks like they’re for two separate travellers – sneaky!

Support Breathe Roller Ball

Start your journey by popping this roller ball into your handbag. This natural blend of essential oils of Pine, Tea Tree and Eucalyptus helps to soothe and refresh the senses. Your pulse points (wrists, inner elbow, neck, chest, back of the knee and ankles) are supposed to be the best place to apply essential oils, so I roll it onto my wrists and neck, as well as temples. Composed of just 10 ingredients, most of them essential oils including lavender, this offers a beautiful herbal scent that I’d happily wear as a fragrance, as my friend Nina does with her doTerra essential oils (you can read my Insider Q&A with her here). Out of the five minis I think this is the one I’m going to use up first.

De-Stress Muscle Gel 

When it comes to long haul flights, what type of person are you? The type that changes into pyjamas and compression socks the minute the plane’s lifted, puts an eye mask on and sleeps solidly for the entire duration of the flight? Or maybe the restless type that walks up and down the aisle, does stretching exercises and can’t wait to get off the plane? Or the type that stays glued to the screen from lift off to landing and wishes the flight could’ve taken another 30 minutes so that you could finish your film? That’s me. I’ve previously mentioned my love of films so to be able to sit solidly for 10 hours and watch back to back films is pure joy. Not so great for my muscles though that feel like they’ve atrophied in the process. With Rosemary, Black Pepper, Lavender and Ginger essential oils, this Muscle Gel is designed to relieve muscles that ache from spending too long in one position or from an intense workout. The gel formula feels cooling when massaged onto skin, and you can really smell the rosemary which reminds me of holidays in Provence.

Support Lavender& Peppermint bath & shower oil

Once you’ve arrived at your destination, the first thing you often want to do is take a shower. If you have the luxury of a bath then I’d invite you to pour two capfuls of this Lavender & Peppermint Bath Oil into it and relax. If you prefer the shower option instead you can just massage a capful of oil over your body beforehand. It sinks into skin straight away and doesn’t leave any greasy residue. I love the pure strong scent of lavender, another reminder of summers in the South of France.

Hydrosol Sheet Mask

If you’ve travelled by plane your skin will no doubt feel dehydrated, so after stepping out of the bath or shower it’s the ideal time to apply a sheet mask. I do love a good sheet mask, especially ones from the motherland of sheet masks, South Korea, where the likes of natural beauty brand Innisfree offer around 20 different options. The Hydrosol Mask comes in a biodegradable sheet infused with Hyaluronic Acid, Frankincense Hydrosol and Turmeric Root extract for radiant skin. Surprisingly this was probably my least favourite item out of the five, not because it delivered particularly bad results, but because I’ve tried higher performing sheet masks – there’s just so much competition in that category, and from brands whose specialty is sheet masks. This one didn’t fit the contours of my face properly and didn’t adhere to my skin. As with all Aromatherapy Associates products I’ve tried, the scent was beautiful: herbal, calming, soothing to the senses. But I would have preferred more formula on the sheet, but after 10 minutes on I was still left with plumped and hydrated skin.

Intensive Skin Treatment Oil 

The final touch of this essential oils journey is the Intensive Skin Treatment Oil. A blend of Lavender, Rose and Rosehip Seed oils make this ideal for dry, dehydrated skin, so perfect for post-flight application. Directions of use recommend using the oil up to twice a week but I’ve been applying it every other day only on areas that feel particularly dry like my cheeks. This is an anti-ageing oil so not yet one of my skin concerns, however it smells so good that I feel like applying it for that reason alone. And it’s also supposed to help reduce scaring so I’ll be testing it on some of my acne scars.

At £33.00 for this set of 5 minis plus a toiletry bag, this is great value if you were considering buying each individual item (including the bag) which would set you back £71.50 – a 54% saving! Unless you’re a die-hard Aromatherapy Associates fan it’s unlikely that you would be eyeing up exactly all these products, however as long as at least three of them take your fancy then you can consider the others as free little extras. What are the beauty products that you can’t travel without? Leave a comment below to let me know.

Features gifted products.