Your Perfect Travel Skin Care Products Just Went On Sale!

I'm getting ready to head out in a few weeks on what (I think!) is the final Glam Italia Tour for 2016. 
That means restocking and repacking all my travel products.

If you read my post on 3 Reasons To Avoid London Heathrow Airport you will know that as well as risking contracting phlegm and saliva spread viruses (seriously - read the post. I am still grossed out by it!), there is the whole confiscation of beauty products issue, as in they confiscated mine.
I had a 12 hour overnight layover at Heathrow, and my suitcase was checked through from Rome to Los Angeles, so while I stayed at the Yotel at Heathrow, which was totally fantastic, I had to have everything I needed for an overnight in my carry on luggage. 

Read about the Yotel at Heathrow here

This was no big deal as I travel round and round the world with the exact same travel sized beauty products in the exact same see through travel beauty bags in my carry on luggage, and have done for years. If you've been reading this blog for a while then you already know that!

Disclaimer: Tatcha does not sponsor this blog, but I do have affiliate marketing with them. I have been using Tatcha skin care and traveling with their products for years, as evidenced on all my social media and in many posts on this blog


But Heathrow has different rules from every other country I have flown out of in the last 10+ years. At their version of TSA they hand out sandwich sized ziplock bags, and what ever liquids and creams (including concealer, lipstick, eye shadow paint pots, mascara, toothpaste) don't fit into the sandwich bag get confiscated.
Amongst other things they confiscated my much loved Tatcha skin care products. It was super annoying.

But, I just went on Tatcha.com to order new travel sized skin care products and found they are on sale!!
For years now I have been buying Tatcha's trial size discovery kits to travel with. They meet the travel size requirements, and are an affordable way to try out various Tatcha products.

When you travel your skin gets stressed. Flying dehydrates and stresses your skin. Being in a different climate, cleansing your skin with different water, just being away from home and all the things your skin is used to stresses your skin. So your skin needs extra special love and attention with extra special products when you travel. For years now I have traveled with Tatcha skin care products. (If you've been reading this blog for a while you will already know this!)
I always travel with Tatcha's Luminous Dewy Skin Mist. 

I spritz my skin with it during long flights, use it to soothe skin that has had too much sun, wind, feels dehydrated or just needs extra loving. It is one of my all time favorite skin care products.

Shop Now for the Dewy Skin Face Mist at Tatcha!

Another must have travel skin care product is Tatcha's Camellia Beauty Oil. 

This is a dry finish oil that seals moisture into your skin and leaves your skin ready for makeup. The gold flecks in the product give your skin a soft glow while the camellia oil soothes.
This one is the perfect travel companion because it doubles up as a body oil that doesn't get on your clothes, and is a hair oil. Three products in one!

While I was online re-ordering these products I saw that Tatcha has their Ritual Discovery Kit (a.k.a. my standard travel skin care kit!!) on sale!

This is the perfect set to try out Tatcha products - you won't even believe the difference in your skin. It is also the perfect skin care travel set. 
You get their cleansing oil to dissolve makeup and clean away the day without stripping your skin, the enzyme powder which gently exfoliates your skin keeping it polished, smooth and luminous, the nourishing brightening serum - one of the greatest serums ever made. Your skin will love you for it! And their anti-aging moisturizer, tailored to your skin type.

This kit is normally $99 - do you see why I was so upset that Heathrow airport took mine?? But right now it is on sale for $59.
This is an absolutely smoking deal! I'm ordering an extra couple of kits while the price is down.

Shop Now for the Ritual Discovery Kit at Tatcha!

If you have already tried Tatcha products you need to know about this other special on their website at the moment. The Toumei Duo, which is a full size Polished Enzyme Powder ($65) and a full size Radiant Deep Brightening Serum ($185) on sale for $195

Limited Edition Toumei Brightening Duo only $195 at Tatcha.com! (Value of $250) Includes Brightening Serum and Enzyme Powder based on skin type. (Valid until September 29th)

Another bonus right now is free shipping anywhere in the USA.
Win, win, win! The deals are only available for a short time, so you do need to take advantage of them now.
Make sure you either leave me a comment or tag me on your social media (@Corinnamakeup) to let me know how much you are loving these products!

Get FREE shipping on all U.S. orders at Tatcha!

Staying At Yotel

I was super excited to be having a 12 hour layover in London on my way home from Italy.

image via TravelandLeisure.com

I had all these fantastic plans to check my bags and take the tube into town and go hit my old neighborhood. 
I figured I would have time to hit the Kings Road and Knightsbridge, Kensington High Street and Notting Hill - being that I didn't need to actually buy anything I could just walk and walk the streets and neighborhoods where my career started and where I kicked off my wild 20's. Hell, I would even have time to swing over to Camden town. It was going to be perfect!

Right up until I actually looked at my ticket and saw that my 12 hour layover was from 10 pm until 10 am.

So now I had to figure out how to play it in one of the most expensive cities on earth. A cab ride and a hotel could be super expensive, but I wasn't about to sit at Heathrow Terminal 5 for 12 hours.

Some international airports that have long layovers have hotels that you book by the hour, inside the terminal. So I decided to check out that option in case Heathrow did, and low and behold I found that they have one in Terminal 4.

Yotel is a fantastic concept for the long distance traveler. Instead of large hotel rooms that you book by the day, these are more like the berth on a ship or a large overnight train cabin. It's a micro-hotel and it is everything the weary long distance traveler needs.

A Yotel room is super streamlined, pristine and very modern. You have a bed with a big fluffy duvet and a flat screen TV, a slither of a bathroom with a monsoon shower, a desk and a chair.
Everything you need to freshen up, get a few hours sleep and catch your next flight without dealing with traffic and a commute.
Your suitcase has checked through to your final destination, so it's just you, your carry on, a hot shower and a good night's sleep.

image via yotel.com

You book and pay online ahead of time so check in and check out are extra quick. From walking through the main entrance to walking into my room was maybe 5 minutes. No standing around in lines, no waiting for elevators and walking through mammoth hallways in a hotel with hundreds of rooms. 
Yotel is relatively small. I'm not sure how many rooms they have, but am guessing it is fewer than 100.

Yotel Heathrow is outside the terminal so you do have to go back through security before your flight, unlike the terminal hotels at Singapore's Changi, which are enclosed inside the terminal. 
Had Yotel been inside Terminal 5 I would still own all my travel makeup, haircare and toiletries - can you tell I am still irritated at their version of TSA confiscating my things???

Regardless, Yotel was a fantastic experience. 
I had my room for 7 hours and it cost 72 Pounds Sterling, so a little over $US120. It was worth every penny.

One word of advice, book your Yotel as quickly as possible. While I was there it was fully booked, and the young man who checked me in said they are almost always at 100% occupancy.
The chances of you rolling up and being able to secure a room last minute are slim to none.

Book your Yotel at London Heathrow, London Gatwick, Amsterdam Shiphol or Hong Kong via Booking.com

Traveler Beware - 3 Reasons To Avoid London Heathrow Airport

I just got back from a month in Italy leading two more Glam Italia Tours. They were amazing! It is so incredibly gratifying and exciting to see the look on ladies' faces as they discover Italy for the first time, and to be part of these fantastic memories that they will have forever.

From the Glam Italia Tour 2016

But let's talk about Heathrow.
Since I left London a lifetime ago I have steadfastly avoided using Heathrow airport. (Much as I will do anything to avoid Chicago O'Hare, where you are basically guaranteed your flight will be delayed)
Back in the day London Heathrow was always an absolute zoo, and with so many other airport options available I've always taken a more palatable option. On this most recent trip I broke my own travel rule and allowed myself to be routed through Heathrow. Never again!

Three Reasons To Avoid London Heathrow Airport

1. They Were Ridiculously Short Staffed.

I flew to London from Rome, arriving late in the evening. Terminal 5, the British Airways terminal had a total of 3 people working passport control. 
Three! If ours was the only plane arriving, that would have been bad enough, but there were other planes arriving too, each dumping hundreds of passengers, so the wait was excessive. Personally I got through in about an hour an 15 minutes, but other passengers were in line over 2 hours. This could be disastrous for anyone connecting to another flight. 
I had to catch a bus (in the pouring rain) to Terminal 4 and just made the last bus of the night by the skin of my teeth.

2. Of the 3 passport control workers, 2 were sick. 

They had the nastiest, meatiest, lung curdling coughs you have ever heard in your life, and rather than cough into tissues or into the crook of their elbows, they hacked up their lungs into their open hands. And then without so much as batting an eyelid used the same hands to pick up each passenger's passport. 
I would have been grossed out if they were using disinfecting wipes or hand sanitizer after rustling up fluids from the bottom of their lungs, but watching them attach their cooties to each person's passport was just revolting. I wonder how many hundreds of people they exposed to their germs? 

3. Incredibly Small Allowance At Security

At the security x-ray leaving Heathrow they gave out zip lock bags slightly larger than an American Zip Lock sandwich sized bag, for all your liquids and creams. Each passenger was allowed one bag only and it had to zip closed.
I fly internationally multiple times per year, round and round the world. I take the exact same travel beauty products on every flight, packed in the exact same see through travel cosmetic bags. All the airports that I fly in and out of have the same rules, except for Heathrow. 
The security people at Heathrow Terminal 5 threw so many expensive products in the trash - it was unbelievable! I am all for keeping travelers safe, and I do appreciate that they don't consider our shoes to be a threat and as such let us keep them on, but seriously I do not see the merit in confiscating travel sized skin care products (all of my beautiful Tatcha products!), a MAC Paint Pot, Chanel lipstick, mascara (just how much damage can a girl cause with a tube of DiorShow Blackout???) cream blush, a half tube of Makeup Forever Lift Concealer, a travel sized (1.6 oz) Oribe Cote d'Azur Hair Refresher, travel sized toothpaste (although one glance at their manky grills and you can see that British teeth and toothpaste don't necessarily go together). I can't remember what else they took, but it really was ridiculous. 

The way I see it, if there really truly is a safety threat in a carry on bag that contains more than a sandwich sized plastic bag of beauty products, why not just tell your unsuspecting fliers at check in when we still have the option of throwing them in our suitcases?
The poor lady who went through security ahead of me was in tears as her beauty products were thrown in the trash.

I do appreciate that the Brits are the best at counter terrorism and that they confiscated my eye cream as a means of keeping the plane in the air. I want all planes to stay in the air and therefore happily comply with every rule, but in the future I will avoid Heathrow like the plague that it's passport control workers want to spread, and maybe get to keep my travel sized toothpaste while I'm at it.