Best Beauty Buys 2024: Top Travel-Friendly Products

Best Beauty Buys is The Singapore Women’s Weekly’s annual awards to discover the most effective and game-changing skincare, haircare and makeup products for busy women and their families. The products were road-tested by a group of mums, and these are their picks.

Packing for travel often requires tough decisions, forcing us to crystallise our essential beauty products and take only what is absolutely necessary. Our sincere apologies if you’re one of those folks who has a skin cycling routine throughout the week: you literally cannot take 30 different products along with you for a week-long holiday.

It doesn’t help that mums totally overpack for everyone in the family, except ourselves. Hands up if you’re guilty of packing 10 cute outfits for your child on a 5-day holiday, just in case, while shoving three blouses and two pairs of pants for yourself into the luggage 10 minutes before leaving home and telling yourself you can buy whatever’s missing. 

Mums, hear us out: don’t skimp on beauty products while you’re on vacation. Embrace the time to really relax and unwind, with skincare that will help you look and feel your best for some awesome holiday snapshots. Put together a vacation beauty kit you would look forward to at the end of every day, with products that multitask exceedingly well, come in travel-friendly packaging, or just make life much easier when you use them.

1. Best Travel-Friendly Serum: Drunk Elephant B-Hydra Intensive Hydration Serum

We don't usually do this, but using this Drunk Elephant serum as a moisturising cream when you are travelling and packing light gets a huge pass from us. Designed to keep your skin moist and bouncy all day while you’re out and about exploring new sights, this versatile serum is power-packed with moisture-boosting and nourishing ingredients that are great for all skin types.

$76 for 50ml

Shop at Sephora |

2. Best Travel-Friendly Exfoliant: Dr Dennis Gross Alpha Beta Universal Daily Peel

Leave those bottles of AHA and BHAs at home when you travel. Instead, pack these handy daily peel packs soaked with 5 types of AHA/BHAs, antioxidants and vitamins, to exfoliate your skin and help it retain its glow on the go. Use these to prep your face for makeup in the morning, or for your evening wind-down beauty routine. One thorough wipe over your face with each sheet gives you balanced, smooth and bright skin, with visibly smaller pores.

$36 for 5 treatments

Shop at Sephora | Lookfantastic

3. Best Multipurpose Eye And Lip Cream: Payot Lisse Smoothing Eyes and Lips Care

Pack this hydrating eye and lip cream on your next overseas adventure, to moisturise and fill in lines and wrinkles all around your eyes and lips. It has a lightweight texture that is a real treat, sinking into tired and thirsty skin like a splash of refreshing water. Its smooth applicator tip makes applying this a breeze no matter where you are – we particularly love using this on the aeroplane.

$90 for 15ml

Shop at Lazada | Shopee

4. Best Makeup-Removing Wipes: Bifesta Micellar Cleansing Sheet Perfect Glow

Makeup-removing sheets are one of the best inventions in the world of travel makeup. No need to pack bottles and cotton pads. These cleansing sheets are soaked in our all-time favourite Bifesta Micellar Perfect Glow liquid, which packs a huge dose of vitamin C in its gentle formula to give a radiant finish after all the makeup comes off.

$14.80 for 46 sheets

Shop at Watsons (via Amazon Fresh) | Lazada

5. Best Brightening Supplement: Eight Karats Eighteen Vitaskin Nutricosmetic Supplement

Having radiant skin makes for some gorgeous holiday photos that capture your true joy and bliss. Pack these nutritious supplements for your next trip out of the country. A potent blend of fruit and veggie powder and plant extracts deliver multiple benefits to your skin, including boosting moisture, reducing acne scars, improving texture, and rejuvenating dull skin.

$45 for 30 capsules

Shop at Eight Karats | Lazada

6. Best Face Mist For Sensitive Skin: Lazy Shark Magik Toning Mist

Using a face mist while travelling is a great hack to keep your skin in optimal condition. This multifunctional face mist comprises two different formulas: one oil and one water, to help your skin retain moisture better and keep it hydrated all day. Soothing, hydrating and brightening plant extracts lend their power to this mist, to breathe life into your face after a long day out.

$48 for 100ml

Shop at Lazada | Shopee

7. Best Travel-Friendly Cleanser For Combi Skin: Cerm 2% Salicylic Acid Clearing Cleanser

If you have space for only one cleanser, let this be it. It cleanses your face gently and thoroughly, calms irritated skin, removes excess oil, clears blackheads and whiteheads, and brightens the skin with its formula enriched with salicylic acid and water lily extract. Bonus points for its gel-to-foam texture, which makes cleansing your face that much more satisfying.

$17 for 100ml

Shop at Cerm | Lazada

8. Best Travel-Friendly Body Wash: The Powder Foam Wash Relaxing Night Body Foam Wash To Unwind Your Mind

A powder soap that foams is a stroke of genius for travelling. This relaxing powder body foam that is infused with soothing extracts of butterfly pea flower, lavender, and chamomile is the ultimate way to end each day on the right note. Wash all the day’s grime, dirt, and impurities away in the shower, working up a rich lather to hit all the right notes and get yourself ready for the best sleep of your life.

$39.90 for 100g

Shop at The Powder Shampoo | Shopee

9. Best Travel-Friendly Shampoo: The Powder Shampoo Strengthening & Soothing Powder Shampoo For Normal & Sensitive Scalps

Forgo the heavy bottles and pack this powder shampoo to keep your scalp clean and happy. Thyme promotes hair growth, grapefruit oil clears impurities, pre and probiotics help maintain a healthy scalp, and liquorice root keeps the scalp calm and soothed. It smells heavenly to boot. Work the powder through wet hair into a rich lather, for a pleasurable wash.

$39.90 for 100g

Shop at The Powder Shampoo | Shopee

Prices are accurate at time of publication.

All the items are independently selected by our editorial team. If you buy something through our retail links, we may earn an affiliate commission. But we only recommend products we love. Promise.