The Travel Beauty Thread

[sister13]

(January 2023) Thought I’d resurrect this thread, now that there’s a bit more possibility of travel these days! I would love to live vicariously and learn from fellow BICers, so please post any tips, pics, and/or your fave travel minis or routine!  I’m still not doing a lot of travel these days, but may post some pics and notes from past trips.  💗💗💗

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Since the old travel thread sadly got lost in the switchover (😢😢😢) it was suggested a while back, and I’ve been meaning to get a new one started. If there is one already for this, let me know. I travel a bit for work and for fun, and I love checking out beauty stores and seeking out exclusive or hard-to-find items in different places around the world. Some of my favorite makeup destinations have been the Face Powder and Perfume Museum in Torino, Italy (a surprise find) and the Les Merveilleuses Laduree in Tokyo. I have relied on great tips from other BT/BICers on many of my trips, especially Toronto and Tokyo, so I would love to keep this updated as a resource for BIC.

Please share your discoveries, store reviews, pictures, purchases, and travel tips, and I’ll try to keep and update summaries here in the main post for future reference. If you don’t have a chance for much travel, feel free to share your favorite beauty destinations in your home city. I plan to update with photos below from various trips as I have the chance to organize my archives and update. What do you guys think? Feel free to make suggestions on how to organize this thread, too, it might be a bit of a work in progress. Thanks and happy travels BT/BIC!

[itsfi]

I knew I’d forget something; next time @blackkitty2014! 😂 I’ve yet to visit a spa I didn’t like 😆 So relaxing. Other than photos I took of the different areas in the spa and figuring out where I was meeting up with folks, I was free of my phone most of that day. Ahhhh. 

I saw a couple of Tuscan on my walks but not up close. No water rafting for me on this trip, but it looked fun - did you do it when you were there? 

[blackkitty2014]

@itsfi We did class 3.5 or 4 at that time so it was really fun. My husband got his knee scraped a bit so we did easy stuffs after that liked hiking (lots of hiking/walking). I can’t remember the name of the place we stayed but it did have multiple hot spring pools and they was available for resort guests only. And they also offered us an hr massage so we did that and went sitting in the hot springs almost twice a day. Most of the time we’re there all by ourselves so it was nice. I didn’t care much for Jaco but the foods was good there and on the way out of that town, we cross the crocodile bridge and see hundreds of crocodiles 🐊 We also went to Manuel Antonio national park. I think that about it. The most stressful thing about out Costa Rica was the driving park. Using Spanish speaking only navigation was a challenge 😂🤣 (we made a mistake not activate our wave app in US so it didn’t give us option to switching back to English) and the google map was no bueno at the time. We got lost liked a lot 😂🤣 I’m sure navigation apps are much better now. We’d like to stay at Guanacate or Monteverde if we ever came back

[Ispend2much6]

This sounds like an absolutely lovely vacation @itsfi .  I recently read an article that said vanilla extract can be used as a mosquito repellant; I'd be willing to give that a try!

[itsfi]

@Ispend2much6, lol, that would be the ultimate way to test it out. 🔬

[Sunnysmom]

What a beautiful vacation you must have had @itsfi ! Thanks for sharing your wonderful pics and experiences with us. It’s so fun for those of us who are armchair travelers! I can only imagine how beautiful it was and the coffee especially sounds delicious. Well the chocolate too! 😊

[blackkitty2014]

Yes to armchair travelers too @Sunnysmom 😘

[itsfi]

@Sunnysmom, Costa Rica 🇨🇷 was lovely, a beautiful and relaxing locale to unplug. The coffee and chocolate were an extra bit of fun. ☕🍫

[caitbird]

@itsfi  beautiful pictures! Your trip sounds amazing, I'm glad you enjoyed yourself! It's hard to go wrong with coffee and chocolate 😉 And you saw a sloth, that's so awesome! I would love to visit Costa Rica someday, I know they have so many cool birds & wildlife species to see.

[Titian06]

Thanks for sharing these wonderful pics, @itsfi !  I'm feeling relaxed just looking at them!  It's amazing what goes into making chocolate--even more so, that someone actually figured that out! 😄

[itsfi]

@Titian06, the environment and atmosphere made it very conducive to just relaxing. Loved it! 🥰 I lucked out that for a couple of things like the spa or hot springs, I had the whole place to myself for a period of time. Ahhhhh….

[PrettyPaint]

@itsfi Oh my goodness! Costa Rica looks incredible. I'm glad that you were able to get some relaxation time in - you definitely deserve it! That volcano photo is so neat, and the chocolate and coffee look fantastic. I didn't even realize that's how you make chocolate. I bet the coffee was incredible, right??? Thanks so much for sharing these lovely photos from your trip. 

[itsfi]

The coffee was delicious @PrettyPaint! ☕️ You would have loved it. I learned about different kinds of coffee beans and there’s one that has more caffeine than the arabica bean 😲 When I heard that, I thought of the coffee-loving BIC beauties, like you! 

It was cool to see chocolate made the old fashioned way and to give it a try. 

[PrettyPaint]

@itsfi Is it the Robusta that has more caffeine than Arabica? I just googled it and that's what I found (I didn't know it off the top of my head)! 😁 I just read this ridiculous article from medscape about too much coffee being linked to accelerated cognitive decline. I'm not taking it seriously because the methodology is pretty questionable!

[itsfi]

Yes @PrettyPaint, that's it - Robusta. The tour guide said that it's not as heavily produced because more money can be made from Arabica beans. There was a Robusta tree on the grounds but even if I could fill my backpack with beans, no way I'd clear customs. 😂🤣😂🤣 So close!!! lolololol

What?! I'm with you on that article. Besides, just how much is "too much"?

[PrettyPaint]

@itsfi Haha...I'm just imagining you trying to smuggle a backpack of beans through customs.🤣

[makeitup305]

@itsfi I’m so happy you had such a good time in my home country! I’m going back in September but it’s more to see family than to vacation. What part of the country did you stay at? I hope you didn’t get too much rain. It’s the start of the rainy season so sometimes it’ll rain every day. Coffee beans are my souvenir whenever I go back 😆

[itsfi]

I was thinking about you when I was there @makeitup305. It's so beautiful. We were on the Arenal / La Fortuna side - that's the north, northwest side, I think? 

It rained every day we were there, but only one of those days was it a heavier rainfall and even then, most just took it as an opportunity to siesta. I ended up just sitting out on the patio, sipping on this amazing tea, and reading while waiting for my laundry to dry. All good. 

[makeitup305]

@itsfi glad you had a good time! I miss the rain .

[sister13]

Just thought I'd bump as a reminder!

If you take any fun trips this summer, share some pics and let us know what you loved! Although I always love hearing about and seeing pictures any beauty stores, travel beauty faves, and your looks for travel and different climates, anything travel related is fair game, whether or not it includes cosmetics & beauty content!   

Or, if you have any trips coming up near or far from home, let us know where you're headed and feel free to solicit any advice or share your plans here. 

Happy happy summer everyone! 

[sister13]

I was back East in April for a couple conferences, so here’s a few pics from my trip to DC, Baltimore, Philly and New York. It was a whirlwind, so not the greatest pics but I figured I’d share anyway!

DC - I missed the peak cherry season, but a few were still blooming.

These are paperwhites from my mom’s.

I think this is a crabapple, I love it! 

Made it to two Sephoras, Pentagon City and then Christiana mall in Delaware on the way up to Philly.

Driving to Baltimore, I could see the after math of the Key Bridge collapse! 

Had dinner with my cousin at this cute creekside restaurant in Maryland, and had some amazing Maryland crab dip. 

Philly skyline. I went to college here.

NYC skyline! I had such a packed schedule and I was in and out of here so fast, I had 0 sightseeing pics. But I was thinking of the SEPHORiA trip the whole time! 

[Sunnysmom]

Thanks for these wonderful pics @sister13 ! I bet that was a great trip. A bit of work, visiting family and of course Sephora worked in! The bridge, sigh.