Believe it or not, a couple people have actually asked me what’s in my plastic baggie. So here’s an exciting post about it!

Here’s a typical Business Trip Baggie (see Tip #4 below). As you can see, it’s pretty much packed to the brim. In case you haven’t yet gleaned from this blog, I am a little bit what they call “high maintenance.”

What’s in the baggie:

Liquid necessities:

• Fekkai Color Care shampoo and conditioner. I spend way too much on hair coloring (right, E??) to use hotel shampoo. Plus, some hotels don’t give you conditioner (and if they do, it’s never adequate) so I plan ahead.
• Mousse. As you can tell, haircare is very important to me. I also have a pomade sort of deal which is technically a gel but it’s too big for the baggie, so…
• Toothpaste (I usually stow one away as well (rule breaker!)).
• Makeup (in the top pic I had the mascara in the bag but by the time I took picture #2, I had removed it. Technically TSA says it’s a liquid but I’m usually playing with fire on how much the Ziploc will hold before coming apart at the seams, so I tend to put this in my makeup bag instead. Hasn’t been an issue yet.)
• Body wash. See first bullet on hotel inadequacies.
• Face and body moisturizer. All that crap you read about flying being hard on the skin is unfortunately true. And hotels often have really hard water.
• Two kinds of face wash (one is a backup. I’m petrified of running out of face wash and having to use soap.).
• Lip gloss (this is what I call a decoy. Like most women, I have lipstick/gloss/chapstick everywhere in every bag, so I put the decoy here to account for all of them.).
• Perfume. I also carry a solid perfume, but this is a great way to use up department store samples and they hardly take up any space.

Top tips for baggie packing:

1. Lay items sideways. Standing little bottles upright wastes space.
2. Pack from largest to smallest. These new-fangled Ziploc baggies are bigger at the bottom.
3. Alternate the direction of your items. Most of my liquids are in a triangle shape; by alternating their caps and seams, I can get more in.
4. Every trip is different; plan accordingly. For example, when I fly with E, I make him take extra liquids for me. When I’m going for work to Atlanta, I always stay at a Hyatt which means that they stock the room with toothpaste so I don’t have to give up precious baggie space for it (although I always pack one toothpaste in case I get stuck at the airport in some kind of never-ending delay situation. Scuzzy teeth are the worst.).
5. Medical liquids can go in a separate baggie (yes, two baggies!).
6. Do your best. I have never had to rip my bag apart for an elusive liquid. I’m not saying to not follow the rules (believe me, I’m nothing if not a rule-follower), but TSA should be looking out for guns and nun-chucks and whatnot, not my mis-packed mascara. And I think they mostly are. So pack a baggie as best you can and if you need an extra toothpaste and put it in some other bag, the worst case scenario is that they’ll confiscate it. Put your expensive liquids in the baggie and roll the dice on the rest. Since you’re now at the airport, you can probably replace whatever you need. Unless you’re in Tehran. But then you probably have more problems than this blog can solve.

If this seems overly complicated, it is. Over-thinking to this extent is surely causing some sort of mental malfunction in a brain synapse somewhere. I would just always prefer to carry-on than check. I haven’t checked a bag in years. In fact, E and I have taken several two-week European vacations with four carry-ons between us. Insane? Mayhaps. But worth it in my book.

Happy flying!