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Men’s Festival Grooming Essentials
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10 July 2014
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Lee Kynaston
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Festival Must-Haves
Summer may be all about holidays by the beach, great sporting events and kicking back in the garden, but it’s also the season of festivals and camping.
And whether you’re heading off to a one-day music festival, a gig-packed weekender or pitching up in a forest somewhere, you’ll still want to look (and smell) half decent. So here are a few grooming essentials worth popping in your backpack…
The Shower In A Packet
Stuck somewhere without running water? If you can’t wash it, wipe it!
A mainstay of women’s beauty regimes (where they’re primarily used for removing make-up), wipes are a superb addition to a man’s grooming armoury. Not only are they great for cleansing the face and removing sun cream, they’re handy for freshening up armpits too.
“In an ideal skin care world, you wouldn’t use face wipes as a cleansing method, but the odd couple of days at a festival here and there isn’t going to hurt your complexion,” says journalist and beauty blogger Jane Cunningham.
She recommends Yes To Carrots 25 Gentle Fragrance Free Cleansing Wipes if you’ve got sensitive skin, Boots Tea Tree and Witch Hazel Cleansing Wipes to tackle oily skin and Ole Henriksen Truth To Go Wipes if you want to (metaphorically) ‘splash out’ on something fancy.
“Just make sure they don’t become a regular part of your skin care routine once you’re home,” she says.
- Yes To Carrots Fragrance Free Wipes X 25
- Boots Tea Tree And Witch Hazel Cleansing Wipes 25s
- Ole Henriksen Truth To Go Wipes 10 Wipes
The Shampoo In A Can
“Dry shampoo is a great addition to your festival essentials,” says Jordan Thomas, stylist at the Fish Salon in London’s Soho. “It doesn’t actually clean the hair but it does give the appearance of it being clean – absorbing excess grease and instantly freshening it up.”
To get the most out of your spray he suggests sectioning your hair with your fingers and applying it to root. “Spray from a distance to avoid the dusty white root look and ruffle hands through your hair to help distribute the product,” he says, adding that you can always apply a little more if necessary.
There are plenty of dry shampoos out there but especially handy is Batiste Dry Shampoo ‘On-The-Go’ Original, which is the ideal size for festival kit bags.
The Compact Deodorant
When you’re out all day, up all night and don’t have much space to carry stuff, you need an antiperspirant deodorant that’s effective but compact.
Some of the best festival-friendly products come from Unilever, a company which recently took the initiative to compress the antiperspirants in its Dove Men+Care, Lynx, Vaseline and Sure brands, dramatically reducing their size.
You still get the same amount of product but in a much smaller container. The Sure ones also contain ‘motionsense technology’: tiny capsules that activate as your body moves throughout the day.
- Dove Men+care Extra Fresh Aerosol Anti-perspirant Deodorant Compressed 75ml
- Sure Men Xtracool Aerosol Anti-perspirant Deodorant Compressed 125ml
- Vaseline Men Double Invisible Compressed Antiperspirant
The Oral Essential
Festival food isn’t just a challenge to the stomach, it can be a challenge to the breath too. And that’s before you factor in mouth-drying alcohol.
To make sure your breath is as fresh as some of the up-and-coming musical acts you might be seeing this summer, keep some Ultradex Fresh Breath Oral Spray handy.
“Unlike some breath fresheners it doesn’t just mask unwanted odours, it eliminates the compounds that cause it,” says Dr Uchenna Okoye, Clinical Director of the London Smiling Dental Group, who reckons it will even work on garlic breath.
The Small Wonders
You know what they say about great things coming in small packages? Well, Fish ‘Minis’, available during the summer, are excellent festival styling aids (there’s a Shape Defining Wax, Texturising Clay and a Texturising Cream), while Swissco’s foldable Travel Toothbrush is great for teeth and Tangle Teezer’s brilliant compact hairbrush is perfect for dealing with unwashed bed hair.
If you want to take your favourite skincare products and smaller sizes aren’t available, grab yourself some travel bottles (Muji have a great range, as do Swissco) and decant the products into them.
- Fishfingers Medium Hold Shape Defining Wax Mini
- Fishshape Firm Hold Texturising Cream Mini
- Travel Toothbrush – Swissco
- Tangle Teezer Original Professional Detangling Hairbrush – Black
- Travel Bottles
- Swissco Travel Bottle Set
The Pocket Protector
If you only take one skincare product with you to a festival this summer make it a decent sunscreen. According to the World Health Organisation one in three of the cancers diagnosed globally is a skin cancer and that number is increasing – particularly in men.
What’s more, the deadliest form of the disease – malignant melanoma – is more likely to be triggered by a severe dose of sunburn than years of responsible tanning, so sun protection is essential.
To make sure you’re always prepared, aim high with the SPF and carry a pocket-sized sunscreen like SkinCeuticals Sheer Mineral Defense SPF50 (50ml), Polaar Sun High Protections Sun Cream SPF30 (40ml) or Ambre Solaire Milk Mini SPF50 (50ml).
- Sheer Mineral Uv Defense Spf 50
- Polaar – High Protection Sun Cream Spf 30 40ml
- Ambre Solaire Milk Mini Spf 50 50ml
The Multi-Function Hero
When space is at a premium it pays to pack items that perform a multitude of functions.
Mr Willie Mack’s All-Over Wax by Mr Natty is a useful product since it’s a face and body moisturiser that also doubles up as a style wax for hair.
Get Involved
Do you have a great product that you’d recommend for festival-going or camping?
Let us know in the comments box below…
An award-winning journalist and former magazine editor, Lee Kynaston is one on the UK’s best known and most experienced male grooming experts. He writes for The Telegraph, Men’s Health, Harrods Magazine and numerous other publications and websites, is Lifestyle & Grooming Editor of Niven & Joshua, and was voted Best Beauty/Grooming Blogger 2013 at the Fashion Monitor Journalism Awards for his Grooming Guru blog.
