i'm interested in some of your packing tips for toiletries--whether it be products or methods (i.e., a certain soap is good for washing yr hair with, or other tips). i'm high-maintenance in the bathroom (not with makeup, but with shampoo, conditioner, face wash, toner, moisturizer, body wash, lotion, etc etc) and am looking for tips of being creative in this area.

I found this great product from Lush. It's a little shampoo puck that comes in it's own case. It's great! Just a bit of water and it lathers well and has a nice fragrance. Best of all, it's light and doesn't spill.

I have a combination moisturizer/spf sunscreen for my face.

Consider using moisturizing facewipes. You can pack them in little baggies and you can toss them as you go. That's not a great solution if you are going for an extended period of time however.

I only take exactly how much of each stuff I think I'll need. No big bottles of anything, only travel sized stuff. I'd rather have two travel sized bottles of shampoo, one that I can toss halfway though, that a large one.

I like to pack a small bottle of Dr. Bronners liquid soap. It's concentrated so you only need to use a tiny bit.
Comes in Eucalyptus, Peppermint (leaves you feeling a bit tingly which is fun), and Lavendar as well as a few other variations.

I haven't tried it myself, but someone once recommended putting your liquid toiletries in small platypus type containers. Because they are softsided they are less bulky, and as you use up the product, the bottle becomes smaller whereas hardsided bottles don't. I've never actually tried this. . .

dermalogica usually has some products in 'travel-friendly' form.

it's such a pain in the ass carrying around separate shampoo/conditioner, but my hair always feels so dry after using the shampoo-conditioner-in-one's. what i did last time was just bring along some shampoo, and a small tube of 'super-conditioner'. oh, and i buy those little empty plastic bottles to put my shampoo in (so i don't have to carry around the whole thing).

amy - i'll be looking into the playtpus container thingymabobbers!

Another vote for Dr. Bronner's!! a great liquid soap! the peppermint is my FAVE, I use it daily, for body, hands, face and hair... which may not be best for everyone, but I love the all-in-one usefulness, I wouldnt hesitate to hand-wash clothes with it too. Its biodegradeable too so if you wash outdoors you dont have to feel bad about putting it in the water.

For lotion I love Palmer's cocoa butter b/c it is solid and wont spill and smells good, but gotta have my moisterizer w/SPF and maybe a small night cream too (for face). I look for containers that screw on and off rather than flip top or sqeeze bottle.

There's a product called Campsuds that can be used for soap, shampoo and laundry detergent.

That's what I use. It is sold in an unleakable Nalgene bottle too.

Campsuds as shampoo???!!! Ouch.

I don't use Campsuds as shampoo!

I do use it as toothpaste though...

a good space-saver is johnson's head to toe baby wash. you can wash your hair and body with it and is gentle enough for the face.

I'm usually a lotions and potions freak at home too but packed so lightly coming away.

One conditioner lasted me nearly two months. In alot of places you don't have hot water showers and shampooing and then conditioning your hair can be a pain in the bum. I brought little mini bottles of serum instead.

Bring a tiny little king of shaves oil rather than a foam cannister. I have one that's about 2.5 inches tall and has lasted for 4 months so far.

I've quite sensitive skin and when I ran out of cleanser bought one I've never used before and my skin totally reacted to it so it's worth bringing extra if you are prone to the same thing.

If you're bringing a first aid kit rather than bringing lots of tubes of things that you may not need buy a stack of mini pots that screw into each other, I filled one of these with muscle rub, bite cream, tea tree stick, cold sore cream etc which saved alot of space.

I love girlie topics

Best advice I ever got from a fellow traveller was as follows:
A few weeks before your trip, make the rounds at your local shopping mall, collecting all the little samples of moisturizer, shampoo, etc. from the cosmetics department of the department stores. Not only do those little samples (the kind in the kind of plasticky envelope thing) pack relatively small, they are disposable as you go along and use them. Also, you feel pampered because the samples are usually the higher quality stuff (Clinique, etc.)