Liquids and Your Carry On Bag

This past weekend, we flew with our pops to Boston for our cousin's wedding. Our dad was stopped at security when they spotted liquid in his carry on. The offending product? Hair tonic. (A product men of a certain age are required to use.) We laughed and called him an amateur. But then we were stopped too. We were trying to get through with a contraband bottle of water. All this goes to show--those liquid restrictions on the plane are tricky!

Here are our insider tips for traveling with the regulations:

*Use a freezer bag (not a sandwich bag) for your zip top bag. They're thicker so they hold up better throughout your trip.


*For your face care products (wash, moisturizer, pimple cream, sun block), we recommend sample sizes. We wrote about some great place to get free ones in this blog: Sample This. You can also buy a good selection of them at Minimus.

*As for your makeup, you'll find most cosmetics will be under the 3 oz. size. Don't forget that "liquid" also includes toothpaste, lip gloss, foundation and mascara.

*Hair products are the tricky part (Right, dad?). They generally come in larger sizes, and if you're like us, you like a variety of them. If you can't find the brand you like in a sample size, you can also buy small, empty plastic bottles at a drug store or beauty supply store and fill them yourself. We love this Frederic Fekkai set from Sephora (pictured above) that comes with their uber popular Glossing shampoo, conditioner, styling and finishing products.

*You'll have to take the bag of liquids out when you're at security, so pack it at the top of your bag or somewhere you can easily pull it out.

*Don't forget about any presents: Last Christmas, we meticulously went through our cosmetic bag to make sure we had removed all of our larger liquids. We had wrapped an expensive bottle of Tocca body lotion and forgot it was there. We were forced to throw it out--though we did encourage the TSA official to take it home to his girlfriend!

Here are the official TSA regulations.