You can buy toiletries almost anywhere in the world, often for less than it costs it home.
You may have your favourites, however, and not every brand is available overseas (sometimes there are worse, sometimes better alternatives). You can’t always be sure of the quality, either.
For these reasons you might consider bringing your own.
Space and weight can be saved by taking small, travel- or trial-sized bottles, or better still, buy some small, refillable plastic bottles and containers and fill them with your own products.
Liquids can weigh a lot, and a lot of bottles of liquids can weigh a considerable amount.
You also have the problem of leaking, although this can be made better by putting the bottles in a leak-proof plastic bag. There are non-liquid alternatives for most toiletries, some of which are listed below.
Starting at the top of the head and working down:
Hair
Shampoo generally comes in liquid form but you can get it in a bar (like soap) which is lighter, more compact, and more leak-proof than regular shampoo.
Don’t take a huge bottle, you will probably have to carry it around with you for ages before you make a dent in its contents.
Soap
Soap comes as a liquid and a bar. You can also get universal soaps that wash hair, clothes, and crockery. You can buy soap anywhere, too, all you need worry about is something to carry it in.
Teeth
Some people cut the handle off their toothbrush to make it lighter for travel, but this saves so little weight and it is annoying to use, so it’s really not worth it.
However, you should get toothbrush covers, which are very useful if your brush is squashed into your bag every day.
Floss is essential, not just for your teeth, but for other uses such as thread, tying up things, cutting food (like a cheese-wire), emergency shoelaces, a clothesline, and so on.
Shaving
You can either use nothing (just hot water), or just soap to shave with, but both of these are hard on your skin.
You don’t need to take a large can of shaving foam as there are smaller, lighter alternatives, such as shaving oil.
Cheap plastic razors can be bought anywhere, but a good travel razor is the AVID razor, which is cheap, light, and works well.
Deodorant
Comes in non-liquid form as deodorant sticks, which also come in small, travel sizes. Available everywhere.
Nails
Standard nail clippers are fine, stainless steel are better. You can use toenail clippers (straight, or slightly convex) as regular nail clippers (usually concave) if you don’t want to take both. Be aware that if you take nail scissors they might not be allowed in your hand baggage on some flights.
Mirror
Don’t take glass mirrors, there are so many good (lighter and unbreakable) alternatives made of plastic (acrylic) you can buy these days, such as the Coghlans Plexiglass Mirror
Towel
Towels from home are heavy and bulky. You don’t need something that large anyway, a thin hand towel is fine, even one cut in half can be used in most situations.
You can get some made of synthetics (viscose, for example) which are very absorbent for their size and weight.
