The Cost of a Pre-Vacation Beauty Routine

When I’m getting ready for vacation, every grooming service I sign up for gets compressed into the week before I leave town.

Photo credit: Skaggs Design & Advertising, CC BY 2.0.

I’m the kind of person who gets to the airport three hours early. I love preparing, and I hate being rushed. Getting ready for vacation can be stressful — all that planning! all that budgeting! — but if at the end of it you can relax on a tropical island, it’s worth the work.

The part of planning for a beach vacation that I most enjoy is my pre-vacation beauty regimen. Usually my beauty routines all fall on a carefully-spread-out schedule over a few months to balance out both the time and money I spend. When I’m getting ready for vacation, every grooming service I sign up for gets compressed into the week before I leave town.

I prioritize beauty routines in my regular life, not just my vacation life. If clothing is like armor to get through the day, my hair and nails are like a security blanket. It’s not just that I want to look good on the beach (though I do) and that I enjoy playing with different versions of myself through makeup and styling (though I do). It’s also that I want to present the front of a woman who has her life together, especially if I’m meeting new people in a new place. Is it an unfair and damaging aspect of our culture that women who wear makeup appear more competent? Absolutely. But I still feel better if I’m wearing a little concealer.

Makeup Makes Women Appear More Competent: Study

Plus, playing with my appearance is a part of me. When I hit walls of anxiety and depression, I tend to put more focus on my appearance. It provides a distraction and gives me something manageable to accomplish, and the small confidence boost from applying new lipstick is sometimes enough to get me to walk out the door and get on with my day. So when I’m heading away from home, when travel stress and anxiety tend to tick up and up, even when I’m supposed to be relaxing, I double down on my beauty routine.

Nails

If I’m going on vacation, especially a beach vacation where there’s sand and water that wreck my nails, a gel manicure is key. I don’t want to have to worry about chips or breakage or hauling several bottles of nail polish to do and redo my nails during the week. I don’t get my nails done on the regular because I feel guilty spending money on something I can do myself pretty well. But a vacation is a perfect reason to splurge. It starts the relaxing before you get on the plane, and being pampered puts me in a party mood.

Cost: $60 combo deal for a gel manicure and regular pedicure ($35 for the gel manicure alone), and I usually tip $10-$15. Manicures typically range from $15-$60, but watch out for too-cheap manicures — they are likely too good to be true, or at least too good to be ethical.

The Price of Nice Nails

Hair

I am currently platinum blond, and I get my roots done at the salon every 10 to 12 weeks. I am completely uninterested in hearing how I could do this cheaper on my own. My natural hair color is a lot of –ish: a darkish reddish brownish. Going platinum was something I wanted to do for a long time, and when I finally did it, I was financially able and emotionally ready to invest in the experience and I was not comfortable lightening my hair that much on my own.

If it works out, I try to get this 10–12 week mark to hit right before a vacation. I won’t schedule an appointment before those 10 weeks are up, because it’s not good for my hair to get bleached too often and I like it to grow out a little first. But I’ll put my appointment off a few weeks if it means I can be freshly colored for vacation.

If I’m being honest (and we’re all friends here, right?) it’s also because I think it will look better in vacation pictures to have my hair done. If we’re taking pictures for posterity — and if they’re going to be all over Instagram — I’d like to look my best.

Cost: $165 + $25-$30 tip for color and a trim; color can range from a $6 box of hair dye to several hundred dollars at the salon.

Waxing

Since we’re friends, I’m going to be real with you about my bikini line. Like my eyebrows, I gave up regular waxings because I can maintain my eyebrows and bikini line easier and cheaper on my own. When I’m getting ready to go on a beach vacation, I like to take the time and money to get a bikini wax professionally. My waxer does not approve of this and regularly tells me I should come in more often. I overlook this because she’s very nice and talks to me as if it’s normal that I’m undressed from the waist down.

For a beach vacation, a wax is worth it to me. I don’t want to have to take the time to think about my bikini line when I’d rather be relaxing by the water. I continue to do my eyebrows on my own because my brows are rather thin and I am more afraid of being overwaxed into even thinner brows than I am of having to tweeze on vacay.

Cost: $40 + $7-$10 tip; I’ve seen prices range from $25-$60.

Skin care

I’m a big believer in BB cream, especially for summer vacation, so I always make sure I have one in my makeup bag before I get out of town. I like the kind that has SPF because it’s an easy way to protect your face from sunburn while providing some light coverage. It’s also a low maintenance, perfect beach makeup that I don’t feel weird about wearing to the pool.

Usually that’s all the makeup I need. If I’m going out to dinner I’ll throw on mascara and brow filler and maybe some eyeliner. But I leave it off if I’m going to be splashing around at the beach (or hanging out by the pool) because I don’t like waterproof mascara and I really don’t like getting raccoon eyes after a wave hits me in the face.

I also like to do a face mask at home before vacation starts. A sheet mask is a quick and relatively cheap way to pamper yourself. I feel like my skin does seem a softer and clearer afterward, and I feel very luxurious when I do any kind of mask. This is also fun to do on vacation if you’re with people who don’t mind that your face looks a little like a horror movie while you wear it.

Cost: $29.50 for the BB cream I like, though prices can vary from drugstore cheap to designer brand expensive; $7.50 for my sheet mask, which is possibly $5.50 more than I should have spent, at least according to Meghan and Audrey.

We Want to Believe: A Column About Beauty and Money

Grand total (kind of): $357

Okay, this is the highest-cost scenario, which is not entirely accurate but is definitely eye-opening. This assumes I have run out of makeup and gotten my hair colored at exactly the same time, and paid at the top end of my tipping range on every service. Without BB cream and a visit to the hair salon — a much more likely scenario because it’s not often those two purchases would line up with each other right before a vacation — the total cost of my pre-vacation beauty routine is $132.50, which seems much more reasonable (especially compared to $357, am I right?). Either way, that’s still quite a bit of money.

I suspect I’m not the only one who spends a hefty portion of their paycheck on beauty items. When I spread it out and get one service at a time, it seems doable. But when it comes all at once right before a vacation, it can be a big hit to my budget. Spending on beauty is something I do in my regular life and something I value, so I budget for it just as I’d budget for any other discretionary expense. I’d rather buy new nail polish than an iced coffee, and I’d rather go to the hair salon than go out to eat.

My feelings on vacation are that if you are going to spend a lot of money on a trip, you might as well spend a little bit more to do it right and really treat yourself — without going deep into debt. (Nothing kills a vacation vibe faster than a credit card bill.) If I can’t afford to go on a big vacation in the first place, then I definitely wouldn’t spend an extra few hundred dollars before I even leave the state. I’m also probably not going to go all out for just a day or two out of town. But if I’m getting ready for a big, dream vacation that I’ve saved and planned for, and my beauty routine is a small portion of my overall vacation budget, I feel like it’s okay to spend the money. For me, it’s a treat that I count as part of the whole vacation experience.

This article is part of our ‘Summer Series’ collection. Read more stories here.

Rae Nudson is a freelance writer and editor. She currently has five lipsticks in her purse. Follow her on Twitter @rclnudson.


Support The Billfold

The Billfold continues to exist thanks to support from our readers. Help us continue to do our work by making a monthly pledge on Patreon or a one-time-only contribution through PayPal.

Comments