Posts Tagged stocking stuffers
Collar Card for the Business Traveler’s Wallet
If I had a dollar for every collar stay I’ve lost over the years, I’d have enough to buy a nice new dress shirt. Spares are not something I would ever remember to pack though, so I like the idea of this Collar Card you can just stick in your wallet or your computer bag.
The Collar Card is the size of a credit card but a bit thinner. It contains four pop-out collarstays that you stick into the collar of a dress shirt. The stays are the standard size and are a neutral color on the back so they won’t show through the shirt. At only $1.99 for a card or $4.99 for a three-pack this product is simple, cheap, and effective. I put one in my wallet before my last trip and sure enough, when I unpacked I found one collar without a stay. I put one of these in and was good to go.
If you are ordering any swag for a trade show or other handout situation, you can order these imprinted with your logo and a message. You can give people something useful instead of something they’ll toss when they get back to their room.
To order, go to www.collarcard.com
Posted by Tim L. in Business Gear, Travel Light on November 19th, 2009
Camper’s Soap-to-Go from Angie’s Suds N’ Such
Here’s a handmade product that’s ideal for fans of sleeping in the outdoors: Camper’s Soap-To-Go. Made by crafty mom Angie, this solid product comes in its own push-up plastic tube. The twist on/off cap ensures it won’t make a mess of your toiletry bag or backpack. It’s more sanitary, more convenient and less messy than a bar of soap in a plastic container or Ziploc bag. The solid soap is also a bonus if you’re flying with only carry-on luggage and have little room in your quart-size bag of liquid toiletries.
I used this tube o’ soap while bathing in the lake during a houseboating trip to Lake Powell this summer, as well as while showering in a campground bathhouse. Honestly, in both places (makeshift natural bathtub and shower) the soap is hard to get sudsy. With a bar of soap, you can rub it around in your hands to make suds, whereas with Camper’s Soap-to-Go and the small amount of solid product that sticks out from the tube, it’s just difficult to get those suds going. I found it a bit easier to make suds when I scraped some of the soap off with my fingernail and had a small bit to rub around in my hands.
Ingredients include coconut oil, safflower oil and palm oil, so it does feel very moisturizing on my skin. Essential oils of citronella, lavender and black pepper are also present, and I definitely smell the citronella the most — all the better, I suppose, to blend in with the typical scents of a campsite.
Each push tube retails for $3.75, and you can buy refills for $2. Angie also sells Soap-To-Go in 50 (!) other scents — from bubble gum to key lime pie to root beer — as well as super-cute novelty items for kids, such a soap shaped and colored to look just like pizza, popcorn and cupcakes. I think any of these soaps would make great stocking stuffers. View all of the products on Angie’s Suds N’ Such online.
Posted by Kara in Travel Light on October 9th, 2009
Starbucks Debuts Via Ready Brew Instant Coffee
It’s n0t only “Be Kind to Editors and Writers Month” and “National Chimney Safety Week,” (I swear I am not making this up), but it’s also National Coffee Day. Starbucks took advantage of the media buzz about this “national holiday” to roll out it’s brand-new, instant coffee: Via Ready Brew — available beginning today at the 10,000+ Starbucks stores throughout the country.
My buddy SoCalGal over at The Vacation Gals, who is a freak fan of Starbucks, got a sneak peek of the product as one of the company’s “Beta Tasters.” She gave me some to sample when we were together at a conference in North Carolina this weekend. While I don’t think it compares to a fresh-brewed cup of regular Starbucks coffee, it is a world above the weak coffee packets that are typically found next to the four-cup coffee maker in most hotel rooms these days.
You know what I’m talking about — those coffee-in-its-own-filter discs, that when brewed, turn out a drink that’s not much more than hot brown water. I typically fill the hotel coffee pots no higher than the “3 cups” line in an attempt to get a decent brew. But with Via Ready Brew this weekend, I just ran water through the coffeemaker to heat it up and poured it over the “microgrounds” of coffee, stirred, and added my non-fat dried milk (I hate those packets of coffee creamer, too).
Indeed, I found my mug of Colombia Via Ready Brew refreshingly strong with a slight nutty flavor. Starbucks says it makes this product with highest-quality arabica beans, which are ground finely and therefore “fresh roasted” flavors and aromas are fully preserved. Indeed, my cup up instant joe smelled like coffee should.
At $2.95 for a three-pack of Via, sold at Starbucks nationwide starting today, the product is not inexpensive — and it certainly costs more than Folgers crystals or Nescafe instant coffee (of course, it tastes better, too). I would not hesitate to buy some to bring along on my next trip. The slim, four-inch-long packets are made for slipping into a purse or pants pocket — super-easy transport. Not only is Via Ready Brew infinitely superior to most hotel-room coffee offerings, but it would be great to use while camping or even on the plane (ask for hot water, and voila, a fabulous cup of coffee). You might even find some already on your next flight: Starbucks says that starting October 25, Via will be available on select United routes.
Via comes in two roasts: medium Columbia, which I tried, and bolder Italian Roast. Keep an eye out for Via at your local Starbucks later this week, when participating shops will offer free taste-test samples, October 2-5.
Posted by Kara in Travel Light on September 29th, 2009
LUSH “It’s a Wrap” Travel Case, Plus Solid Shampoos, Body Butters & Massage Bars
I fell in love with LUSH fresh handmade cosmetics when one of its brick-and-mortar stores opened about a half hour from my home town. Not only is the shop stocked like a farmer’s market — spherical “bath bombs” stacked like apples, wedges of “bubble bars” displayed like cheese, and signs written on traditional chalkboards — but the the products themselves are made with natural ingredients and minimal preservatives. Each item is fresh and made by hand — each has a sticker showing a cartoon image of its maker, as well as his or her name and the date it was created.
While LUSH sells everything from dusting powders, facial creams and skin cleansers to body scrubs, lip balm and henna hair dyes, there are a few items that are particularly good for travel, namely solid products that you can carry with ease in your through airport security checkpoints — leaving more room for liquid toiletries in your quart-size bag. If you pack them in your checked luggage, you don’t need to worry about liquid spills.
For example, I just sampled the Godiva solid shampoo ($9.25)for the first time. I was totally skeptical at first, but this little bar suds up plenty when you rub it in your hands under water. It has the most magnificent scent, too, and my hair literally felt squeaky clean (yes, it squeaked as I rinsed it). It’s chock full of moisturizing goodness, like shea butter and macadamia nut oil, but absolutely doesn’t leave your hair greasy.
The Godiva solid shampoo is also filled with little bits of flowers and leaves (not unlike many of the LUSH products), and as my daughter pointed out, “Why would they put twigs in the shampoo; aren’t you trying to clean your hair?” But, frankly if any little bits of natural goodness ended up in my tresses, they’d likely fly out in the drying process anyway. (More likely, they got washed out in the shower.)
Another favorite solid product from LUSH is the massage bar — instead of pouring oil into your hands before you rub a loved one down, you let the bar melt a bit in your hand to release the cocoa and coconut butters the comprise the bulk of each bar’s ingredients. My husband and I have tried quite a few of these out over the years. Our least favorites include glitter that gets all over the bedsheets and is hard to remove in the shower (sending your husband to work in the morning with glitter on the back of his neck is not cool). Then there’s the Wiccy Magic Muscles Massage Bar that is meant too soothe away aches, but contains little aduki beans that, as the bar melts, end up all over the bed, too. I’d recommend the straightforward, no-frills Business Time ($8.95; pictured right) or Each Peach (and Two’s a Pair) Massage Bars.
Finally, the solid body butters are meant to be used in the shower to moisturize, and some of them have exfoliants in them as well. They aren’t really cleansers — no sudsing involved — so I’d still use some sort of soap to get clean 
before using a body butter like Buffy Body Butter ($10.75), which smells oh-so-good (I think the lavender scent should be a LUSH solid perfume). The body butter also has ground rice, almonds and aduki beans that work as a gentle scrub.
If you purchase a solid shampoo, body butter and massage bar, and want to travel with them, check out the It’s a Wrap organic-fair-trade-cotton carrier that comes with tins to hold each of the three products. It costs $12.95 and can be purchased at the LUSH website. While you’re there, click around to all the different irreverently named products, and check out the very active forum. LUSH has some very loyal fans, and they don’t hesitate to share what they like and “luv” about different LUSH items.
Posted by Kara in Travel Light on September 4th, 2009
Frais Hand Sanitizer
Since having children, I always carry a travel-size bottle of hand-sanitizer — whether I’m taking a plane ride cross-country or driving to the grocery store. Moms know that children tend to touch everything and then stick their hands in their mouths constantly.
My brand of choice has always been whatever is cheapest — and usually that means the grocery store brand, like the little sample-sized Kroger bottle that sells for 99 cents. (Purell is a close second, but only if it’s on sale.) I’m not that picky when it comes to killing germs; so the hand-sanitizer gel that smells like alcohol and dries my hands doesn’t really faze me.
That is, until I tried a a luxurious product on the market: moisturizing, aromatherapeutic Frais. Infused with 8 essential oils, from grapefruit to tangerine to ginger, Frais smells delicious. Its active ingredient is sugarcane alcohol, instead of generic rubbing alcohol, so it’s more moisturizing than other standard brands.
Plus, the company is environmentally friendly, with manufacturing taking place in a Sydney-based wind- and solar-powered factory. Apparently sugarcane alcohol is more energy efficient to produce than grain or corn alcohol, so the company preserves some of earth’s resources that way, too. A portion of proceeds from Frais sales goes to Just a Drop Foundation, which brings clean water to communities around the world.
I found the Frais hand sanitizer a bit stickier than my usual no-name brand. But once it evaporated on my hands, that residue feeling went away. As I said, I think the perfume-y scent is heavenly. While my husband called the scent too “girly” and “fruity,” my children — ages 7 and 9 — liked it. So if that encourages the kiddos to want to use hand sanitizer more often, then this mom is a fan.
The kicker: the product is not cheap. It retails for $7 for the 1.7-ounce container. Mini, smaller-than-lipstick-size .2-oz containers are $3.50. I’m not sure I’d go out of my way to order the product online, but I wouldn’t hesitate to buy it as a gift for a female traveler who appreciates the finer things in life. (Nor would I turn it away if someone bought some for me!)
Buy Frais online or at a handful of salons in cities like New York, Miami and Los Angeles. See the Frais website for details.
Posted by Kara in Kids and Family, Travel Light on May 22nd, 2009
