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One of the issues I've had, now that I'm starting to appear on camera a bit more, is creased clothes.
No matter how I pack them, my clothes always emerge from my suitcase looking like a letter an irate Regency lord has scrunched up and furiously cast aside.
As a slightly crumpled journo I never knew how travel Instagrammers looked so fresh on their trips. Then I went on holiday with an immaculately dressed friend of mine. On the first day she took one look at me in my sad creased dress and said, "do you want me to steam that for you?"
I watched her whip a snazzy blue travel steamer out her suitcase, hang my dress off the back of a door in our tiny studio apartment, and whoosh every crease out in seconds. I ordered her exact one off Amazon the next day.
I now take it on every trip with me – a total of 11 so far. One of the best things about it is how portable it is. The Amazon listing claims it's one of the smallest and lightest portable steamers on the market, which I can absolutely believe.
To use it, you fill a detachable compartment with water. It's all really simple – you fill it, clip it back in, switch on, and go.
Please enjoy this GIF of me satisfyingly clicking the water compartment back into place.
I can hear you saying though: why a steamer? Why not just get a travel iron? Or ask to borrow one from the hotel?
The first reason is clothing damage. There's a lot less risk of damaging clothes with a steamer than with an iron! Especially if there's delicate fabric like silk involved. The steamer also comes with a special protective head for more fragile fabrics.
The second reason is that steamers don't need an ironing board. So there's no faffing trying to manoeuvre a board around in a tiny room – if you're even able to get access to one (a lot of accommodation I've found actually doesn't have an iron). And this particular steamer can be used at literally any angle. You can use it to iron flat or steam upright. It even works upside down!
Here are some before and afters (taken on a recent trip to Crete) so you can see how effective it is. This is an extremely crumpled shirt I plucked from a pile. In case it's not already obvious, I am not a tidy person at the best of times and especially not on hol 😅.
The steamer creates a strong stream of continuous steam for about ten minutes, which I've found is plenty of time to do two dresses or a top and trousers before I need to refill the tank. Essentially it's ideal for steaming your 'fit for the day before you get dressed.
Here's the comparison:
Look how satisfyingly smooth it is! And this was with only a pretty light go over!
Here's the difference it makes on a more delicate silk skirt too:
If you need any more convincing on how good this steamer is, just take a look at this before and after. This took all of 30 seconds to do.
In short, if you want to make sure your carefully selected outfits look as amazing as they should do in your holiday snaps, this steamer is The Key.
It's easy to carry, super effective, and has made all my outfits look like I've pulled them off the hanger in a shop, not out my messy suitcase.
To finish my case, I present Exhibit A: my freshly steamed birthday dress on my 30th birthday trip to Marrakech (postponed by two years thanks to the pandemic).
