Ultralight Toiletries for Backpacking
Shaving, hygiene, hair, teeth, toileting, skin, sun and insect protection, laundry, meds and menstruation: all you need to know about lighter toiletries for hiking and thru-hiking.
A memorable LNT (Leave No Trace) wash with a sponge, alpine lake water… and definitely no soap of any kind.
Read on for our one-time only Australian & New Zealand reader gift of TWO deodorant samples! (We receive no payment, kickbacks or reward from this – we just think it’s a good product and approached the company on your behalf).
“Dirty smelly hiker trash!” Many of us have heard the term… and some of us have been it! Anyone who has thru-hiked long distances – for not just days or weeks, but months – knows that staying fresh is sometimes just too hard.
When you’re on an overnight hike or a short one, you get by regardless: clothing and skin can’t get that bad in such a short time.
But longer hikes are different. You find no washing machines on trail. No showers, no bath tubs. Although substitutes like portable showers and bag washers are great for car camping, they are too heavy to carry when backpacking for weeks or months on end.
Not only that, but Leave No Trace Principles preclude the use of any soap, detergent or chemical – even so-called ‘wilderness’ ones – in or near rivers, rockpools, lakes… ie, in or near any natural water source.
The sheer amount of energy we use when walking all day, every day, means that maintaining body weight and stamina is challenging, so every extra gram counts because you carry it for so long. Even if starting with a comprehensive toiletry kit that mirrors the one you have at home, you can bet that every superfluous item will leave your pack at the first town: hiker ‘free giveaway’ boxes are stuffed with unused clothes, gear and especially toiletries.
Resupplying on the Bibbulmun Track in a track town.
As well as food, fuel and medication that you stow in your pack, your first resupply box also contains items used only in towns — mainly toiletries such as shampoo and conditioner, laundry detergent, shaving equipment, comb or brush, and perhaps town clothes. Before you leave town, package these ‘town’ items into a bounce box/padded envelope to post ahead. See long distance resupply planning for more tips.
We’ve seen in our fuel stove articles that the weight of a container is often disproportionate to the weight of its contents. Lighter is always better on longer hikes, and that applies to your toiletry kit as much as anything else.
In this article, we’ll cover
ways to lighten your toiletry kit (omit, reduce, replace, combine)
practical techniques for staying clean(er) and healthier outdoors
Leaving No Trace
Lighten Your Toiletry Kit
This toiletry kit with a standard bag weighs about 894g/31.5oz. This is significantly heavier than our two person tent, so it’s worth shaving weight! How much weight do you think we could shave? We have another image at the end of the article revealing exactly how much!
In our opinion, a heavy toiletry kit is unnecessary for cleanliness in the outdoors. Of course this is highly personal, and what suits one hiker is unacceptable to another, so we’ve structured this article as a series of choices ranging from the most ultralight option to less extreme ways to save weight. Choose whatever suits, but remember that just because you do something every day at home does not mean it is useful, necessary or even beneficial on trail.
We recommend that, as you assemble your toiletry kit, you weigh every item. You’ll be surprised how quickly the cumulative total climbs!
Our small aqua Ultrasil toiletry bag (for both of us) just to the left, pink towel on the rock and a halved car sponge in a ziploc on the same rock. Geoff is wearing his ultralight 28g/0.99oz laundry shorts that double as bathers (see Practical Tips, below).
You can minimise your toiletry bag by:
omitting
reducing
replacing and
combining.
1. Omit
Some of us are grubs and others are not: if you can’t bear to omit something – omitting is always the lightest option – then keep reading for less drastic alternatives!
Certain daily habits are important or essential for health, whilst others are primarily cosmetic or fashionable. When considering which to omit here, we have focused on the latter two. You would not, for example, omit medication, but you might omit laundry detergent. Cleaning teeth is essential for oral health but, for most people, a comb or brush isn’t essential for scalp health – finger combing suffices, at least between resupply towns. Long hair? Mixed race hair? Perhaps a little more challenging: see below for tips!
A hat hides a multitude of follicular sins! A windy day in the Porongurups, Western Australia.
Shaving
Shaving is an 100% personal choice. Just make sure it truly is a personal choice, not one that you feel pressured into for societal norms or for other people, rather than for yourself. You aren’t going into an office. On trail, no one cares!
Daily routines from home change a lot on long hikes. One of the most famous relates to body hair: many male thru-hikers are clean shaven at the outset, but almost all sport lush facial forests at the end! And many thru-hiking women don’t follow the (currently changing) fashion of shaving legs, pits and bits, not least because it can be difficult to do so quickly and hygienically on trail, and because regrowth is uncomfortable when not done regularly. You can easily open yourself up to infection if shaving on trail.
Allowing body hair to grow won’t negatively affect your health; pubic and underarm hair remain on our bodies as an evolutionary advantage to reduce friction in, and to protect sensitive areas from infection.
Shaving equipment – especially electric models – and lotions containing water are relatively heavy components of toiletry kits. Blades need replacement and you have to carry out used ones. Consider leaving them behind. If you’d like to stop shaving while on trail, this article is empowering. Conversely, if you like that smooth feeling, make it a treat when you reach your resupply box on a rest day in town.
Laundry
On the first part of the Bibbulmun track, we carried an elastic no-pegs clothesline that we ditched at the first resupply town. We used it, and it was convenient, but we wanted to shave more grams and so thereafter used tent guylines, bushes and branches instead.
Forget bright whites, it won’t happen on trail with Australia’s tannin-stained water, even with the best whizz-bang product. In any case, you can’t use laundry detergent in any creek or lake. Give underwear, socks and tees a good scrub with water alone, hang them to dry in sun on bushes or the back of your pack – UV radiation is a good antifungal and antibacterial – and accept that they’re going to get a bit smelly between towns/resupplies where you can use the nuclear detergent on the heavy cycle with hot water. More tips in “replace”.
Branches serve perfectly as a clothes line.
Body Washing, Intimate Wipes and Deodorant
Although most of us are accustomed to a daily full body wash with soap or soap alternatives, they are not essential other than for hands and external pubic regions on trail between towns. Their use is so ingrained that few of us are completely comfortable without them but, when thru-hiking, it’s common to carry only enough soap (or hand sanitiser) for handwashing after toileting.
Deodorants or anti-perspirant deodorants are also part of most people’s daily cleansing habits, but nearly all are heavy and they are quickly abandoned by thru-hikers. If you can’t go without deodorants, try light and effective alternatives to conventional roll-on, spray and stick deodorants (see below).
‘Intimate Wipes’ and dedicated vaginal gels and cleansers are fashionable elsewhere, but few Australians buy them: a healthy vagina is self-cleaning and some of these products lead to an increased (not decreased) incidence of various infections. If you use them at home, consider leaving them behind on thru-hikes to give your body the best chance of resisting infection. Many women find that loose pants, merino/cotton gusseted underwear, and going commando at night help keep things fresh. See also ‘replace’ and practical tips for alternatives.
And for all of the above – body hair, clothing, skin – remember that solo hikers not planning to canoodle with partners in their tent need please only themselves, without having to worry about pash rash, another’s sensitive nose, or exchanging more body fluids and bacteria than they’d like!
Towel
Some die-hard gram weenies omit a towel altogether and use their T-shirt or a neck buff, especially in warm climates. Hirsute people may need more absorbency, as will those in cold climates where being able to dry off completely after, say, river crossings or a long, cold, wet day on trail, is important. Look for light weight options that dry fast – see below.
Sunscreen and Insect Repellent
The result of one missed application of bug spray in sandfly (aka midge, noseeum) country: hundreds of bites and weeks of itching. Ugh.
These are often non-negotiable but, in some climates, countries and seasons, it may be possible to omit them. Alternatives are available for both (see below).
Cosmetics
These are by definition unnecessary for physical health, and creams, powders, applicators, mirror and cleansing products quickly add up to significant weight. If you want to save grams, leave them at home, or at least put them in your resupply or bounce box for town use.
As someone who has worn makeup for formal occasions perhaps twice in as many years, I have no qualms about leaving it in a dusty drawer in my bathroom. However, cosmetics are important for some people’s mental health, confidence and/or self esteem. If you can’t bear to go naked into the world, consider minimising and simplifying your routine for the track. Some people choose just one item for their mental armour, such as lipstick, or mascara.
It’s also common for mental health and self-esteem to improve just by thru-hiking because it is such an empowering experience: you’ll begin to accept and be grateful for your body as a useful tool, rather than as an ornament. By the end, you may feel comfortable in your own skin without any mask at all!
2. Reduce
You can reduce by minimising or removing packaging, and minimising the product itself so that you carry only the amount you’ll use.
Conventional toiletry bags are heavy. A small Ultrasil bag serves beautifully as it is light, durable and waterproof (unless fully submerged). Many people simply use a Ziploc as a toiletry bag for short trips, but we’ve found them too fragile for longer hikes. A resealable mylar bag is stronger. Other hikers prefer mesh bags (eg a wash bag) for their breathability.
Our ultrasil toiletry bag (for two people) weighs 31g/1.1oz empty, and our smaller car camping toiletry bag weighs 105g/3.7oz empty.
We place individual items such as tissues and medication blister packs into Ziploc bags, and we dry any wet items (eg sponge) before putting them back into a Ziploc, and then into the ultrasil bag. In rainy weather, we store already wet items in the outside pocket of the pack or inside the pack, but outside the pack liner; our toiletry bag is also always packed outside the pack liner.
Things like lip balm, sunscreen and insect repellent should be easily accessible on the outside of the pack, rather than inside the toiletry bag.
Set of small Nalgene containers with alternate lids (Image Credit: Snowy’s Outdoors)
Rather than taking a full conventionally-sized tube or bottle of toothpaste, sunscreen, insect repellent, deodorant, hand sanitiser, or liquid soap, carry only as much as you need. This means decanting into smaller Nalgene containers, or using mini sample-sized containers such as the tiny toothpaste tubes dispensed by airlines, or samples from dentists. You’ll be amazed at how much weight you save just by reducing creams and lotions, because these products contain a high percentage of water.
Small 70mm x 10mm/3.5”x 4.7” resealable mylar bags are only 1g/0.035oz and ideal for decanting small amounts of creams and pastes.
Small resealable mylar sachets (right) are ideal for creams and pastes. The sample Lavilin sachet (several weeks’ worth of deodorant on trail, up to one months’ worth at home) on the left weights 1g/0.04oz total, and the mylar sachet on the right weighs 1g empty. Transfer exactly the amount of cream that you need from a conventional tub and take only that on trail. Refill sachets from larger containers in your bounce or resupply boxes when you reach trail towns.
We always carry a few extra ziploc bags in our toiletry kit. These can be used for packing out used tissues, toilet paper, or for bagging containers that leak unexpectedly.
Shaving
Choose a light disposable razor or, more sustainably, google mini travel razor for lighter alternatives to standard electric shavers.
Medication
Of course, this does not mean reducing your daily dose, but reducing the packaging! Geoff and I remove outer boxes but prefer to leave tablets in their blister packs. However, rather than carrying an entire blister pack, we cut the packs to carry only the exact number of days between resupplies, plus one or two days spare: we were once forced to keep hiking to a resupply because, although we had a spare day of food, we had forgotten to pack essential extra meds. Give yourself flexibility to account for delays or itinerary changes.
Medication blister packs cut to the correct number of days in a ziploc. You almost certainly know your regular meds’ daily dosage but, if you are adding less familiar extras (eg painkillers), snip dosage information from the box or include the relevant part of the enclosed data sheet.
Although we don’t remove tablets from blister packs, different brands have differently-sized blister packs; some weigh almost half of others. Other brands are packaged in lightweight plastic pill bottles. I found a generic salbutamol puffer that was much smaller and lighter than my usual brand. These weight savings are small, so really only matter if you carry multiple medications and/or on long hikes and thru-hikes with more days between resupplies when every gram counts.
If you do plan to remove medication from its original packaging, ask the pharmacist whether this affects its efficacy or shelf life. Some pharmacists may give or sell you small lightweight air- and water-tight pill bottles, and these are useful for more than just medications. Keep all medication in its original packaging if travelling overseas: customs will definitely query unlabelled pills!
Anti-Chafe Products
Although Geoff and I have never used anti-chafe products, many hikers with different skin and body types swear by them. They are available as powders, sticks or salves and when used as a preventative can rescue a hiking experience. Although powders are lightest, anyone prone to painful chafing should ignore weight and just choose the product that works best for them. Many hikers also add clothing such as bike undershorts to reduce friction. Reader Leon J writes,
“There are two types of chafing product — one type dries moisture, the other provides a lubricated surface. Bodyglide is a lube and preferred by triathletes as even with a wet suit on and swimming in salt water it stays effective. 3B cream is more readily available and cheaper. The B’s stand stands for butt, boobs and between legs. It focuses more on perspiration prevention, but with a little lube as well.”
Other products include Anti MonkeyButt and numerous other brands: just google ‘antichafe cream’.
Lip Balm
We don’t recommend omitting lip balm, especially if you use one containing sunscreen, and so have it here under ‘reduce.’ When thru-hiking, changes in environment and sun exposure are often extremely drying and lip balm is one of those products that you don’t miss… until you really need it. Choose a small chapstick rather than a jar.
Floss, Toothpaste and Toothbrush
Dental floss is very strong — it can be used for all kinds of things — and light. But if you want to go lighter, ask your dentist for even smaller sample- sized packs.
Ultralight afficionados are known for the somewhat infamous practice of cutting their toothbrushes in half. Geoff and I haven’t done this but, for hiking, it’s worth choosing the lightest one with appropriate bristles. Some ordinary toothbrushes are very light: mine is just 11g/0.35oz and I store it in a <1g ziploc, so it’s actually lighter than ‘hiking’ toothbrushes with plastic cases. Airline toothbrushes don’t last long (the bristles start falling out), but it’s worth saving these freebies for short hikes. We’ve had the same issue with bamboo toothbrushes which are famously light, but readers have told us that they’ve lasted on long thru-hikes, so perhaps we’ve just bought a cheap and nasty brand.
Other hikers simply take the end of their electric toothbrush, very light at about 5g/0.18oz.
Left to right from lightest to heaviest:
Blue airline toothbrush with cap: 8g/0.28oz
Pink supermarket toothbrush A: 11g/0.39oz
Airline/hiking toothbrush with case A: 12g/0.42oz
Pink Supermarket toothbrush B: 15g/0.53oz
Airline/hiking toothbrush with case B: 16g/0.56oz
Purple supermarket toothbrush: 17g/0.6oz
Or, buy a hiking specific toothbrush kit (14g/0.49oz) including case plus 5g/0.18oz toothpaste tube, a refillable set or simply google “travel toothbrush’ for numerous cheap options. However, caveat emptor: because travel toothbrushes don’t specify weight, you won’t know until you receive them whether they’re lighter than the one you use at home. Many folding toothbrushes are about 20g/0.71oz.
But wait, there’s more! For dedicated gram weenies, you can buy a thumb brush that weighs practically nothing, and which lasts about a week before the bristles shed. Still too much? Just buy the brush alone: a trailbrush that weighs closer to nothing. It clips to the hole in your long-handled spoon or spork but this review suggests that it’s difficult to unclip and that your macn’cheese can therefore end up tasting like peppermint. For absolute purists, clearly!
Some hikers dehydrate individual blobs of toothpaste to create toothpaste ‘tabs’ – dehydration removes the water component – or, much more expensively, you can buy them as Denttabs. Or google toothpaste powder; check that the one you choose contains fluoride as many don’t. This won’t matter on short hikes but might on longer ones.
Brushing and flossing constitute a significant proportion of the cleaning action of toothbrushing, so you only ever need a small amount of toothpaste anyway; it’s the fluoride in toothpaste that adds the most value.
It’s also possible to refill empty small tubes by excluding air, then pushing a large, full tube hard up against the opening and squeezing in more, or buy one of these nifty double-ended cap tools, cheap overseas but with ridiculously expensive postage to Oz. We’ve always managed to refill small tubes by using our large tubes at home with only a little mess.
You only need a tiny amount of toothpaste.
Left to right from lightest to heaviest (approximate filled weight):
Airline mini toothpaste: 3g/0.11oz
Dentist sample toothpaste: 28g/0.99oz
Travel toothpaste: 45g/1.59oz
Supermarket toothpaste: 107g/3.78oz
Combs
Large comb 16g/0.56g, small comb 10g/0.35oz, fingers 0g/0oz: lighter is better!
Moisturiser
Some hikers experience severe cracking and drying of hands in desert environments. Geoff and I don’t carry moisturiser, but your skin may be different. If you’re not sure, decant your regular moisturiser into a small container, enough to get to the first track town. If you don’t need it, pop it into your bounce box so it’s there for later should you need it.
Deodorant
Conventional aerosol or spray deodorants and anti-perspirant deodorants can’t be reduced, unless you take a half-full container. However, this is ineffective because so much of the weight is in the container (about 33% for roll-on) rather than in the contents. You can cut a small piece off solid stick deodorants, but it’s messy and we recommend replacing your deodorant with a lighter, more convenient cream option (below).
Hair Shampoo and Conditioner
Straight hair usually becomes oily during a thru-hike between washes, whereas bi-racial hair gets too dry. A hat is protective as well as concealing, so has many uses. Consider saving shampoo for track towns, and decanting your preferred leave-in product into a small container for use on trail.
Hair Ties
Hair ties weigh practically nothing; they are also stronger than rubber bands and are an excellent multi-purpose bit of kit.
Insect Repellent
Insect repellents are available as roll-ons, pump sprays, aerosol sprays and lotions, all at different concentrations, so you can choose lighter options. Depending on where you need to apply the repellent (eg on socks against leeches or on face for mosquitoes) and how much you need to use (eg flies vs sandflies), determines which product best suits; we used a small aerosol in Tassie so we could spray clothing against leeches, but took a quarter-full pump spray on the Larapinta. On trips where we expect few insects, we decant a tiny amount into a small nalgene container. Bushman’s is widely used in Australia.
For hikers who prefer more natural products, those containing plant oils can be equally effective, but usually need to be reapplied more frequently.
Products containing DEET damage some plastics; we always store insect repellent inside a ziploc bag on the outside of our packs.
Towels
We have just replaced our original Drylite towels with Airlite towels that at 30g/1.1oz are less than half the weight, and which dry equally well. Other hikers use Chux or a small kitchen microfibre cloth: you can reduce as far as you like! Reader James comments below that he has found Swedish cloths lighter and more absorbent weight-for weight than Chux.
3. Replace
Deodorant
Lavilin 1g/0.035oz underarm deodorant sample sachet
Geoff and I replaced roll on deodorant with Lavilin cream deodorant in tiny 1g/0.035oz sample sachets on the Bibbulmun Track and found it to be by far the lightest option. You need only a raindrop sized amount of cream for each armpit, and it lasts for several days, so that one sachet lasts for several weeks. Once opened, hold the sachet closed with a paperclip.
When you wear the same unlaundered T-shirt for ten days (thereby allowing microflora to recolonise your armpits), sweat heavily in warm weather, and wash only every few days, often without soap or with a sponge with little water, no deodorant is as effective as it is at home. Nevertheless, we were impressed: when used as directed this product kept my underarms almost odour free for about three days on trail, and Geoff for two days: longer straight after track towns with hot showers and plenty of soap, shorter whilst on trail.
Other people will likely find it lasts longer — up to a week — or shorter — one day — than for us depending on their body chemistry and cleansing habits; using the cream for a few weeks at home before the hike alters your armpit microbiome and makes it much more effective once you hit the trail. One reader who uses the product at home told us it kept him ‘acceptably odour-free’ for ten days on trail. The foot deodorant cream is more concentrated and can be used on armpits as well as feet, so is even better for thru-hiking!
Lavilin 1g/0.035oz foot deodorant sample sachet lasts 2-3 weeks on trail.
On trail, I find that a daily pits wash and reapplication as necessary in the evening before I start getting super stinky is the most effective. With longer term use to alter the skin microbiome, and combined with the deodorant body wash (also available in sample sachets) it lasts longer at home, but we have not yet tested this whilst hiking.
As a not-for-profit website, slowerhiking refuses all affiliate links and kickbacks, but we now occasionally approach companies like Lavilin whose products we have used and liked, purely for subscriber offers or prizes. Because they still have limited stock available, Lavilin is extending the offer to all our readers and will send TWO FREE sample foot deodorant sachets with FREE postage to every slowerhiking reader from Australia or New Zealand only while stocks last. One sachet can last up to 4 weeks. If you like the deodorant, you can buy more sample sachets later or, more economically, a tub, and transfer into small mylar sachets.
Reader offer: CLICK HERE
(discount applied at checkout; ensure you have exactly TWO sachets in your cart, because going back multiple times may invalidate the offer!)
Soap
Rather than using liquid or conventional soaps, Geoff and I prefer ultralight travel soap leaves in tiny packs smaller than a matchbox and just 14g/0.49 oz for 50 leaves. We use both the body wash and the laundry wash, the latter daily for Kula pee cloths.
Don’t be misled by the label: Wilderness Wash may be biodegradable but still contains surfactants and other chemicals that can harm aquatic life. As do the dry soap leaves, of course. The Wilderness Wash weighs about 100g/3.5oz, the two pocket wash packs products 14g/0.49oz each.
There is a knack to their use. You must handle the little box with completely dry hands when removing leaves, or they clump together into a gluey mess. Take them out before you shower or get anything wet, and keep the packs dry in a ziploc if storing in a sponge bag.
For the body wash, we place one or two leaves on our sponge or cloth, then pour over water. Fold the sponge and squish around a few times until the leaves dissolve. This takes a little time in cold water; don’t worry if a few bits remain because they’ll dissolve by the time you finish scrubbing.
In his comment below, reader James recommends Summit Suds Powdered soap by Pika Outdoors, a pH neutral option that uses plant-based ingredients and baking soda. It’s lighter than liquid soaps and bit more natural.
Toilet Paper
Culo Clean attaches to any smartwater bottle (Image Credit: Culo Clean)
Yes, replacing toilet paper is definitely possible! You can use a Culo Clean bidet or an 4g/0.14oz Igeous; both fit ordinary supermarket (aka “smartwater”) water bottles. However, to prevent cross contamination — think splashback! — we recommend using a dedicated water pouch or bottle for your bidet rather than your drinking water bottles.
Bidets are ideal for environments with regular water sources and are far superior to toilet paper in terms of Leave No Trace, but are less suitable for dry environments with big water carries. Also, let’s face it: some bums are hairier, and some poos are friendlier, so practise at home to finetune your technique before heading out on trail. Some hikers carry a small amount of toilet paper to blot dry.
Northern Hemisphere hikers are known to use leaves, or even a smooth stone plus a wash, but this is less useful in Oz with our prickly, hard, small-leaved plants, and the many tropical ones with irritating spines or hairs: use only if you can identify poisonous species!
These 470ml/16oz Sawyer Squeeze pouches are light and compact. Fit your bidet to one of these filled by decanting from your drinking water bottles (Image Credit: Sawyer Squeeze).
For people with vulvas, we highly recommend a Kula cloth for pee. The original silver impregnated ones are more expensive than cheap knockoffs but take much longer to get smelly. I carry two on my pack. The one in use is folded closed and washed each night. The following day, use the clean one, closed, with the one used and washed the day before hung on the pack with the black absorbent side open to the sun to fully dry and sterilise. Even with daily washing, they still get a little smelly after four to five days (see laundry below). If you use a bidet for poo, a dedicated Kula cloth is useful to blot dry instead of toilet paper.
Washed undies and Kula cloth drying on my pack on the South Coast Track. The closed Kula cloth in use for the day is on the other side of the pack.
Some people who squat to pee simply shake dry during the day, and clean up with a bits wash at night.
Sanitary items: pads, tampons, period pants or menstrual cup?
Whatever you use, it needs to be carried out. Period underwear is tricky because of the difficulty in laundering well on trail. Tampons and pads both work, but need to be packed out. Tampons with applicators are less common in Australia, and they are also heavier with more trash to dispose of. However, some women prefer not to use a less than perfectly clean finger to insert a tampon while on trail, so choose an applicator version if that’s what you prefer.
Many women use menstrual cups, which are safe and perfectly lend themselves to backpacking use (practise over a few cycles at home first). On trail, simply empty the blood into a cat hole or camp toilet, rinse the cup, and reinsert. Wash it and pour over boiling water once daily to clean. It is by far the lightest option for menstruation when hiking. (Image Credit: The Conversation)
Other women start contraceptive medication, or change the way they take contraceptive medication, so that they completely skip their period while on trail. Of course, check with your medical practitioner before doing this.
If you’re hiking in bear country, store used period products sensibly, but don’t worry about an attack because you are menstruating: this is a myth.
Sunscreen
It’s often difficult to completely eliminate sunscreen, but you can almost do so with protective clothing: long sleeves, pants, sunscreen and a good hat that protects the neck (Geoff and I like this style ).
A sun mask covers the lower half of the face or choose a legionnaires-style hat that has a built in one; a nose guard clips onto your sunglasses. You may need sunscreen on the backs of your hands, although a sun hoody or sun sleeves cover all but the fingers. Or buy sun gloves. Geoff found sun sleeves excellent on the very sunny Larapinta trail.
Insect Repellent
In the Gammon Ranges with a headnet for the flies.
Geoff and I always carry bugnets. You can find cheaper; ours are reasonably light (18g/0.64oz), but newer even lighter options (just 11g/0.34oz) are worth keeping in your pack for when you need them. Some of us are mozzie magnets (me) who are bitten through long sleeved tops and even pants, whereas others are spurned by them (Geoff rarely gets bitten even on bare arms), so whether just a head net is enough depends on the situation, pest and person.
Bug suits are available for hunters but probably not suitable for hiking in.
Towels
It’s possible to buy disposable towel tabs but these are not reusable, and then you are stuck with carrying them afterwards, so we don’t recommend them.
Lightload towels are highly compressed but reusable towels.
Containers
Replace soap containers, toothbrush cases and more with ziplocs or mylar bags. Both can be rinsed and reused for multiple trips. Silicone tubes and containers are actually quite heavy and not a great swap if you want to save weight.
Laundry
Washing clothes in a creek. Ensure it’s downstream of any water collection point, and never use any soap, detergent or chemical when washing directly in a waterbody like this.
As mentioned earlier, we use pocket laundry leaves rather than liquids or powders on trail. Powders decanted into small Nalgene containers or mylar sachets can work too, but remember that whatever you use has to be not only washed but also rinsed away from any natural body of water. We decant a small amount of liquid laundry detergent into resupply or bounce boxes (a supply box that you post ahead as you leave each track town) for use in towns when thru-hiking.
Some hikers carry a tiny dripper bottle of bleach. A few drops added to a litre of water that you use for washing clothing can stand in for soap; its antimicrobial properties mean that your clothes – especially funk-prone items such as socks, undies and pee cloths – will be fresher than washing with just water. However, bleach is concentrated and toxic to beneficial life in the natural environment, not good for LNT. You can also add a few drops to water when you’re washing with laundry detergent, but the same LNT issue applies.
Reader Leon J advises that a more environmentally-friendly alternative is naturally anti-microbial tea-tree oil: add a few drops to a waterproof bag filled with water, add clothes and shake vigorously, stand 10 minutes, then rinse. The wash water is safe to pour onto the ground afterwards.
Mixing your own multi-purpose wash using plant oils such as teatree and peppermint is not recommended unless you are experienced: reader Deanna H mentions the eye-watering effects on sensitive private parts after washing with an overly-concentrated blend!
If funk-free clothing is important to you, rather than washing more frequently, consider different materials such as naturally antimicrobial merino, which now comes in soft, itch-free and cooler options, or silk. Original stinky synthetic polypro has been replaced with antibacterial synthetics that take longer to get stinky… but not as long, in our experience, as does merino. Cotton and bamboo take too long to dry and are cold when wet – not recommended for hiking. Geoff and I therefore prefer merino baselayers, which stay funk free for at least a week, especially if aired overnight.
We have also trialled antibacterial/antifungal Silverlight socks with silver thread woven through the merino, here airing on a rest day on trail (disclaimer: slowerhiking were sent these socks to test).
These socks are extremely expensive so only useful for people (or their partners!) whose feet become particularly offensive but, after one year of testing, we can say that they definitely live up to their claim of staying completely funk free in more than eight consecutive days of all-day hiking without being washed or rinsed, even in environments like the hot Larapinta and wet Southern Tasmania. They have some odour straight after coming out of your shoes and off your feet but, unlike our Smartwool and Darn Tough merino socks, the smell completely vanishes within 45 minutes; we assume the little odour they initially have is residual from shoe and foot rather than from the socks themselves. Like Darn Tough, Silverlight replaces any socks that develop holes.
Shaving
Geoff with souvenir growth towards the end of a camping holiday that included many multiday and day hikes.
Many long distance hikers shave only when in track towns and pop shaving gear in their resupply or bounce boxes. Others replace electric shavers with light disposable ones. Some thru-hikers use or carry a single-bladed shaver (less likely to get clogged) if not shaving daily.
Hikers have variously replaced shaving cream with soap, moisturiser, conditioner, shampoo, lots of water (combined with a wait) and even oil.
Women may prefer other techniques but, whatever you choose, don’t do it for the first time on a long hike!
4. Combine
Soap
Dr Bronner’s soap is popular in the United States.
Dr Bronner’s is a famous, concentrated liquid soap that can be used for washing everything: dishes, body, clothes, hair (somewhat drying on hair), you name it. Wilderness Wash is similarly multipurpose, cheaper and widely available in Oz. No need to bring multiple products, but take care to avoid cross-contamination if washing body and dishes with the same bottle. Decant these small bottles into even smaller nalgene ones with drip nozzles for short trips: a little of these soaps goes a long way.
Sunscreen and Moisturiser
Some sunscreens are moisturising as well as protective so, depending on the location of your dry skin, you can leave the moisturiser behind.
Shampoo and Conditioner Combined
Save those little complimentary hotel bottles! Unfortunately, these combos don’t work for me but, if they suit your hair, then it saves carrying or packing two products.
Buff, Chux or Cloth
Some people use a buff for everything – hair, neck scarf, drying oneself, wiping condensation from the tent. As for soap, avoid cross contamination with foodstuffs: don’t use the same buff to dry body plus dishes or food utensils.
Nail clippers/scissors
Consider using the small pair of scissors in your First Aid Kit to trim fingernails rather than carrying dedicated nail clippers. Toenails should be trimmed regularly on a hike (but not too short!) for health rather than cosmetic reasons; those with toenails too thick for nail scissors can put nail clippers into their resupply or bounce boxes.
Practical Tips
Toilet Hygiene
If you’re at a hut or campsite with multiple water tanks and a toilet (far right), wash your hands at the tank closest to the toilet, and collect drinking water from the one furthest from the toilet.
A microbiologist told us that reports of ‘gastro’ on trail are most commonly through the faecal-oral infection route caused by poor handwashing hygiene rather than by random airborne viruses. Therefore, although soap isn’t essential for washing your body, it or sanitiser is important, not least because we often wash using less water, and overall hygiene is not as it is at home. So always carry enough soap or sanitiser for handwashing, and use it each time. Washing hands before eating also helps.
Reader Anthony points out in his comments that alcohol-based hand sanitiser is ineffective against norovirus and that soap and water is a superior antimicrobial against many viruses, so remember that 20 second hand washing technique we all learned during covid! However, Anthony adds that hyperchlorous acid-based sanitisers are effective with a short time delay, so seek out these ones if you think you might be in environments where they might be needed.
Diving your hand into a communal bag of snacks, lollies, chips etc is a great way to share bacteria with people who may not have the same hygiene protocols as you do. We usually take our chances but, if there are recent tales of ‘noro’ or ‘gastro’ on trail, politely decline such offers.
Here is an excellent video that covers how to poo in the woods, including great LNT principles. We note that in Australia, it’s possible to get compostable wag bags (or use compostable dog waste bags) that Parks say can be dropped into camp toilets on the trail if you’ve been caught short between facilities.
Geoff and I wash a little differently to how is shown in the video. If one of us is available to pour water for handwashing after the other has been, that’s perfect because you need never touch the bottle with dirty hands. If, however, one of us has a night time excursion, or we are washing hands alone, we use a specific technique.
If using a water bottle rather than sanitiser to clean our hands after toileting, we never touch the bottle with the same hand we used to wipe. The ‘dirty hand’ cultural practice — one hand for toileting and the other for eating — is ubiquitous in many countries for good reason, and it’s easy to adapt on trail. Have your paper/kula cloth/sanitiser/water bottle/liquid soap at the ready. Always use the same hand for wiping, and remember to pack out that paper!
When you’ve finished, use the other ‘clean’ hand to open the bottle/pour in a few drops of soap or sanitiser, and wash and rinse or sanitise your ‘dirty’ hand on its own initially, before washing and rinsing both. This greatly reduces the chance of transferring faecal bacteria to the outside of other items, such as the water bottle cap. Bury poo after washing hands so as not to transfer faecal contamination onto the trowel handle; no part of your ultralight 18g/0.035oz toilet trowel should ever touch poo. Geoff and I have never had any tummy upsets on any multiday camping hike, so this method has worked for us for many decades.
Full Body Wash
Knowing we were to be swimming in this pristine tropical pool later, I omitted applying bug repellent in the morning. This was a mistake (sandfly country, dozens of bites): I should have covered up with long sleeves, or applied bug spray and washed it off before swimming. Geoff, of course, had zero bites.
Washing is easy when you have a lake, river or rock pool for bathing, but remember LNT and use no soap or detergent. Before bathing in small, sensitive pools, Geoff and I sometimes get clean before bathing just as you would in public spas: wet the sponge away from the water source to wipe off sunscreen and especially insect repellent such as Bushman’s or Rid. Rinse out the sponge – again well away from the water – before you go in. All of this sounds like overkill, but some of our most beautiful pools are under ever-increasing visitor pressure, and fifty sweaty, grimy people swimming daily in a small pool has a noticeable impact: we had to collect (and treat) drinking water from one very polluted swimming hole on the Larapinta Trail.
The pool at Waterfall Gully on the Larapinta. Many people swim in this pool, whilst others collect drinking water from it as well as from a short distance downstream: not ideal. Flow rate is low, and you can see plentiful green algae filling much of the pool, an indicator of high nutrient (contaminant) loading in the water.
Many Australian trails lack water. On the Larapinta, you’re requested not to use track rainwater tanks for washing. Geoff and I have a technique that works using just a single mug of water and a halved car sponge.
In cold weather, Geoff boils up half a cup of water for Princess Helen. I pour it into a mug and top up with cold water for a lovely warm sponge bath. We highly recommend a halved car sponge because it is far more efficient in holding a decent amount of water than a Chux (7g/0.25oz) or washcloth, even though it weighs more (12g/0.42oz). It also compresses nicely so takes up little space.
Always pour the water from the cup onto the sponge without ever allowing the two to touch to eliminate all chance of cross contamination.
Find a tree or bush for screening; a large log or rock is great to spread your washing items on, or to sit on. In cold weather, you can strip off half at a time: face, head and neck first, followed by torso, pits, legs, bits and feet in that order. You can dry and dress as you go.
Outdoor bathroom with water, halved car sponge loaded with soap leaf, towel at the ready. The small yellow pack to the left of the ziploc is our pocket wash.
Pits and Bits wash
A daily armpit and pubic wash goes a long way to keeping you fresh, especially if done before bed; reapply deodorant paste after washing if necessary. Pits are straightforward, but what is an easy way for a daily bits wash without a body of water?
For people with an anus, vulva, penis, and/or testicles, an easy way to wash those bits is to squat with pants around your knees. Open the water bottle with your ‘clean’ hand and cup your ‘dirty’ hand under your bits. Pour water into your cupped ‘dirty’ hand and wash, with or without soap. Wash hands with soap or sanitiser afterwards as when you toilet. Dry bits with a towel or clean Kula cloth. Two minutes and you’re fresh! Easy-peasy!
For a little more comfort, reader James B recommends an 8g/0.28oz DCF dog bowl which packs flat as an ideal container for body washing.
Hair
My hair was as excited as I was at the view!
Whether you utilise all, some or none of the omit/replace/reduce tips above with combs, brushes and/or hair products, you have more ways to simplify hair care, especially for long thru-hikes of several months.
My shortish biracial hair locks quickly if not regularly detangled. A small silk pillowcase over my Nemo Fillo pillow has been game-changing; others wear a silk turban. A firm hat helps too, albeit with the inevitable consequence of somewhat startling hat-hair! I don’t carry a comb or brush, but a small amount of detangling leave-in conditioner is essential for finger combing. Other people with curly hair use specific styling techniques such as corn-rows, twists, bantu knots or long-term braids to manage hair on longer hikes.
Those with long straight or wavy hair can also braid; some people cut hair short before or during a thru-hike.
Laundry Shorts
Geoff going for a swim in his 28g/0.99oz camo laundry shorts.
Laundry shorts are made of lightweight synthetic materials such as Argon; they’re often used to make sleeping bags so they’re extremely light, weighing just 30-40g/1.1-1.4oz. You wear them when you’re in a track town and all your other clothes are in the wash. They also double as bathers for swimming. If you plan to swim in them in company, we recommend a print version for modesty as the material is so thin and clingy that little is left to the imagination once they are wet!
Ear Plugs
If you plan to sleep in huts as found on US, Australian and New Zealand trails, or in rifugios on European walks, ear plugs are game-changing, and often so light that they don’t even register on a scale ie <1g. There is no point in getting annoyed by the perfectly normal human side-effects of shared sleeping quarters: sleeping people snore, fart and toss and turn on noisy mats. If you’re a light sleeper, sleep in your tent or bring ear plugs. Life is too short to get angry about humans being human!
Spectacle Cleaning Cloths
Although ordinary microfibre cloths are useful, they often pick up oil and sunscreen from your hands, especially on trail. Those with a pattern on one side are preferable so you can use the same side for cleaning. Alternatively, pack just a couple of disposable wipes in sachets to use every few days.
Washing your glasses with soap and warm water, and drying them with a clean cloth, also gets them sparkling.
Tissues
These are optional but more important for those who don’t carry toilet paper, which can replace tissues in most situations. A small travel pack should be enough unless you suffer from hay fever or a cold.
Wet Wipes
Some hikers carry wet wipes but they are heavy because of the water content. Others dry them out at home, then re-wet on trail. However, even the ones that say they are biodegradable are unsuitable for burial or composting toilets, so you have a lot to carry out. Geoff and I have never used them on trail.
Leave No Trace
Yes, even here: washing with a sponge, water… and nothing else! Later, seabirds were drinking from the outflow at the edge of the stones.
And for Leave No Trace, old school rules have changed. Did you know that best practice now includes mixing your poo with soil using a stick and NOT putting a rock on top the buried poo (unless in very shallow soil)? Consider carrying a poo pot, tube or wag bag in highly sensitive environments, even if it’s not mandatory.
If you absolutely must use soap when washing using a watercourse, go for a dip to wet yourself, get out as far to the 100m as is recommended (not always possible in overgrown terrain) and soap up, then use your water bottles to sluice off as much as you can before re-entering the water. The smaller the water source and the less flow there is, the more important it is to do this.
Summary
Here’s that scaled-back toiletry kit, with the three nalgene containers containing moisturiser, sunscreen and insect repellent (concentrated DEET); I forgot to put the pocket soap in the picture but its weight has been included. The original at the start of this article weighed 894g/31.5oz. Saving 10g here, 40g there, choosing an ultralight bag and omitting non essentials like a comb and razor doesn’t sound significant, but all those little bits add up: this kit is just 275g/9.7oz, which is 619g/21.8oz lighter, or one third of the original weight (our new towels drop the weight to under 250g). Ultralighters get by with even less than this!
Omit, reduce, replace and combine ensures your toiletry kit is as light as possible while still meeting your personal hygiene preferences. Although each individual toiletry item saves little weight, the cumulative effect – especially of liquids, creams and pastes – is significant: you need shave only 30g on twenty items and you have saved the weight of an ultralight solo tent!
Do you have any hiking toiletry tips? Please share with our readers in the comments!
