Travel
Flight attendant’s smart ‘condom’ hack saved my luggage: ‘This is genius’
Diapers and “condoms” — they’re mile-high must-haves.
The two drug store staples are being touted as top necessities for air travelers hoping to avoid messy surprises and spills in their luggage.
“Pro packing tips,” raved Lauren, of content creator couple @JeffandLaurenShow, in a trending TikTok tutorial. “I learned this from a flight attendant.”
Per the popular post, which amassed over 1.8 million views, the brunette shares several secrets for safeguarding skincare supplies while 30,000 feet in the sky, stacking clothes in a suitcase to optimize space and using baby-undies to ensure that glass bottles of fine wine — aka precious cargo — make it from takeoff to landing sans a crack.
“Tips and tricks for packing clothes, toiletries and more this holiday season,” Lauren captioned the clip. “Hacks for staying organized.”
And swaddling alcohol in pampers will be key for making spirits bright in the coming months.
However, fail-proof packing pointers are often useful to frequenters of the friendly skies, regardless of the time of year.
Geneva Vanderzeil’s legendary 5-4-3-2-1 packing method has achieved viral acclaim amongst on-the-go gals who prefer flying light. Instead of overloading one’s bags with clothes, Vanderzeil suggests toting just five tops, four bottoms, three pairs of shoes, two dresses and one set of accessories.
Fashion influencer Faith Woodhall has, too, recently spared trippers the stress of sneaking over-stuffed bags through TSA checkpoints.
Rather than praying their suitcases aren’t flagged, Woodhall advised vacationers to stash their excess belongings into a plastic sack and grab a shopping bag from a duty-free store in the plane station.
“They’ll think you’ve just bought stuff at the airport,” said the UK reality star in a trending how-to. “[It] always works [like] a dream — never been charged for a second bag.”
Lauren’s hacks, however, don’t involve pulling a fast one over on the airlines.
For keeping expensive toiletries concealed while en route, the airway expert recommends getting a few balloons, snipping off their ends with scissors and wrapping the rubbers around each container’s top. The stretchy material is an impermeable covering that keeps precious goops and creams from splattering.
And while a few gutter-minded critics online dubbed the cut-up balloons “skincare condoms,” others hailed Lauren’s hack “genius.”
She also encourages jet-setters to stand their suitcases upright while packing. The know-it-all demonstrated how easy it is to fit one’s goodies in a bag when clothes are stacked rather than crammed into a carry-on.
But Lauren’s most enticing slice of advice is, indeed, her diaper DIY.
To travel with vino, the crafty globetrotter says strapping a bottle in two diapers — one on its base and the other atop its neck — cushions the good stuff without incident.
Social media naysayers, however, struggle to see the upside of wasting costly baby bottoms.
“I checked the price of diapers and they are more expensive than the wine I drink,” noted a Debbie-downer.
“Use bubble wrap to wrap glass… why waste diapers,” another commented, prompting a separate user to remind that the pampers will absorb any leaked liquid from the bottle.
But a cynical insider chimed in to assure that boozy reward was not worth the risk.
“I work at an international airport,” wrote the doom-monger, “and I wouldn’t recommend having a bottle of anything in my check bags no matter how well you wrap it.”