I never would have bought myself a travel kit of toiletries. It’s just not the sort of thing that would ever cross my mind. At home, it’s important to me to have the best haircare products, the best perfume, and the best bath products possible. But when I travel…well, I guess I just have other things on my mind. But my friends knew my boyfriend and I were planning a trip to Hawaii, so as a birthday gift, they all pitched in and got me everything the thought I’d need to enjoy the trip: a cute bathing suit, sunglasses, sunscreen, some good beach reading, and even Harvey Prince’s Hello Travel Kit

 

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My friend Amy was the one who included the Hello Travel Kit, and she wouldn’t stop raving about it. She told me Hello Conditioner was the best conditioner she’d ever used. She said Hello Shampoo was the best sweet shampoo for women—nothing else even came close. She couldn’t say enough about it! As for Hello Shower Gel and Hello Perfume, I’ve never heard her so enthusiastic! (And Amy’s an enthusiastic person, in case that isn’t already clear!)

She said that Hello perfume was one of the best sweet perfumes for women that she’d ever encountered, and that Hello Shower Gel was so fresh and rejuvenating that using it would feel sensual and relaxing. All together, she said, the Harvey Prince Hello Travel Kit contained some of the best beauty and haircare products she had ever purchased online or in person. She almost seemed more excited about the Travel Kit than she was about my trip to Hawaii!!

At the time, I thought she was being crazy. Looking back on it, though, I should have known that she knew exactly what she was talking about. Amy is the sort of person who’s always got the best beauty tips—not the sort of stuff you can find online, but real, personal advice. She does her research, and she’s got a lot of personal experience trying different products. She’s the person who always points me to the best haircare products and the most popular perfumes. Thanks to her, I’d gotten hooked on rose perfume for a while. The pure, sweet scent felt romantic and sexy all at the same time, and I used it whenever I wanted to feel beautiful and sensual (it was a big hit with my boyfriend on Valentine’s Day, of course!). She’s even helped me find relaxing perfumes and soothing lotions—the sort of thing I like to use after a long day at work, or in the morning if I know I’ve got a tough day ahead. Sometimes I think talking to Amy is better than going into a department store or the best online perfume store—she knows everything there is to know about color-safe and sulfate-free shampoos and conditioners, the best perfumes for every occasion…you name it. And everything she recommends is always cruelty free, vegan, safe for pregnant women, safe for kids, and made of high quality ingredients. She really knows her stuff.

So I really should have known when she gave me the Harvey Prince Hello Travel Kit that it was going to be something special. I was so excited about my trip to Hawaii, though, that I didn’t give Amy’s gift much thought (at first, anyway…!).

Of course travel kits can be convenient, but I really didn’t think I was going to need one. I was going to a great luxury hotel and figured I wouldn’t need to bring my own products. But the Hello Travel Kit had been a gift, and I wanted to say that I had brought it and used it, so at the last minute, I packed it along with everything else. Besides, it was travel sized, and that’s convenient. Honestly, I just stuffed it in my bag and forgot all about it.

When we arrived in Hawaii, I was exhausted, but I couldn’t believe how beautiful it was. One look at that extraordinary crystalline blue ocean and all my stress melted away. Before leaving home I had put on the rose perfume and soothing lotion that Amy had recommended a long time ago. (I always use it when I go on trips—it takes the stress out of air travel and gets me in the right frame of mind for a relaxing vacation.) So I was already feeling pretty good, in spite of being tired. But there is nothing like the sight of a Hawaiian landscape to show you what tranquility and bliss really mean. I swear I was breathing more deeply and calmly than I do after an hour-long yoga class, and I had just been on a crowded plane for hours! Just breathing in the Hawaiian air felt sensual and so relaxing.
As our car drove up to the hotel, I couldn’t believe how perfect everything was. The pure, clean air, the still blue waters of the ocean, the perfect palm trees, and the seemingly endless assortment of flowering plants almost took my breath away. I checked in; the hotel was absolutely beautiful.

I was tempted to take a nap, but my boyfriend reminded me that if we did that, we might just sleep through the night after our long trip, so we decided to stay awake and try to enjoy the day fully. We unpacked (I didn’t even bother taking the Hello Travel Kit out; I just left it in my suitcase and stuffed the suitcase into the closet). Then I hoped into the bathroom for a quick shower. I think the best thing to do after a long flight is just to take a refreshing shower and start enjoying your vacation.

The bathroom was gorgeous: exquisite tilework, towels so soft I practically wanted to sleep in them, and a skylight above the huge shower. I thought I landed in heaven. I turned on the shower and slipped in. I assumed the beauty products that had been left out for us in beautiful packaging by the hotel would be the best of the best.

But when I used them, I was so disappointed! The shampoo left a sticky residue. The conditioner dried my hair out instead of softening it! The bar soap didn’t make me feel very clean, and made my skin so rough, even when I slathered on the icky sweet body lotion that had been left out in a perfectly designed bottle.

I can’t even imagine what cheap chemicals were in those haircare products. Don’t get me wrong: the water pressure was perfect, the towels were fluffy, and the skylight was gorgeous. And after my shower, when we ventured out and walked along the beach, the view of the ocean and the soft sand under my feet was incredible.

But when I walked along the beach and looked out at that perfect water, I couldn’t help feeling weighed down by all the gunk in my hair and that terrible lotion on my skin. When the breeze blew through my hair, it felt sticky and heavy. Instead of feeling soft and clean, my skin felt dry and greasy.

It sounds crazy, but surrounded by so much beauty, those cheap hotel beauty products really stood out. In my day-to-day life, I never thought about all the chemicals and impurities that were in them. But in Hawaii, surrounded by so much incredibly natural beauty, it seemed only right that I should be using the best beauty products. You’d think that on such a perfect island, at such an elegant hotel, the bath products would be the best of the best. Turns out all they think about is the packaging. I guess thinking about details like making sure the haircare products are sulfate-free and color-safe, the body wash is of the best quality possible, and the lotion is sweet without being cloying just takes too much time (not to mention money and care).

Of course I wasn’t going to let that stand in my way, and I just enjoyed the beautiful view and the feeling of the clean air on my skin, in spite of all that cheap, sticky shampoo, conditioner, body wash, and lotion.

We walked back from the beach and up through the rambling garden that surrounded our hotel. On our way, we passed a beautiful little tree with perfect white and yellow flowers. Each petal was pure white, with a lovely stain of yellow starting at the center of the flower and spreading halfway up the petal like a burst of sun.

A woman who worked for the hotel was gardening, weeding around the trunk of the perfect little tree. “What kind of flowers are these?” I asked.

“Plumeria,” she said. “It’s related to Oleander. Isn’t it beautiful?”

Beside us was another plant, a shrub covered in beautiful pink and coral flowers. “What about that one?” I asked, pointing.

“Also plumeria,” she smiled. “They come in different colors.”

We continued walking and passed another small tree, this time with flowers that were striking yellow with petals rimmed with bright red. “Let me guess…” I called over my shoulder to the gardener. “Plumeria?” She nodded. Finally she grinned.

“Do they look familiar to you?” she asked. I looked the flowers over. They did look familiar, but maybe that was just because they seemed to grow everywhere around the hotel. “You’re probably seen them before. They’re used in leis,” she explained. I felt a little bit silly for not having realized. Of course. Those were the flowers you always see hung around visitors’ necks as they arrive in Hawaii—we had two of those leis that had been given to us upon arrival and were now draped over a chair upstairs in our hotel room. “You might have heard them referred to buy different names,” she said. “Like frangipani…? Or just lei flower?” I shook my head.

“No,” I admitted. “I had no idea what they were called—but I do recognize them from the leis!”

“Well, now you know where we pick them!” she explained. We thanked her and continued walking to the hotel.

We walked past more plumeria flowers, each in different colors, and the scent was sweet and rich, like ripe fruit. It was divine. Honestly, it was one of the best things I’ve ever smelled in my life—certainly better than even the best perfume!

My nose full of the scent of plumerias in bloom, I went upstairs, changed into my bathing suit, and went out for a swim. My boyfriend sat under a palm tree and read a book. I had the whole pool to myself, and I was looking out over the ocean. It was unbelievable.

I went upstairs with just enough time to change for dinner. Of course now I was covered in chlorine, so I wanted to take another shower. Normally I would just have rinsed off, but I really wanted to get those icky bath products off of me. That’s when I remembered the Harvey Prince Hello Travel Kit that I’d tucked away in my bag.

I unpacked them one by one and lined them up in the shower: Exfoliating shower gel, sulfate-free shampoo, color-safe conditioner, and a sweet body cream to finish. Maybe it was the beautiful surroundings, maybe it was the view of the sky in the skylight above me, or maybe I was just happy to get all those cheap hotel bath products off of my skin and out of my hair, but it was one of the best showers I’ve ever taken.

The scent of the Hello bath products was extraordinary. Sweet, sensual, sexy, relaxing…and wonderfully familiar. Was I imagining things, or did the Harvey Prince Hello Travel Kit smell just like those beautiful flowers I had seen outside? Surrounded by the sweet smell of Hello Shower Gel, I picked up the small tube and read the fine print: “with Sicilian lemon, Spanish mandarin, and plumeria botanicals.” Plumeria! I couldn’t believe it. Leave it to Amy. Of course she chose a travel kit that was scented with the lei flower for my trip to Hawaii. She really does know the best beauty secrets…and the best gifts.

After I had washed my hair with the sulfate-free and color-safe shampoo and used the sweet conditioner, I picked up the shower gel. I didn’t have a loofah or a sponge with me—who has room for that in their bag? Now that I was surrounded by the sweet smell of plumeria and the clean feeling of Hello shampoo and conditioner, was I really going to have to resort to that sticky little bar of hotel soap I had used earlier?

That’s when I saw the words “Liquid Loofah” written on the shower gel. Harvey Prince really thought of everything. (And so did Amy.) Of course it’s not convenient to travel with a loofah, so their fragrant and relaxing shower gel is designed to go right onto your skin. After I had showered, I dried myself off with the big fluffy white towel. I rubbed some of the fragrant body lotion over my body and picked up the one remaining item in the Travel Kit.

Now here was something that’s never provided by the hotel, no matter how elegant it is: Perfume! I sprayed some into the room and walked through it, letting the tiny scented drops fall gently on my skin. Maybe it was just my imagination, but it felt clean and pure. It’s no surprise that this sensual, sweet perfume was vegan, cruelty-free, safe for pregnant women, safe for kids, and made of pure ingredients. That’s just the way it feels when you put it on your skin. It doesn’t feel like scented chemicals. It feels natural. Just the way I wanted to feel in Hawaii, surrounded by so much natural beauty.

With each sweet spritz of Hello, the scent of fresh Meyer lemon, wild verbena, and Satsuma mandarin dances with dewy pink plumeria and summer forsythia. Hello, is uplifting, refreshing, and heavenly. Addictive Tahitian vanilla and the sensual musk in Hello, awakened my senses to the beauty all around me, especially right here in Hawaii. Through its amazing scent, I instantly knew that the best essential oils and natural ingredients were used in making Hello. Without a doubt, Hello perfume is the best fragrance for women.

I fell in love with how Hello made me feel more and more beautiful with each spritz. I waltzed around the bedroom as a goddess and with each step I took, I felt more and more capable of taking over the world! Hello perfume was not only able to transform my outside world, but I felt like it was bringing out the most beautiful parts of me—the best of me—making me shine from within.

I almost wanted to call Amy up right then and there to thank her. Of course I didn’t. I had a dinner to go to and a long moonlit walk on the beach to take. The feeling of peace and relaxation that came over me as I stepped outside into the beautiful night air, surrounded by the scent of the plumeria trees, was almost beyond describing.

Of course I had fallen in love with Hawaii the second I stepped off the plane. But the Hello beauty products had taken things to the next level. Finally, the products I was putting on my body and my hair felt as clean, natural, healthy, safe, and exquisitely beautiful as my surroundings.

As we stepped outside the hotel, I inhaled deeply, breathing in the plumeria flowers. I felt my boyfriend inhale, too. I thought he was smelling the flowers, but he wasn’t—he was smelling me! He smiled a little sheepishly.

“What is that sexy perfume?” he asked.

I wanted to tell him it wasn’t just perfume! He was smelling sweet shampoo and conditioner, relaxing shower gel, soothing body lotion…and sensual perfume.…

I didn’t bore him with all those details, though. I just smiled at him and said, “It’s called ‘Hello perfume.’ Amy gave it to me. You know Amy. She’s always gets the best haircare products, the best popular perfumes…”

“She’s the one who suggested that Valentine’s Day rose perfume, right?” he asked.

“That’s the one,” I smiled.

“That was a sexy perfume, too,” he said. “But I guess every perfume is sexy on you.” I kissed him.

“Now let’s see what the moon looks like over the ocean,” I said.