11 Style Grooming Tips for the Traveling Man Road Warrior Travel Advice

11 Style & Grooming Tips for the Traveling Man Road Warrior Travel Advice Hi.

Iím Carl Centeno, the founder of this style blog. Iím posting this post in support of my article over The Art of Manliness, 11 Quick Fixes for the Road Warrior. If youíd like to visit the article, make sure you got the link right below this. So, just click on that and you can go right to the article. Iím going to breeze through these 11 tips. Now, if youíd really enjoy this post and you want to learn more about menís style, make sure to comment my my blog right above here. In addition, visit me over at this style blog, got hundreds of articles with Veoh support, mp3 downloads, in addition, weíve got a great email list in which we give away a free ebook and audio download and thatís a great way because we stay in touch. Every week, weíll send you updates right to your inbox. Okay. Right back to the article. So, what are the 11 tips for the road warrior? And who was the road warrior? The road warrior is any men whose job takes him away from home. So whether youíre a banker heading to other side of the country to open up branch or youíre a very specialized mechanic and youíre one of a handful of men who can work on a certain type of aircraft or a certain type of machinery and your company flies you all over the country.

11 Style Grooming Tips for the Traveling Man Road Warrior Travel Advice Photo Gallery

Perhaps youíre ñ Iíve got one of my good friends. He works for an education company. And he travels. Heís always out helping ñ going to different military bases and setting up making sure that theyíve got their programs and really heís the one guy that does this from base to base and he spends probably I would say 60 to 80% of his time on the road. When youíre this kind of a guy, when youíre always out and about you know what itís like to forget things and you have to be resourceful because you canít just be buying, you know, and especially when you already have it at home and you just happen to forget it. Itís one of those things you just donít want all those items accumulating. So these 11 tips throughout being resourceful, theyíre about finding a way and sometimes theyíre going to be about stepping outside of your comfort zone especially when it comes the sewing. Many men donít know anything about sewing but when youíre in that kind of a fix, youíre just going to have to make to. And weíre talking about sometimes maybe a temporary job. So the first one, no shaving cream. Well, lucky for you, soap, conditioner, shampoo, any of those can substitute in the short term for shaving cream. Now, I donít know how your face is going to react and you need to be very careful.

Thatís why you donít want to ñ ideally, if youíve got a meeting, you donít want to be experimenting with new things on your face. You donít know how your face is going to react. But for most of us with no super sensitive skin, weíre going to be able to pull this off because basically we just want to create a little bit of lubricant on the face thatís going to allow the razor to glide up and down. So, you donít have shaving cream, use soap, use shampoo, use conditioner, use a lotion. In a pinch, thatís going to work. In fact thereís, you know, you can read the article, there is ñ there are some men who argue that shaving cream is actually not even ñ not even needed. All right. Hereís zipper stuck. Youíre going to put on your trousers in the morning and you canít get that zipper up, or it wonít go down later on the day and you find yourself in a tough situation. What you need to do, find a bar soap. Rub the bar soap along the ñ along the teeth on the zipper and then work it through. This is going to provide a little bit of lubrication and it should get you through the day.

Now, you donít want to overdo this and you want to be careful when using liquid soaps because you donít want to stain your trousers. Number three, letís say you just arrived in Arizona and all of a sudden your skin is flaking, itís breaking out or your lips get really dry. Well, you need to be carrying with you a little bit of either Vaseline or a skin potectant. And I’m ñ Iím not talking about lotion here. A skin protectant ñ itís a little bit heavier or a little bit oilier. And the reason you want the skin protectant or a Vaseline is that you can not only apply that to your skin but you can also apply that to your lips and itís going to last a bit longer. Be careful if they usually have a little bit of an oilier or a greasy feel so you want to be careful about putting that on your hands and, you know, getting, you know, touching your keyboard or things like that. But that works out really well. And if youíre looking ñ you know, you donít want to carry, you know, a big jar or, you know, a lubricant with you. What you want to do is get an old contact container. You know, make sure ñ especially donít get confuse if you use contacts and just go ahead and fill that with some of the ñ with some of the skin protectant and thatís going to take care of you. Okay.

You get into your hotel room and youíve got an iron but you have no ironing board. Well, all you need is a flat surface and then lay out a towel. So, your bed, a table.. ..a floor. All you need to do is lay out a ñ Iím sorry, lay out a towel and make sure that whatever is underneath can stand just a bit of heat. So you donít want to be, you know, pressing that steam iron and shooting steam right onto a wood table because that could damage it long- term or at least put three towels there but you donít necessarily need an ironing board. The key with this though is to make sure ñ and just a quick tip, pay attention of that iron, you know, go ahead and test that you want to use a white towel because thereís just any type of stain, itís going to get passed.

We start using multi-colored towels or if itís brand new and you could actually pass a bit of a stain and check that iron, make sure that, you know, anytime you use a hotel iron, you want to make sure that itís not damaged or itís not going to leave or mark your actual ñ your actual shirt. Okay. Number five. Your black shoes are scuffed. And so youíre going down, youíre going to be going in your important meeting at the hotel convention center and you look down and you just got a big white mark on ñ on your shoes. Well, the great part is of all the things Iím going to mention, this is probably the least important one because most people are not going to notice that scuff but if it really bothers you, what you want to do is just go to the front desk, ask for a shoe buffing kit. They should have one otherwise, just grab a towel or a napkin and you want to spread because if youíve already been taken care of your shoes and shining them then you should have a build-up of wax and polish and you should be able to transfer that over just had a bit of spit and push that over, you know, you can basically bring in over. If youíre not getting it to move over and letís say youíve got a really deep marker, looks like, you know, itís just white mark going across, I donít know how you might have gotten that but you can ask for a permanent marker. So new shoes are black just cover it up with a permanent marker. Itís going to work in a quick fix and not really do any damage to your shoes as long as you only do this once or twice. All right. Shirt collar is too small.

You go to button up your shirt collar and lo and behold, you need another half-inch, three quarters of an inch. How it shrink, who knows. But there are few options here. Possibly ñ one of the best ones for a long term change is simply cut off the button and re-sew it moving it over about half an inch to three quarters of an inch. You donít want to go more than an inch. Itís not going to look right. The space up here is going to become too large. Now, youíre asking, okay. Where am I going to get the needle and thread to do this and I donít even know how to sew. Well, sewing on a button isnít very difficult. Itís actually ñ a tutorial will be giving soon and getting into more detail. In fact, you go to the article, we should link to it here very soon.

But where am I going to get the sewing kit? Well, go talk to people at the hotel, right at the hotel lobby and they should have one of these little emergency sewing kits. These things are great. Theyíre giving more for free and if youíre a member ñ even if you donít need this, always grab one from a hotel and put one in your luggage, put one in your car, you never know when youíre going to need them. They should have multiple needles, buttons, varieties of thread and those come in very useful especially if you know how to use them. In addition, if youíve got a little bit more time, you could actually stop by a menís store. Sometimes they have button extenders and that would initially ñ another last minute ñ it doesnít normally look as good but you can do it in a pinch is to take a safety pin and use that to close up your collar and then tie it ñ tie right off of that. Final tip, make sure your tie has a little bit more of a spread so like for something like a half half-windsor or a Shelby knot and thatís going to be better than a four-in-hand. A four-in-hand neck is a much more narrow knot and itís not going to look as good when youíve got a little bit bigger of a tie space. Okay. Your sweater is pilling. So this is basically whenever the sweater starts to have a little fuzz balls on it. This happens over time perhaps you just unpack it and you looked at it, your wife washed your sweater or you washed it and all of a sudden, youíve got pilling all over this.

Okay. How do you get rid of this? You wanted to wear the sweater today. Well, youíre going to need at least probably 10 minutes and what you want to do is use a disposable razor and gently go over the sweater with a disposable razor and youíre going to cut this right off. Itís going to take a bit of time. You want to be very gentle but this will work. All right. You have a 20 ounce coffee, just bought it, and all of a sudden that 20 ounces is all over the front of your shirt. Okay. You got three options. Immediately change. Sure youíre going to be late but you donít want to be, you know, upset that, you know, youíve got this coffee stain all over you for the rest of the day. Talk to your colleagues as long as this isnít happening again in the end, theyíre going to understand.

Another option. Perhaps youíre headed to the airport.. ..or youíre in a place where you canít change. Well, look at a pit stop. I mean, is there a target across the street, go to the target, buy a $20 shirt, put it on, youíre good to go, at least youíre a lot better that what you wear a few minutes ago with that coffee stain all over you. If youíve got time and if you have access and Iím talking probably at least an hour, you could actually wash your entire shirt so meaning you have an undershirt on underneath and just take the shirt off, go in to a bathroom, wash it off, put it out to dry, sit, you know, if youíve got some time make ñ hang that shirt out to dry, make sure you find a towel, try to suck as much moisture out of that thing and then leave it up to dry for an hour. Slightly, you know ñ another thing if youíve got an iron, you could actually ñ once you wash it and itís dried out a bit then use the iron on the damp shirt and that will not only youí re going to be ironing it but youíre going to dry it as well.

Thereís also a spot cleaning. Now spot cleaning need to be careful because you donít want to spread the stain out and this is assuming itís a bit smaller of a stain. With spot cleaning, what you want to do is have a white rag and you want to put the stain down on it so the outside of the shirt will be going onto the rag, the rag is down here. Youíre going to use gravity and on the back side of the fabric, youíre going to be applying water with another white rag. And, again, you want to use white because we donít want colors going through and weíre going to be using the water along with the solvent, we look with the cleaning solution. Weíre going to be passing the water slowly through the material. And the stain ñ well, assuming itís just coffee should pass or other hard ñ other ones like blood, other things, well, youíve got blood all over your clothing, you probably have a bigger problem in that stain on your clothing. Okay. Lost waist button. Youíre walking around, all of a sudden, your button pops off. In the article, make sure you go check it out. Weíve got some very interesting ñ I would say very ingenious solutions to this.

But the easiest one is, again, to go to that sewing kit and simply sew it back on. Now, another thing is a safety pin but doesnít always work as well in fact and break off but, again, make sure to visit the article, weíve got some great ones. Iím not going to ñ Iíll leave those one as a surprise. The back of your pants has ripped open. If this happens, okay, itís going to be a bit embarrassing and perhaps youíll need to immediately go to a bathroom or stay seated but it depends on the type of rip as to whether or not you can take care of it right there. Okay. So, if itís just the seam and the seam is actually where the fabric comes together. You can actually grab that emergency sewing kit and a seam looks bad but usually the fabric hasnít ripped, itís just the thread that goes back and forth thatís ripped. So, what you want to do is assess the situation, youíre going to want to tie off both ends using a needle and thread and then youíre going to want to bring the seams back together and re-sew them. This is something that you can do in probably 10 to 15 minutes. Yeah, youíre going to be probably standing in a bathroom or back up in your room with, you know, you ëre going to be ñ not going to have your plants on so youíre going to need a little bit of privacy here. But itís something you canít fix.

And many of you are saying, ìOh well, I canít.î So, come on. We ñ we put the man on the moon. Humans are ñ is human beings ñthereís a lot we can do especially when weíre put into that situation. You can figure it out and, again, check out the article, weíll have a link and weíll talk a little bit about, you know, the basics of sewing and show you a little bit of how to get this done. Okay. Now, if your pants have ripped and itís a rip in the fabric, this isnít a more serious breach because you really canít sew that together. The fabric is actually coming apart or perhaps youíre snagging on something and you just rip those pants right open. Now if you ñ if itís a big enough hole, youíre going to have to get a new pair of pants but if itís a smaller hole, what you can do is go find ñ they actually have seen these rip tape which you can put on the inside and then iron and it will actually seal the whole back up. And if youíre in a pinch, grab an excess piece of fabric somewhere whether ñ look on a first aid kit and grab, you know, a piece of and some super glue. And what you can do is that would actually ñ super glue it right on the inside, give it ñ give it a few minutes to dry. You donít want to be, you know, super gluing your pants to your leg but you can see what Iím doing there.

On the inside, Iím creating a patch, putting it right on there and that maybe able to get you through the day. In any case, this is especially when youíre using a super glue thing, youíre going to, you know, possibly leave a permanent mark there on the pants and.. ..youíre going to want to get a new pair or have those professionally repaired. Last but not the least, you forget your underwear, your socks and youíve only got what you have on. So, every evening that youíre traveling, youíre going to want to wash these. And dry them out as much as possible and hang them out to dry. Then wake up early and put them on and theyíre going to dry quickly on your body, donít ñ donít put them on a few minutes before you put on your clothing otherwise, you know, theyíre going to get your clothing wet.

But give yourself at least a couple hours in the morning to wear your moist socks, your moist underwear, itís going to dry out, theyíll be fine. Okay. 11 quick fixes for the road warrior, hope you enjoyed it. Again, if you havenít commentd, comment up above. And visit me over at this style blog and check out the article over The Art of Manliness. Take care. Carl Centeno. Bye-bye.