Your 2025 Festival Beauty Essentials Checklist

If selecting your favourite glitter, face gems and instant tan for a festival ranks higher than buying a tent and sleeping bag, you’ve found the right checklist. As important as those practical purchases are, the beauty essentials are just as necessary to keep your skin, body, and hair looking and feeling its best.

We’ve covered all bases when it comes to festival essentials, from bronzing body care and glittery makeup, to haircare saviours and fragrance must-haves. Scroll to discover our top festival beauty essentials that will see you through the festival rain or shine… because you really never know.

Is it really a festival look if you aren’t covered in colour, glitter and gems? Colourful festival makeup is one of our favourite ways to experiment, and we always dive into an ultra-pigmented By BEAUTY BAY colour palette to get creative with. Glittery eyeliners and shimmery finishes pair perfectly with bold and bright hues too, taking your festival looks to the next level.

Underneath all that colour and creativity, you need a good makeup base to hold your festival glam. Long-lasting foundations go the extra mile to keep your skin looking even and balanced throughout the day. If you prefer something lighter, we recommend a dewy skin tint that can be reapplied throughout the day. And of course, a setting powder that gives the skin a luminous, silky finish and keeps everything in place, like the Huda Beauty Easy Bake Loose Baking & Setting Powder.

After all that effort you’ve put into your creative festival makeup, there’s nothing worse than it sliding off before the second headliners even performed. A tacky primer for your makeup to cling onto goes a long way to prolong wear-time and ensure it doesn’t budge. And a solid setting spray is an absolute must to seal your look in place and keep it in top form for as long as possible.

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, SPF will always be one of the most important beauty festival essentials. A solid, broad-spectrum SPF is a crucial step of your skincare routine, especially if you’re outside for hours. We recommend packing a small face SPF and a small body SPF along with your usuals, so you can easily pack them into your bag. 

It can be easy to forget about your skincare routine when you’re on the go, but festival skincare routines are a necessity. Those festival makeup looks, layers of SPF, and impurities need to be removed at the end of the day to keep your skin clean, nourished, and less prone to blemishes. We recommend bringing an oil-based cleansing balm that can be easily washed away with a muslin cloth or cleansing pad. A face mist is also a must-have to keep your skin hydrated and refreshed in the sun and throughout the day.

Glowing skin is always a win during festival season. Bronzing, shimmery products are top of our festival essentials checklist, like bronzing drops and body oils as they’re super easy to apply on the go. That golden glow is made possible with a touch of fake tan too, of course, and we love the Loving Tan 2 Hr Express Deluxe Bronzing Mousse as it gets to work almost instantly. So any urgent top-ups are stress-free. Hygiene at festivals can be a tricky one to navigate. So we recommend a trustworthy, rebalancing, deliciously scented deodorant like one of Sol de Janeiro’s.

If you want to know how to smell good at a festival, the key, other than personal hygiene, is a long-lasting fragrance. Sol de Janeiro are the GOATs of delicious, viral perfume mists that have the scent of summer all bottled up. Available in mini sizes, they’re perfect for popping in your backpack or bumbag to come along for the ride. Mini eau de parfums are ideal festival fragrances too, as you might not want to take your full-size expensive bottles with you.

Hot showers may be limited at festivals, but that doesn’t mean our hair has to suffer. Heatless curlers have had a moment for a reason, because they get the job done. Comfortable enough to sleep in, even in a tent, pop yours in and wake up with fresh curls. If you’ve got natural curls you want to maintain, one of our favourite festival hair ideas is a simple spritz of water and a curl cream to define, refine, and lock in your curls. Hair oils will also help keep your festival hair in check, working to smooth flyaways and unruly texture as well as keep your strands in healthy condition.