Ross has said that she packs for “beauty and disaster,” and a sizable portion of her carry-on is dedicated to the latter. She packs a medical kit, along with “anything that will keep me safe from virus and bacteria.”
Her first essential is a KN95 mask. “I’m still this girl,” she told me. “I don’t go into a public bathroom when I’m traveling without ’em. That flush? No, ma’am.”
Ross always travels with a mask. “I’m still this girl,” she said. Tracee Ellis Ross
Ross always wears a KN95 mask in public restrooms when traveling. We like the Powecom KN95, from our guide to masks. It has rounded instead of flat fasteners, which are easier than most to knot. It also comes in an earloop style.
Ever wary of a public bathroom, Ross also carries toilet-seat covers in two sizes, small and large. As she told me, people forget that when you cover the seat in toilet paper, the front bit of the seat is still exposed. “If … your underwear touches that area,” she joked, “it will need to be burned.”
On the plane and in the hotel, she disinfects surfaces with Sono Disinfecting Wipes. She likes their germ-killing properties so much, she joked that she wanted to “squeeze out the juice and drink it in a shot glass.” Plus, she finds the wipes relatively gentle. Unlike other wipes she’s tried, she said, they don’t strip the varnish from hotel furniture.
She also carries a personal air purifier around her neck on the plane. “If it’s stinky … I just sit there and wave it in front of my nose,” she told me, before admitting, “I don’t know if it does anything, but what I can tell you is, it doesn’t hurt anybody.” (We support whatever rituals abate your travel discomfort, but the Federal Aviation Administration “has strict cabin air standards, and studies have shown cabin air is as good as or better than the air found in offices and homes.”)
If you’re taking a rechargeable, er, personal item on your trip (yep, Wirecutter has a travel pick for that, too), you should pack that in your carry-on as well, because of the lithium ion battery. But Ross suggests that you prepare for the possibility that TSA agents might invade your privacy: Pack sensitive items in a beautiful, unsuspecting little bag so that “if anyone goes towards that bag, you know to mentally and emotionally prepare yourself.”
Even if her checked bags don’t arrive, Ross has everything she needs in her carry-on. Tracee Ellis Ross
Ross realizes that her rituals and her time-consuming packing routine aren’t for everyone, but her littlest suitcase has saved the day enough times that her carry-on bag philosophy just might have lessons for us all. Occasionally, even Ross herself needs a refresher. “Every once in a while, when I don’t listen to my own rules,” she told me, “I get kicked in the butt.”
This article was edited by Katie Okamoto and Maxine Builder.
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