The Festival Essentials You’d Be a Fool to Forget

After years in absentia due to a certain global pandemic, it’s fair to say that festivals are back, with festival season itself being the highlight of summer for many people (like you, perhaps). As fun as festivals are, however, they’re also a time of great loss. You might, at any point during a festival, find that you have lost either your way, your phone, your friends or your sanity. But that’s all part of the fun. Still, you wouldn’t want to lose any of these festival essentials – that would just be silly.

How are you supposed to remember the festival if you don’t take an abundance of pictures? Sure, there’s your phone, but you’ll want to keep that as fully charged as possible for when you inevitably lose your friends. We’d suggest using this reusable flash film camera instead. Your photos will turn out a lot funkier as a result of it.

Our one piece of beauty advice (for life as well as festivals)? Wear SFP – factor 50, ideally. Long term, it’s the best way to keep your skin healthy; short term, it’ll stop you getting sunburnt. While piling can be a problem when layering SPF over other skincare products and under makeup, it’s not with Ultra Violette’s Queen Screen. As its name would suggest, it’s royally excellent and packed with antioxidants to care for your skin as well as protect it.

It was always ‘rain, rain, go away, come again another day’ until we laid eyes on these iconic Bottega Veneta boots. Now we want it to rain all the time, especially at the festivals we go to.

Festivals are the only time you can legally douse yourself in glitter, so it makes sense to go a bit over the top. What doesn’t make sense, however, is to use non-biodegradable glitter – it’s bad for the environment! Barry M is our current plug for the biodegradable stuff.

You might not be able to summon the strength for a full sun salutation while at a festival but, if you’re camping, it’s worth getting suitable cushioning beneath your sleeping bag – like a Yogamatters sticky yoga mat.

Massive fields in the middle of nowhere can be very cold at night, so it pays to have practical clothing options as well as the cuter stuff. That’s not to say practical clothing options can’t be cute, though – this Patagonia fleece, for example, is clearly very cute indeed. Throw it on for instant cosiness.

So, your phone’s out of battery and your friends are AWOL. You feel miserable. Then, you remember your Motorola walkie talkie. All is well again. So long as the whole gang are on board.

Since they are liable to get very soggy, it’s a good idea to take multiple pairs of socks to a festival. We suggest wearing these in the light of day, though – they deserve to be seen!

By their very nature, there are lots of speakers at festivals. But that doesn’t mean you won’t – like when you’re at home – need one for the ‘afters’. The JBL Go 3 is also waterproof, meaning you can keep the party going even if it’s raining.

Aside from a liberal application of SPF, another suitable form of sun protection (and means of disguise) at festivals is a cap. Of course, if it’s a cool cap, you’re more likely to wear it, which is why we’re opting for this one by House of Sunny.

When showers are far and few between, it makes sense that your hair might get a bit greasy. Luckily, there’s a solution: dry shampoo. And Living Proof make the very best – it’s not called Perfect Hair Day for no reason.

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