Away Clear Toiletry Bag Review

If you’ve ever tried to get ready in a darkened hotel room to avoid disturbing your travel companions, you know how hard it can be to find your face lotion or try to grab your toothbrush instead of your razor in a dark, open toiletry bag. So, you can probably see why opting for a clear toiletry bag can be handy.

Away says they designed the Clear Toiletry Bag to make it easier to find exactly the gear you need without rummaging around a dark pouch. It’s not a simple open dump space, though. They divided it into two for a bit of organization. Does it work as promised? Let’s find out.

External Components

Since it says right in the name that this is a clear bag, you’re probably not surprised that the primary material in use here is TPU. It’s thick, sturdy, and gives the bag structure to protect your gear, from glass bottles of foundation to your favorite handmade soap.

The bag features a trim in your chosen colorway, made from 65% recycled leather and 35% synthetic materials, along with a leather “Away” tab on top. We’re testing Salt White, but you can also get it in Jet Black, Blush Pink, or Cherry Red at the time of this review. The only thing that changes is the color of the trim and the zippers; the TPU obviously remains clear.

The zippers are by YKK and work well, although you have to go through two zippers to get to your gear, which can be annoying at 5 a.m. before you’ve had coffee. Or maybe that’s just us. If it bothers you, and you have enough counter space at the Airbnb or hotel bathroom, simply leave the main zipper open, as the other zippers will hold your gear in place on either side, even if your clumsy travel partner knocks it off the sink.

There’s a leather carry handle that extends to accommodate your hand when you need it and lays flat when you don’t. It’s good that it flattens because it’s on the bottom of the toiletry bag. That’s right—when you carry the bag to the bathroom, all of your gear will turn upside down. Unless you pack it upside down, but then your gear will be upside down when you go to use it, if you can follow that circular explanation. Either way, things can go topsy-turvy at some point if you use the carry handle, so our tester’s solution was to simply not use it. In our opinion, it’s not a great design, but it might not bother everyone.

Inside The Toiletry Bag

The primary zipper divides the Clear Toiletry Bag into one-third and two-thirds sections, so it opens clamshell to lie flat on the counter. Away doesn’t provide any capacity measurements, but the smaller side sure looks like it’s quart (or liter) sized, so we’re thinking that you can probably use it for liquids and leave ziptop bags behind when you hit TSA. However, it’s unclear if having the 3-1-1 size bag still attached to the rest of your toiletries would work or not. We haven’t had any issues, but every security officer in every country is different, so you’ll have to roll with the punches if they ask you to unpack your travel-size bottles.

The smaller side opens with a horizontal zipper on its face, making it easy to load up with travel bottles and other smaller gear. Like we mentioned, though, realize that if you neatly line up all your bottles and then use the carry handle, they’ll jumble up together anyway. So, your choice is either not to let that bother you or not to use the handle.

In the center between the two sections of the bag is an elastic loop to hold a toothbrush, makeup brush, or something else similarly slim. There is a bit of capacity in between the two sections to allow for the bag to lie flat, so it doesn’t push into either side.

The larger side opens with a U-shaped zipper on its face. This area has enough space to hold larger gear, like brushes, or more travel-sized items. We can fit full-size hairbrushes in here, but getting larger items like that inside requires more effort, since you have to angle them under the border of TPU left behind the zipper. That didn’t bother all Pack Hacker team members, but our primary tester would have preferred another horizontal zipper on this side, or for the lid zipper to be against the main zipper. That would have meant that the lid was the entire face of the compartment instead of 7/8ths of it.

In all, the Away Clear Toiletry Bag is good for users who want to see all their toiletries, don’t need pockets to hold gear in place, yet still want a decent amount of space. And those who want a clear plastic bag that looks nicer than a clear plastic bag. We’re not sure that we think it’s worth the premium price, but if the organization and leather trim suit your style, you might disagree.