Travelon Compact Hanging Toiletry Bag Review

We don’t always hang our toiletry bag when traveling, but we do like having the option. You never know when you’ll be sharing a tiny cruise-ship bathroom or balancing your gear on the edge of a hostel sink while you try to get ready. So, we were intrigued to try the Travelon Compact Hanging Toiletry Bag. Would it give us a great big bang for just a few bucks, or would we be left wishing we had paid a little more for higher quality? Let’s dive in and find out.

External Components

The Travelon Compact Hanging Toiletry Bag has a 1.5L capacity, so it won’t take up much space in your travel backpack. It has a ripstop polyester exterior for lightweight durability, with a polyester liner that wipes clean pretty easily. There’s also a bit of stiffness in the ridges encircling the front and back of the kit, presumably to provide a little structure. However, there’s no foam padding or anything other than a double-thickness of polyester between your toiletry gear and the outside of the bag, so it’s quite flexible.

That has its perks, as it’s easier to use the unbranded zipper to close it after you’ve filled all the pockets. However, it also has its downsides. Namely, that we wouldn’t want to stow something breakable inside, so we’re decanting foundation and perfume from glass into plastic or metal travel bottles. We’ve had fragile makeup containers and lids break on us before, and we don’t trust that the Travelon Compact Hanging Toiletry Bag has enough protection to prevent that from happening again.

There’s a Travelon “T” logo in the corner of the bag’s front, along with a Travelon label. There’s also a very tiny loop on one end of the back where you could presumably hang it on a really tiny hook? We think it may be more of a nod to how the toiletry bag hangs on a hook at the store, not for actual use. You can’t even slide a finger through it, so it’s definitely not a carry handle. As such, you must simply grab the kit’s exterior when pulling it out of your travel bag or heading to the bathroom.

The zipper you use to open the bag has a cord with a plastic end woven through the metal pull. That makes it easier to open and close the bag, especially if you just used lotion and have slightly slippery fingers.

Inside The Toiletry Bag

Since there’s nothing else to cover on the outside, it’s time to open up the Travelon Compact Hanging Toiletry Bag and head inside.

It opens to reveal three main sections for your travel toiletries, topped with a plastic hook for hanging it so it doesn’t take up counter space. The hook is simple and looks like the top of a clothing hanger, but it’s not very large, and it doesn’t swivel. We couldn’t fit it on a shower rod, but we could hang it on our towel rack, and it should fit the hooks on the back of most hotel bathroom doors. You’ll want to take advantage of that if you can, because it otherwise will take up a lot of counter space if you leave it open as you get ready in the morning.

The topmost pocket is a zippered mesh one that’s narrower than the other two sections—which span the width of the toiletry bag—but about as tall. It’s a good size for a bar of soap or a makeup compact, but you’ll want to know that it gets sandwiched between the two sides of the bag when you fold it in and zip up the toiletry bag, so don’t put anything breakable here. Frankly, you want to avoid putting anything breakable inside this Dopp kit at all, since, as mentioned above, it lacks any protective structure.

The center section contains three stretchy mesh pockets topped with elastic. We use them to hold bottles and containers of liquids and creams upright, but the center one is a bit wider and can fit a bar of soap if you prefer.

Finally, the bottom section, which is the back of the bag, is a large zippered mesh pocket to hold everything you couldn’t fit anywhere else. It’s the only spot for long, skinny gear, like toothbrushes, hair brushes, and the like. We ended up using it for that gear, along with toothpaste and floss, and our razor, although we don’t love putting a toothbrush near that other gear. There’s nowhere else to slide it in this toiletry bag, though, so we made sure to face the brush heads in opposite directions to avoid getting hair on our toothbrush.

If you’re a super minimalist packer and on a budget, or you know the place you’re going has shampoo, soap, and other supplies so you can cut down on your carry, the Travelon Compact Hanging Toiletry Bag might work for you. Our tester couldn’t fit many of the toiletries she often travels with inside, such as makeup, deodorant, feminine products, and the like, but not everyone brings as much grooming gear. However, we don’t think this toiletry bag will last forever. There are many loose threads all around the bag, and the materials overall just feel really cheap. We miss having any sort of structure or padding to protect our gear, but not everyone cares about that. So if you’re looking for an inexpensive way to get a few bottles and brushes where you need to go, and you want to hang it when you get there, it might be right for you. We’d rather spend a few extra bucks and have something that works better for us and will last longer instead.