If Only People Were As Reliable As These Fancy Travel Containers

Anyone who has ever had to pack for an overnight trip knows how tedious the toiletry-packing step can be, and how, surprisingly, all those products you cannot part for more than 36 hours can take up so much real estate in your suitcase. Perhaps you are all too familiar with the travel-sized options from your local drugstore or have been using the same reusable travel containers for at least a decade (the very ones you’ve never properly cleaned), but I’m here to tell you there is a highly superior option: Cadence’s magnetic travel capsules.

Cadence’s Capsules are these beautifully designed, delightful little pots suitable for traveling or everyday use. They come in a rainbow of aesthetically pleasing, sophisticated hues — their version of white and black, for example, is sand, a slightly off-white tone, and charcoal, a muted black. All the eight color options look good together, and you can choose to buy them as individual units, sets of the same color, or mix and match any colors you favor. Not only are these TSA-compliant, 0.56-ounce leakproof containers a sensible size for holding at least a few day’s worth of essential toiletries (anything from shampoos to face oils), but they are also designed to hold small ‘things’ that could easily get lost in the abyss of a Dopp kit (rings and other small jewelry, pills, vitamins, packaged contact lenses, and more).

It’s most surprising and exciting attribute that really differentiates them from other travel containers, as practical as they may be: The Capsules stick to each other using some pretty sturdy magnets. This means all your toiletries literally stay clustered together, facing the same way, in neat, perfectly aligned rows that are both space-saving, and zen-inducing. You can simply pluck the entire mass of pods from your bag, lay it on the counter, and see what all your items are in once glance.

Stats

• Price: $14 each pot, $42 for 3, $84 for 6, $143 for 12
• Size: one size
• Colors: 8 colors: charcoal, petal (pink), lavender, sand (off-white), terracotta, pacific, eucalyptus, 7pm (yellow)
• Materials: BPA-free, non-leaching, made from 20% recycled ocean-bound plastic and 30% excess manufacturing material
• When to use: travel and everyday use
• Pro-tip: If you know exactly what colors and labels you want, go for the fully customizable sets. If you prefer a little guidance, they have themed sets (days of the week, skin care staples, hair care staples, etc) available.

The design

On the inside, the sides and bottom of the Capsule are rounded, so there are no angles products can potentially get trapped in. In other words, you won’t find yourself trying to use a too-wide finger to scoop the last bit of face moisturizer you desperately need from an angled corner within, and you won’t waste any bit of product.

The ergonomic hexagonal exterior makes them easier to grip to open and close, especially if your hands are lightly greased up from lotion or other product, and it means the Capsules lock more securely together, than if they were shaped like cylinders.

The texture of the Capsules are are slightly pebbled, which is quite nice, and keeps them from feeling too slippery. Yea, you won’t be disappointed in the “handfeel.”

The label design is truly ingenious. The labels, which are actually removable tiles, come in an array of pre-printed options (or blank), can be customized in any language (for an additional fee of $3), and are also magnetized, so you can easily swap them around if you accidentally put a product in the wrong pot, for example, or just like to switch up the colors for aesthetic purposes.

The colors are soft, matte — to put it plainly, they’re pleasing to the eye. And because they come in so many options, you’ll definitely find some options that suit you. Customers that opt to build their own set can choose the color of each individual Capsule and label, and the specific label. (I, for example, opted to order all my skin and hair care essentials in sand, medicines and vitamins in petal pink, and jewelry in green). With time, you can keep building to your set, and still keep your entire kit cohesive.

The ASMR experience

The sound you hear when you attach the magnetic tile labels or ‘snap’ the Capsules together... it’s the ASMR experience you didn’t know you wanted. Click… click… click... Yes, please.

Pros & cons

Pros:

Easy to clean, travel-friendly, versatile, made from recycled materials, aesthetically pleasing, and reliably leakproof.

Cons:

A bit on the heavy side due to the magnets (not noticeable if you only have a few, but collectively can feel surprising); expensive as far as reusable travel containers go.

The final verdict

Are they worth it? $14 does sound a bit steep for a travel pot when you can find something perfectly functional from Muji, Amazon, or the Container Store for a fraction of the cost, but these truly are in a league of their own. They’re brilliantly designed and really make packing and unpacking significantly easier. They’re much more convenient and a thousand steps up from a simple clear, acrylic pot.

And they don’t need to be relegated to your suitcase. They are great for everyday use. A couple units (hand cream and pills) live in my purse, and it really feels like they hardly take up any space. In comparison, they’re about a-third the size of the travel-sized body wash I find myself buying on nearly every vacation, and a-fourth the size of the reusable shampoo container I used to use. Before, I easily filled two dopp kits when packing toiletries for the family (2 adults and two young kids). After I got a set of Cadence capsules, I probably cut the volume down by about a third. If I had more capsules, I easily would’ve fit everything in one bag.

The TL;DR

I’m definitely buying more.

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