Quick Answer
The rule you are buying your way out of, not the products
Most packing guides sell solid toiletries on weight and plastic. The real argument is jurisdictional: two of the biggest aviation markets now screen liquids differently, and you do not get to choose which one screens you on the way home.
TSA has not moved. gov.uk has, partly, and only at some airports. A 100 ml-compliant liquid kit still works everywhere, but a kit sized for a 2-litre airport does not, and nobody repacks their wash bag in a departures hall. Solids sidestep the question entirely, because the rule does not reach them.
Skip this page if you only fly domestic US routes with checked bags. Everything below is for the carry-on traveller crossing between two security regimes in one trip.
Four bars in one box: two shampoo and two conditioner formulas, so you find the one your hair likes before you commit to a full-size bar. A solid bar is not a liquid, gel or aerosol, so none of it counts against the 100 ml limit. Tin or draining case sold separately, and you need one.
Check price on Amazon Live price on AmazonA single 3.5 oz (99 g) bar, the size that replaces a bottle without eating a wash bag. Rosemary and biotin is Kitsch’s best-selling single bar and the one to rebuy once the sampler tells you which formula suits you.
Check price on Amazon Live price on Amazon2.1 oz (60 g) conditioner bar. Conditioner is the half of the pair that most people miss when they switch, and it is also the half that decides whether a shampoo bar feels like an upgrade or a punishment on long hair.
Check price on Amazon Live price on AmazonChewable tablets you bite, then brush with a wet brush. Amazon’s best-selling toothpaste tablet by a wide margin. Deliberately fluoride-free, which is the one thing to check before you buy: if you want fluoride, the Unpaste tablets below are the same format with it.
Check price on Amazon Live price on Amazon125 tablets in a compostable pouch, with fluoride. At two tablets a day that is roughly 62 days of brushing, so one pouch covers a year of short trips. The fluoride option in a category that is mostly fluoride-free.
Check price on Amazon Live price on AmazonA 1.5 oz (42 g) solid mineral salt stick, applied to damp skin. Solid is the word that matters at the checkpoint: a stick is not a liquid, while a gel or roll-on deodorant is, and has to go in the quart bag.
Check price on Amazon Live price on AmazonTwo 0.5 oz (14 g) solid sticks, the size that disappears into a personal item. Buy this one if you already use Native at home and want the same formula in a trip-sized solid rather than switching to mineral salt on the road.
Check price on Amazon Live price on Amazon0.5 oz (14 g) mineral sunscreen in stick form. Read the rule carefully here: TSA’s own sunscreen entry applies the 3.4 oz / 100 ml carry-on limit to sunscreen without distinguishing stick from lotion. At 0.5 oz this one is far inside that limit either way, and it cannot leak over your clothes.
Check price on Amazon Live price on Amazon35 pre-measured dissolving sheets, one per load, in a flat pack thinner than a passport. It replaces the detergent bottle nobody can fly with, and half a sheet is enough for a sink wash of two shirts.
Check price on Amazon Live price on AmazonHow we chose these nine
VoyageHacks compared the published formats, unit sizes and counts of the best-selling solid toiletries on Amazon against the current TSA liquids rule and the current gov.uk hand luggage guidance, both read on 21 September 2026, and kept only products whose format is genuinely solid rather than a “travel-friendly” liquid in a smaller bottle. Counts and unit sizes below are the manufacturers’ published listing figures, not measurements. Nothing here was bench-tested and no price appears, because the live one is on the product card.
The nine picks, and what each one replaces
| Product | Format | Replaces | Unit as listed | Roughly how far it goes | Liquid under the rule? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kitsch sampler, 4 pc | Bars | Shampoo and conditioner bottles | 4 bars | One bar per 2-3 week-long trips, per hair length | No |
| Kitsch rosemary and biotin bar | Bar | Shampoo bottle | 3.5 oz (99 g) | A month of daily washing at home, longer on trips | No |
| ANIHANA manuka honey bar | Bar | Conditioner bottle | 2.1 oz (60 g) | Shorter than the shampoo bar: conditioner goes first | No |
| NOBS tablets | Chewable tablet | Toothpaste tube | Jar of tablets | 2 tablets a day, so one jar covers several trips | No |
| Unpaste tablets | Chewable tablet | Toothpaste tube | 125 tablets | About 62 days at 2 a day, so 8 one-week trips | No |
| CRYSTAL mineral stick | Solid stick | Roll-on or gel deodorant | 1.5 oz (42 g) | Months, because you apply a thin film to damp skin | No |
| Native travel deodorant, 2 pack | Solid stick | Full-size deodorant | 2 x 0.5 oz (14 g) | One stick per 1-2 week trip | No |
| BLUE LIZARD stick | Solid stick | Sunscreen lotion or spray | 0.5 oz (14 g) | Face and ears for a week in the sun, not a full body | Yes, TSA applies the 3.4 oz limit to sunscreen in any format |
| ARM & HAMMER Power Sheets | Dissolving sheet | Detergent bottle or pods | 35 sheets | 35 machine loads, or many more sink washes at half a sheet | No |
The trip figures are arithmetic from the published counts and normal use, not a test. A tablet count divided by two a day is a fact; how long a bar lasts depends on your hair and on whether the bar dries between showers.
Kitsch sampler and the rosemary and biotin bar: start here
A shampoo bar is solid shampoo pressed into a puck. You wet your hair, rub the bar directly on your scalp or work it into a lather in your hands, then rinse.
The four-piece Kitsch sampler is the right first purchase because bar formulas differ far more than bottles do, and the one that suits fine hair strips coarse hair. Two shampoo and two conditioner bars for the price of finding out. Once you know, the 3.5 oz rosemary and biotin bar is the rebuy.
Buy them if you are switching for the first time or gifting a kit. Skip them if you already know your formula: buy the single bar and put the difference toward a proper draining tin. The named alternative for fine hair is the Viori rice water conditioner bar.
ANIHANA manuka honey conditioner bar: the half people forget
Conditioner is where switches fail. Shampoo bars clean fine; it is the squeaky, tangled feeling afterwards that sends people back to bottles, and that is a missing conditioner, not a bad shampoo.
The 2.1 oz ANIHANA bar is applied after rinsing, along the lengths rather than the scalp, then rinsed out. It is smaller than the shampoo bar and will run out first.
Buy it if your hair is long, curly or colour-treated. Skip it if you have short hair and have never used conditioner at home; the shampoo bar alone is enough, and the ANIHANA is dead weight. Alternative: the Viori conditioner bar, formulated for fine hair.
NOBS and Unpaste toothpaste tablets: pick your fluoride position first
A toothpaste tablet is a dry, pressed tablet you chew until it turns to paste, then brush with a wet toothbrush. No tube, no paste, nothing that can be called a gel at a checkpoint and nothing that leaks in a cabin.
NOBS is the category best seller by a wide margin and is deliberately fluoride-free, built around nano hydroxyapatite instead. Unpaste sells the same format with fluoride, 125 tablets to a pouch. That is the entire decision, and it is a decision about ingredients, not about which brand is better: we state what each contains and leave the choice to you and your dentist.
Buy NOBS if you have already chosen a fluoride-free routine at home. Buy Unpaste if you want fluoride in your travel toothpaste, which most people who use a fluoride toothpaste at home do.
Skip tablets entirely if you are checking a bag anyway and like your paste. Nothing is wrong with a tube in the hold.
CRYSTAL and Native: solid deodorant, and the word that matters
At the checkpoint, “solid” versus “gel” is the whole distinction. A solid stick is not a liquid and is not restricted. A gel deodorant, a roll-on and an aerosol spray all are, and all have to fit the 3.4 oz / 100 ml container limit inside your quart bag. People get caught by this because the packaging looks identical from two feet away.
The 1.5 oz CRYSTAL stick is mineral salt: applied to damp skin, it lasts for months because each application is a thin film. The two-pack of 0.5 oz Native sticks is the conventional solid formula in a trip size, for people who do not want to change what they use.
Buy the CRYSTAL if you want one stick to outlast several trips. Buy the Native two-pack if you already use Native at home. Skip both if your current deodorant is a gel and you are checking a bag; just know that it cannot come through security with you.
BLUE LIZARD mineral sunscreen stick: the one that does not escape the rule
Sunscreen is the item on this page where the format does not buy an exemption, and plenty of gear pages get this wrong. TSA’s own “What can I bring” entry for sunscreen lists it as allowed in carry-on at 3.4 oz / 100 ml or less, and it does not distinguish a stick from a lotion or a spray. Treat any sunscreen as covered by the limit.
“TSA-approved sunscreen” is a phrase that means nothing. What a stick actually buys you is size and tidiness: the 0.5 oz BLUE LIZARD SPF 50+ mineral stick sits far inside the 3.4 oz limit, so it never becomes the item that overflows your quart bag, and it cannot leak across a packing cube at altitude. It is a face, ears, nose and shoulders product: nobody covers a body with 14 g of stick. Sunscreen is regulated as an over-the-counter drug by the FDA, and how much to apply and how often to reapply is a question for the label, not for a gear page.
Buy it if you fly carry-on-only to somewhere sunny and want protection on your person, not in the bag. Skip it if you need to cover a whole family at a beach: buy a full-size bottle at the destination and keep the stick for the flight and the first afternoon. Alternative: the CeraVe mineral sunscreen stick, SPF 50, 0.47 oz.
ARM & HAMMER Power Sheets: laundry is a liquid problem too
A laundry sheet is dried, pre-measured detergent on a dissolving strip. Drop one in the drum or the sink and it goes. A 35-count pack is flatter than a passport and weighs almost nothing.
This belongs on a liquids page because detergent is the other bottle that cannot fly in a carry-on at useful size. For a sink wash of two shirts, tear off half a sheet.
Buy it if you travel longer than a week with a small bag and plan to wash as you go. Skip it if your trip is short enough to pack clean clothes for, in which case packing cubes solve more of your problem than detergent does. Alternative: Tide travel sink packets, which are single-use sachets of the same idea.
The liquids rule in 2026: what each authority actually publishes
Define the term once: the liquids rule restricts liquids, gels, aerosols, creams and pastes in hand luggage. It has never restricted solids.
United States. TSA’s liquids rule page states that each liquid, gel, aerosol, cream or paste in carry-on must be in a travel-sized container of 3.4 ounces (100 millilitres) or less, and that all of them must fit in one quart-sized resealable bag, one bag per passenger. TSA publishes exemptions only for medications and infant or child nourishment, which are allowed in reasonable quantities above the limit and must be declared for separate screening. The live page makes no mention of CT scanners relaxing the container limit, so do not plan around anything you have read elsewhere about newly exempt categories or larger hand sanitiser at CT lanes.
United Kingdom. gov.uk now states that at most airports you cannot take liquids in containers larger than 100ml through security, and that some airports may allow you to take liquid in containers that hold up to 2 litres. The transparent-bag requirement is conditional rather than universal. gov.uk does not publish it as a national change, and which airports are on which rule depends on how far each one has got with its scanners.
We are deliberately not publishing a list of which UK airports allow 2 litres. That list moves as installations complete, and a stale list on a gear page is worse than no list. Check your specific airport, both of them, on the gov.uk hand luggage restrictions page in the week you fly.
Everywhere else. Other authorities publish their own rules, and the 100 ml container limit remains the widespread norm. That is the point of solids: you stop needing to know.
Why the asymmetry decides what you pack
Put the two together and the practical rule falls out. Security screens what you are carrying at that airport, on that day, in that direction.
- Depart from an airport on 2 litres, pack a full-size shampoo bottle, and you will be fine leaving.
- Return through an airport on 100 ml, or connect through one, and that same bottle goes in the bin at the checkpoint.
- Pack solids and neither leg has a rule to fail.
That is a one-way ratchet in favour of solids, and it is the reason this category showed up in every 2026 gift guide that mentioned toiletries at all.
Edge cases, and what actually goes wrong
A wet bar is still a solid, but it invites a second look. Nothing in either rule says a bar must be dry. In practice a bar that has gone slick and smeary in a sealed bag reads as paste to a human being, and security officers have discretion regardless of what any page says. Let bars dry before they go in.
Bars turn to sludge without a case. This is the single most common reason people quit after one trip. A sealed wet bag holds the water against the bar and dissolves it. You want a tin or a vented, draining soap case, and a hanging toiletry bag that lets the case breathe.
Hard water beats shampoo bars. In a hotel with very hard water, a bar lathers badly and can leave a waxy film, because the soap reacts with the minerals in the water. Longer rinsing helps; a synthetic-detergent bar handles it better than a true soap bar. If you are somewhere famously hard-water, expect one or two disappointing washes, not a broken product.
Gel deodorant is a liquid. Repeating this because it is the one that catches experienced travellers: solid stick fine, gel and roll-on not. Read your own stick before you assume.
Powders are not liquids either, but large quantities of powdered product can attract additional screening, so keep tablet jars and sheets in modest, obviously retail-packaged quantities.
Solids still have to go somewhere. They are small, not weightless, and they want structure: a tin, a pouch, a flat pack. If you are building a carry-on-only kit around them, the personal item bag you pick decides more than the toiletries do.
One thing solids do not replace. Contact lens solution, liquid medication and anything medically necessary stays liquid, and TSA exempts medication from the quart-bag limit if you declare it. You may still want two or three travel-size bottles for the handful of things that have no solid version.
Sources
| Organisation | Page | Link | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|
| Transportation Security Administration | Liquids rule (3-1-1) | tsa.gov | 21 September 2026 |
| Transportation Security Administration | What Can I Bring? item list | tsa.gov | 21 September 2026 |
| UK Government | Hand luggage restrictions at UK airports: liquids | gov.uk | 21 September 2026 |
| UK Government | Hand luggage restrictions at UK airports: overview | gov.uk | 21 September 2026 |
| US Food and Drug Administration | Sunscreen: how to help protect your skin from the sun | fda.gov | 21 September 2026 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Do solid toiletries count towards the 100 ml liquids rule?
No. The liquids rule applies to liquids, gels, aerosols, creams and pastes, and a solid shampoo bar, toothpaste tablet or deodorant stick is none of those. TSA’s liquids rule limits each container of a liquid or gel to 3.4 oz / 100 ml inside one quart-sized bag, and solids simply sit outside it: they travel loose in your carry-on with no bag and no size limit. That is why VoyageHacks packs solids for any trip where the outbound and return airports may screen differently.
Is a shampoo bar allowed in hand luggage?
Yes. A dry shampoo bar is a solid, not a liquid or gel, so neither TSA nor gov.uk restricts its size or requires it to go in the transparent bag. Carry it in a tin or a vented soap case so it is obviously a bar and not a smear of paste. A bar that is still wet from the shower is technically still a solid, but a soggy one is the one case where an officer may look twice, so let it dry before it goes in the bag.
Are toothpaste tablets better than travel toothpaste?
For flying, yes, because a tablet is not a paste and does not use up a slot in your quart bag, while a travel tube of toothpaste does. Tablets also do not leak at altitude. The trade-off is fluoride: NOBS, the best-selling tablet on Amazon, is deliberately fluoride-free, while Unpaste tablets contain fluoride. If fluoride matters to you, buy the Unpaste and check the ingredient list rather than assuming the format decides it.
Can I take sunscreen through airport security?
Sunscreen is the one item on this page where the format does not buy you an exemption. TSA’s own sunscreen entry lists it as allowed in carry-on at 3.4 oz / 100 ml or less and does not distinguish a stick from a lotion or a spray, so treat any sunscreen as covered by the limit. The practical answer is to carry a small one: a 0.5 oz mineral stick such as the Blue Lizard SPF 50+ is far inside the limit and cannot leak. Sunscreen is regulated as an over-the-counter drug by the FDA.
Do the UK and US have the same liquids rule in 2026?
No, and that is the reason to pack solids. TSA’s live liquids page still states 3.4 oz / 100 ml per container in one quart-sized bag, with exemptions only for medication and infant nourishment. gov.uk now states that at most airports you cannot take containers larger than 100ml, but that some airports may allow containers holding up to 2 litres, with the transparent-bag requirement conditional. Which UK airports allow the larger size varies, so check your specific airport on gov.uk before you pack liquids for the return leg.
The bottom line
Buy the Kitsch sampler to find your bar, the Unpaste tablets if you want fluoride or NOBS if you do not, a CRYSTAL or Native solid stick for deodorant, the BLUE LIZARD SPF 50+ stick for sun and Power Sheets for laundry. Add a draining tin, because that is what makes the switch stick. Then pack them into a hanging toiletry bag inside a personal item bag, keep two travel-size bottles for the things with no solid version, and use packing cubes for the clothes. A starter set of bars and tablets is also one of the easiest travel gifts to get right. The travel gear hub has the rest of the carry-on kit.