The travel significance of a hand steamer for clothes: A travel photographer's suitcase is never short of this little tool
My name is Leo. I'm a travel photographer and I'm 32 years old. Over the past seven years, my life has basically been shuttling back and forth between the plane cabin, the train car, unfamiliar hostels, and the shooting site under the sun. Every time I set out, my backpack was packed with batteries, lenses, memory cards, and something that didn’t look like photography equipment—a hand steamer for clothes.
Someone once asked me, “You’re a man. Do you still care if there are wrinkles on your clothes?” I always smile and say, “When you are on your sixth day of hiking in Nepal and soaked through, and look in the mirror only to find yourself wearing a crumpled shirt, the exhaustion at that moment will be magnified infinitely.” “Little thing, you can really save lives.”
My travel photography life: Behind the scenery lies compactness and awkwardness
I have captured the icy and snowy early mornings in northern Xinjiang and also the sunset beaches in Bali. Sometimes clients have to “act as if they have just stepped off the catwalk,” and sometimes new employees are waiting for me to get up at five in the morning to capture their smiles in the first ray of sunlight. To outsiders, my job seems romantic and free, but the reality is that my luggage is always packed, opened, compressed and zipped up repeatedly within 24 hours.
Wrinkled clothes are a common occurrence.
What I fear most is the kind of shooting task where the schedule is suddenly compressed. When I was informed at the last minute that an additional interview session would be filmed, I only found that there was only one suit—and it was wrinkled as if it had been sat on. Traditional iron? Don’t even think about it. It’s heavy and takes up space, and you have to find a place to lay the clothes flat for ironing. The truly reliable one is my compact and lightweight handheld steam iron—a product from Nesugar, which has accompanied me to dozens of cities.
Why did I decide on this hand steamer for clothes?
The photographer’s mindset is a combination of “pragmatism” and “visual sensitivity.” When choosing something, I only believe in two criteria: whether it can be used or not? Is it comfortable to use?
This handheld steam iron from Nesugar doesn’t have any “showy” parameters, but the following points make me willing to let it occupy a fixed space in my boarding luggage with a weight limit of only 8 kilograms:
15 seconds of preheating to produce steam: Every second is precious when visiting scenic spots in the morning to capture the sunrise. It starts up immediately upon plugging in and doesn’t delay the pace.
Lightweight and portable: It’s about the volume and weight of a bottle of mineral water. I can directly stuff it into the side pocket of the lens storage bag.
It’s not picky about fabric: From the groom’s woolen suit to the bride’s silk satin dress, and even my own cotton and linen shirt, it can handle them all.
Leak-proof: The shooting environment is complex, and it may be encountered in open-air areas, mountain tops, and wetlands. The basic bottom line is that the machine must not leak water.
No ironing board needed: Hold it in your hand, pull it, spray it, and steam it while tidying up, not restricted by the site.
I’ve tried other brands, and there are also those that are “high in appearance but not durable.” Some steam alternates between high and low, and some kettles are pitifully small, requiring water to be added to half a piece of clothing. And this Nesugar hand steamer for clothes has truly achieved “stable output.”
Three stories about how it “came to the rescue”
1. At five o’clock in the morning, help me save the wedding scene of a bride
That’s Shangri-La, Yunnan. The temperature in the early winter morning is only minus three degrees Celsius. We set off at three in the morning and rushed to the grassland to take wedding photos in the morning mist. After arriving at the scene, the bride found that the hem of her wedding dress was severely wrinkled because she had packed it too tightly last night.
She was so anxious that she almost wanted to cry. I opened my backpack, took out a handheld steam iron, plugged it into a portable camping battery, and helped her iron the hem of her dress on the hillside where the dew was still wet. In less than ten minutes, she turned around with a smile, her skirt as smooth as a cloud.
At that moment, I realized that I wasn’t just someone who took pictures; I was also responsible for “making the pictures stand up.”
2. On the streets of Paris, caught the attention of a fashion editor
Last year, when I was doing a fashion street shoot in Paris, a female client temporarily invited me to go to the front of Notre-Dame to take the cover photo. At that time, she was wearing a stiff jacket, which had just been taken out of the suitcase and was full of creases. While sipping coffee, she complained to me, “I wanted to find a dry cleaner to iron it, but they all closed down.”
I didn’t say a word. I squatted down, opened my backpack and took out that Nesugar steam iron. The roadside coffee shop agreed to let me borrow the socket. Five minutes later, she stood in front of the Gothic church, wearing a smooth jacket. Every crease of the wind had been “pre-set” by me in advance.
Later she asked, “Are you a fashion blogger? Why would you bring such a thing?” I just smiled—in fact, I’m just someone who has a cleanliness obsession with pictures.
3. One should also be decent
Once while waiting for a flight at Chengdu Airport, the flight was delayed. I was wearing a shirt and had been flying all day. It was so wrinkled that I couldn’t stand it myself. There are sockets in the airport restroom. It took me three minutes to go in and spray my clothes flat.
I came out of the restroom and happened to run into a potential customer. He looked me over a couple of times and said, “You look quite professional.”
I gave a sheepish grin to myself: Actually, I had just been lying drowsily at the boarding gate. At that moment, I felt a power to save myself from the “details”—small tools are not just for embellishment, but also for maintaining dignity.
Life is already chaotic, and holding a steam iron is my symbol of “rhythm”
As a photographer, I’m neither refined nor particular about life. There are always wrinkled clothes, half-eaten protein bars and all kinds of data cables in the suitcase. But amid this chaos, there are some orders that I am willing to spend time maintaining.
For instance, a clean and smooth shirt is like snapping a photo in perfect focus—that’s not vanity, but part of self-awareness.
This handheld steam iron from Nesugar has never let me down at critical moments. It quietly stays in the interlayer of my backpack, neither making a noise nor stealing the show, but always offers a helping hand when I’m at my most flustered.
If you are also on the go
This article is not about recommending any products. What I want to say more is:
If you also often neglect yourself because of the fast pace, if you also try to find a bit of order in the chaos, it might be worth getting a hand steamer for clothes. It won’t change your life, but on a certain morning, in a corner of your suitcase, or in the five minutes before you’re about to go out, it can help you regain a bit of rhythm and a bit of dignity.
In this era where everything goes fast, may we all still have the energy to “steam” out a bit of composure for ourselves.
