So I went to Sea-Tac Airport with bag of my own contraband, to check out the cost of keeping it.

In some cases, it's cheaper to just buy what you need at the other end.

'Nix' On The Jelly!

Los Angeles tourist Ryan Gibson thought he'd be OK with the jars of jelly he bought at Pike Place Market.

Ryan had just been pulled aside in the security line because of the gifts he was taking home to his family.

"So I asked the lady, 'Can I take this stuff with me?' and she said, 'Oh no!', pulls me over to the side, checks for explosives," he said.

As luck would have it, Diana Sweeny was nearby. Diana owns Ken's Baggage, a private shipping service on the baggage claim level at the airport.

Ryan was paying Ken's Baggage to ship his jellies to Los Angeles. And because they totaled more than one pound, the souvenir gifts he bought for $20, cost him another $20.40 to send home.

Send It Home

Here's the general rule if you want to keep something that can't go on the plane at Sea-Tac Airport:

You can send it home or to a local friend or relative. The basic cost is $7 for one pound, max.

If you can fit everything into a 5-by-8 inch baggie, you can drop it in one of the "Send It Home" boxes located next to all security gates. You place your items in the bag and along with a mailing label and your payment.

Ken's Baggage then collects the baggies from the secure boxes, and forwards them in padded envelopes.

Anything in that baggie that goes over one pound will be held for 60 days. You'll get a letter explaining your payment options to get the excess.

If you have a banned item that's too big to fit in a baggie, you either have to take it down to Ken's and ship it, put it in your checked baggage, pay Ken's $2.00 a day to store it, or toss it.

You Can't Ship Everything

While the shipping option is great if you don't want to trash expensive products, some things can't even go through the mail!

I dumped out the contents of my bag for Sweeney's inspection: travel-size bottles of contact lens solution and shampoo, gel anti-perspirant, 2 bottles of nail polish, a spray bottle of perfume, nail polish remover, eye makeup remover, lip gloss, and plastic tubes of conditioner, sunscreen, toothpaste, aloe vera jelly, and facial scrub.

Sweeney says about one third of my contraband has alcohol or some other flammable liquid. With homeland security, that doesn't fly.

Sweeney proceeded to pull aside my perfume, nail polish remover, nail polish and eye-make up remover -- none of which can go in the mail unless it's ground mail in the Seattle area.

"So for you, you're a Seattleite, I could mail this to you because it going to go by ground truck locally. But if you lived in Spokane, I couldn't mail it to you because it would be an air shipment, priority mail first class," she explained.

Check The Snow Globes

While most people are concentrating on what they're packing when the leave home, you can create new security angst with buying it on the other end.

Right now at Sea-Tac, for instance, Sweeney says cruise passengers are getting stopped with snow globes they've purchased here, in Alaska and Vancouver, B.C.

Depending on the price and size of the snow globe, the cost of shipping it from the airport at the last minute can be more than what you paid.

So when in doubt, pack it in your checked baggage. And remember, not every airport has a mailing service. If you have banned or questionable items and you don't want to check them, you may be better off mailing them yourself, before you hit the airport.

With every day toiletries, it may be cheaper to just buy travel size when you reach your destination. In fact, many hotels and have begun offering free toiletry kits to customers when they check in.

For More Information:

Information on mailing from Sea-Tac Airport