My Beach/Pool Bag Essentials!

 As a Nanny, I am constantly at the pool with the kids. Along with packing individual bags for all of them, I like to pack a bag for myself that will assure nothing is left behind and my hot trip to the pool will happen with ease :) Above are some of my "pool/beach bag essentials". These are what work for me and these are what I always try to make sure I have in my handy dandy bag.

What's Listed Above:

1. A peek at my insulated lunch bag--this comes in handy to keep things like my snacks and my water bottle/tumbler cold for the duration of my day. 
2. My tumbler--I fill this entirely with ice and only an inch or so of actual water. I add two slices of lemon, personal preference, and it lasts me the whole day and the water is always cold!
3. Sunscreen--For these, I alternate between my Alba Botanica Natural Hawaiian Sunscreen SPF 45 which can be found here or my Yes to Cucumbers which can be found here I love that they both offer great protection without the harsh chemicals. They're paraben and cruelty free ;) Along with this I always use an SPF lip balm--your lips can easily burn too ya know :)--the one I am using now is the Yes to Carrots Sweet Fig Lip Butter with SPF 15, you can read about it here.
4. Paul Mitchell Moisture Mist Hydrating Spray--can be found here --this stuff is awesome because it sprays on your skin and has hydrating properties to keep dry (which can happen in the sun) skin, moist. It is super refreshing after laying out to just spray some on your skin and hair!
5. A hair tie or clip to keep your hair away from your face is always a good idea!
6. I normally wear a fedora to the pool/beach. I also stay under the shaded umbrella whenever available. At 25, I am more aware now of the damage that comes with sun exposure in long periods. I have been to the pool over 15 times this summer and I have no tan lines---because the sun doesn't stand a chance with me lol Protection now will lead to beauty later =D
7. A fun patterned large beach towel (this one in the photo I bought years ago from Kohl's).
8. Your favorite sunnies for protection for those beautiful eyes of yours! (these are Tom Ford-I never wear them, EVER lol but my favorites were in the car at the moment)
9. A healthy little snack (I bring these Fiber One granola bars or one of my "100 Calorie Packs" of guacamole and some tortillas)
10. Last but not least, bring something to keep you occupied in down time. I like bringing magazines or a good book. I refrain from bringing any of my electronic readers because pool water and beach sand don't mix well with those ;)

What are your beach essentials?

Fun in the Sun,

xox

Product Review: Power of Pink Conair Infiniti Curling Wand

I am so excited to review this product for you guys! It is by far my FAVORITE hair product I have purchased all year, and that says a lot.  I originally wanted this a few months ago, but didn't get around to purchasing it so when I saw that during the month of October, Ulta was offering this Limited Edition Breast Cancer Awareness version of the original one (I think it is just the color that is limited edition honestly) I was sure to scoop it up!

This is the curling wand that was featured in my most recent Shop and Tell Breast Cancer Month Feature. Here are a few of the pro's and con's that I found with this hair tool and my final thoughts on it:

Pros: 

• I love the bright pink color, very different than the other lighter pink tones that I was seeing everywhere, adds a nice special "limited edition" touch!
• I love the swivel cord because this assures that you never have any of those messy tangled wires to deal with.  
• I love that you can choose from various different heat settings depending on what temperature you are comfortable with using on your hair type. (I use the hottest one because in my opinion, after a heat protectant, my hair can handle this :)
• The fact that this curling wand heats up in no time is just wonderful as well, who wants to wait forever for their curling iron to heat up after all right?!
• Another small but very helpful feature is a little plastic fastener on the cord. It allows you to secure the folded wire in place for safe and completely fool proof neat storage.

Cons: 

• I find that my hair often slips down the barrel and this is definitely because of the way it is shaped.  I love the shape of the curl I get, but hate that I often have to "re-wrap" my hair around the barrel.  Practice is really the only thing that can assure that you encounter this less often. 

• Another thing that I find happens a few times while I am in the process of curling is that I accidentally power off the curling iron all together! It's quite easy to do being that the button is right in an area where you are placing a good grip while curling.  It is easy to just switch it back on and because of the lightening fast heat up time, isn't REALLY a huge problem, but kind of annoying to say the least.  

** This comes with a glove to prevent you from burning the two fingers that get the closest to the iron while actually curling. Honestly, I need to separate the sections of my hair with those fingers, and wearing the glove didn't let me do so with ease, so I opted out of using this and I haven't really ever burned myself, so I don't think this is mandatory to use, up to you!

Some pics of my personal results:

 

I absolutely loved the results curling with this product gave me. They were the most natural looking beautiful waves ever! They started out tighter and throughout the day, fell just perfectly to a gorgeous look.  To top it off, I was SO surprised to find that even the next morning when I woke up, they looked the absolute SAME! I touched up the top of my hair a little with some hairspray and pinned back my bangs the next day and had the SAME beautiful waves, it was as if I had just curled them again.  This proved that this wand provides long lasting curls and I love that.  

**I used Heat Protectant as always, and for the hairspray, I used Paul Mitchell Soft Spray. 

Flowy Waves, 

xox