Friday, May 30, 2014

Beach Essentials!

     As you may know because I can't shut up about it, I'm headed to the beach soon! With that excitement looming and my need to constantly overthink things, I've been putting some thought into what you really need at the beach. Here's some of my necessities (and I mean that in the way magazines do, where sure it's nice to have, but none of their "necessities" are ever like, Immodium). 

A CUTE SWIMSUIT, BECAUSE OBVIOUSLY 




     I know most women hate trying on swimsuits with the burning fire of a thousand suns, but I actually don't mind it that much. For me personally, I'm much more likely to end up sobbing inconsolably in a fitting room when shopping for shorts than a swimsuit. Somehow it's easier to accept, I guess because it feels like everyone else looks and feels cute in shorts and I look like Squidward after he eats all the Krabby Patties, but everybody feels a little self-conscious in a bikini, so it's normal? (That's depressing, I'm sorry.) I mean you're essentially tying a bunch of fabric scraps over all your lady-dough, what do we expect to happen? Anyway, the point to all this is that I found a swimsuit top at Target the other day that I liked enough to try on even though I'd just had a big lunch at McAllister's (Southwest Turkey Melt and Mac and Cheese. Mmmmm), which is...extra braveness points, right there. It took a couple trips to the dressing room to find a bottom that I was comfortable in (one of them was a string type configuration with loops on the side and it didn't even matter if it was cute or not, I felt like I was diapering one of the babies putting it on with the sides like that), but I found one eventually. The top had a matching bottom, but it didn't have enough coverage for my liking, and I thought a mix and match look would be cuter anyway, so I went for the bright orange. The top and bottom were $17.99 each, so it ended up being a $36 swimsuit, which is a pretty damn good deal considering that top has actual underwire in it. It's legitimately supportive, which is hard to find in a swimsuit that doesn't look like you're meant to wear it to water aerobics at the senior center. 

ALSO SASSY SUNGLASSES




     I always like to grab a pair or two of cheap sunglasses before I go on vacation so that if I lose or break them, I won't be too upset about the loss. Granted, I pretty much exclusively wear cheap sunglasses because I can't be trusted with a small breakable thing that cost over $20 because when I inevitably break it, I will cry and embarrass myself. So there's that. But anyway, these two pairs are from Charlotte Russe, a store that I normally wouldn't even bother going in because I just wander around shaking my fists at the sky and muttering "why is everything cropped? In my day we wore whole shirts!" But since I was on a specific mission for accessories, I ventured forth and found these. The top pair is just a basic black wayfarer style, but it has a floral pattern inside the...arms? Is that what the side parts are called? I'm spacing here. It sounded right at first then I thought about why the hell sunglasses would have arms and how that would mean they're essentially hugging onto your face and that's SO WEIRD so now it sounds wrong? Let's just go with arms. Anyway, it's floral inside those things, and polka dots on the outside, so it's a teensy hop above basic. The heart-shaped pair I kind of tried on half as a joke, but Amanda said they work somehow on me because I'm a whimsical hippie weirdo or something. I feel it's important to note though that both pairs had a sticker on the lens that said they offer 100% UV protection, because sometimes with really cheap sunnies you just get tinted plastic, which doesn't actually protect your eyes and might even do more harm than good, since the tint tricks your pupils into dilating more and letting in more harmful rays than it would otherwise. So be careful! Sun safety is really important, guys. On that note...

DID YOU REALLY THINK I WASN'T GOING TO MENTION SUNSCREEN

     I don't have a picture to go with this because come on, you know what sunscreen looks like. I'm bringing buttloads of it. Skin cancer don't mess around, and neither do I. 

THIS FACE WASH BECAUSE IT IS MIRAAAACULOUS




     If you're looking to simplify things when you're gonna be traveling, I got your back. I'm not normally one to get excited about face wash because I have stupidly sensitive acne-prone skin so there's only like five kinds in the whole world that I can use without breaking out or getting all red and peely, which takes most of the fun out of it. This one though, I love. It doesn't irritate my skin at all, so none of that weird tight feeling like you want to stick your face in a bucket of lotion, and doesn't make me break out either. But the BEST part, easily, is that it takes off makeup like magic. Remember in Mulan when she wipes her sleeve over her face and all the makeup the nice older ladies put on her comes right off, including eyeliner and lipstick that was put on with an actual paintbrush? That's what this is like. So when you're going away and you don't want to bring a bottle of eye makeup remover or face wipes or anything like that to take off your paints at the end of the day (or if you just like to feel like you really got all the sunscreen and sweat and sea salt or whatever off your face), this stuff is amazing. Just lather it up in your hands then go over your whole face and closed eyes a few times, then rinse everything off. It's a really cool trick, and it makes my face feel all soft too, so in case I want to go around rubbing my face on people like a cat they'll be like "Oh my God what is wrong with y- hey, your face is really soft!" 

THINGS PEOPLE USED TO DO TO ENTERTAIN THEMSELVES BEFORE THE INTERNET



     There's wifi access where I'm going, but it's a family vacation, so we like to do actual family stuff and try not to sit around staring at phones and stuff the whole time. My family has always liked doing puzzles (I used to sit under the glass table at Massanutten, the mountain resort we've gone to yearly since forever, and find the pieces people were looking for by shape, because sometimes it's hard to keep my cover and pretend to be from this planet). I ordered two from Amazon and picked up a new copy of Scattergories, another family favorite, because our original box was in sad shape, all the paper and pencils were gone, and the categories were probably things like "USSR political leaders." 

THIS INCLUDES READING MATERIAL 

     I bought this book on my tablet kind of intending it to be a beach read, but I made the mistake of starting it, then I finished the whole thing that night because it was so funny. Like chuckling out loud to an empty room funny. So now I'm going to force everyone else at the beach to read it instead, which is almost as good. I also got some magazines and the first book in a young adult series on my tablet, because that's the best kind of beach read in my opinion. Maybe that'll turn up in a favorites post some day soon, who knows. 






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