Get Your Snorkel On

Get Your Snorkel On by elbonner featuring paul mitchell

In Two weeks I jet off to sunny (hopefully) Oahu to spend some time in the sunshine and lots of time in the water. I plan on doing lots of snorkeling while I'm there and have a few little wants that can make my snorkel adventures a lot more fun. It beats having to rent equipment that numerous people have spat in to keep clean.

Roxy 2mm Wetsuit Jacket- It's summer, so I don't want a full suit, but when in contact with coral, some species can irritate your skin or you can cut yourself on its sharp edges. This super cute jacket will keep you from having a rash-filled vacation complete with open wounds. 

Color Correcting Snorkel Mask-The deeper you go, the more blue takes over. This mask has tinted lenses that keep the colors you see underwater vivid and true to life; like a color filter on a camera.

DaFin Kick Fins- You want to cover as much ground as you can and unless you were born with freakish human flippers, these adorable Kick Fins will help you move around better. They come in lots of different colors and are compact enough to fit in your luggage.

Sun Bum Pro spf 50- I've raved about this before. This mineral sunscreen is great for a day in crystal clear water where the sun still penetrates. So unless you want to spend the rest of the summer convincing your friends that a dive mask tan line is the cool thing to do, then slap on a high spf sunscreen like Sun Bum's. 

Paul Mitchell Sun Shield Conditioning Spray- Help out your poor hair; it's being dried out by the sun and salt and snagged on your mask. It needs all the help it can get. This conditioning spray contains UV filters that protect hair from sun damage and keep things smooth after a week in the ocean.

I'm so ready to see some beautiful tropical fish seeing as how the water here is full of churned up seaweed and millions of baby jellyfish at the moment. It's like swimming through half-hardened Jell-O. I'm positive these cool things would make for a great snorkel session. See you under the waves!

Instagram @e_bythesea

 

Whip Yo' Hair

Hair Care by elbonner featuring a Batiste hair shampoo

Beauty product / Burt s Bees hair shampoo / Haircare / Bumble and Bumble styling product, $33 / Sebastian Professional haircare / Batiste hair shampoo, $7.91

After reading over my last post I feel like I was kind of a whiner. Let me clarify:my life does not suck, this is realy the only thing I have to worry about. Sorry for being depressing and/or annoying, but that post wasn't so much for people to understand what I was going through, but more as something I needed to do to get myself through some stuff. Writing as therapy as you would! 

This post hopefully isn't in the running for most depressing post ever and it is about my everyday hair care! I have blonde, non-colored, dry, frizzy-yet-flat hair. It's also fine on the top of my head and wirey and coarse underneath. It's hard to catagorize as one textture which means I have to use lots of different stuff to keep it not looking crazy. 

For shampoo I use a combination of Burts Bees Super Shiny shampoo and Deva Curl's  No-Poo shampoo. Super Shiny is a sulfate free, foaming shampoo that smells like grapefruits and gets all of my build-up out. I use it probably once a week to get my hair super clean. Every other to every three days I use the No-Poo which is non-foaming and more like a cleansing conditioner. Since my hair is so dry I don't like to strip it so I really like that cleansing conditioners are so popular now. 

For conditioners I use deep conditioners almost exclusively. Thin ones just don't do the job. My favorites are Biolage's Conditioning Balm that I've been using forever. I actually buy the generic kind from Sally Beauty Supply because it's the same thing, but waaaay cheaper. My second favorite is Sebastian's Penetraitt which makes me hair super soft in the shortest amount of time. 

As fot styling I always use a leave-in conditioner or my hair will be a dry frizzy mess that will just snag and break off. My new found love is It's A 10miracle leave-in with keratin. It makes my hair super soft and shiny without making it greasy and the keratin keeps it from getting damaged. I have natural waves and when I want them to hold better I use Paul Mitchells Awapuhi Wild Ginger Hydrowhip which is like a mouse but it has conditioning elements to it that don't dry things out like normal mouses do.

When I want beachy hair, I only go with the best: Bumble & Bumble's Surf Spray. I've tried every surf spray under the sun and this is the only stuff that gets me the texture I get after spending a day in the water. It gives me more volume and hold than hair spray and when I curl my hair it holds them better than hair spray too. This stuff id the BEST.

Sometimes I'm lazy and I don't even want to shower. With my bangs on my forehead all day they can get greasy and ropey and look all-around gross. To combat that without the inconvenience of showering I use a dry shampoo like Batiste. Another one I like is Suave's dry shampoo which smells like grapefruits and costs like $2.50. Can't beat that!

Those are really the only things I use on my hair. I used to be a hair care addict, but I've found what works and kept with that. If I find new treasures I will update, but that's all for now. Happy Labor Day everyone!