I am very lucky to be surrounded by friends and family who happen to have far better amenities in their apartment complexes than I do! As such, I take advantage of their pools when I don’t have the opportunity to get my butt down to Toronto’s waterfront.

I’ve recently embraced wearing a bikini for the first time this summer! After having spent a lot of my 20s not overly impressed with my body, I used to either shy away from situations that involved swimming or delve into the land of tankinis. But no longer! As such, I’m loving laying out by some sort of body of water (pool, lake, whatever, I’m not picky!) and soaking up some sun.

All of this to say, I’ve got a few items I’ve been carting around with me for beach or pool days and I thought I’d let you know what they are.

While I’m not someone who drenches themselves in oil in order to ensure maximum tanage, I’m still not wanting to remain the ghostly white pale thing that my skin resets to every winter. I usually start off the summer with an SPF of 30 and then scale it back as my tan develops. A friend recently introduced me to Hawaiian Tropic sunscreen – a brand I had completely avoided because it didn’t indicate on the front of the bottle that it’s waterproof. However, if you look at the fine print on the back, it is waterproof and therefore much, MUCH more suited to swimming. The biggest seller on this one? Aside from the scent (coconut-y, pina colada-esque), it has SHIMMER in it. Flecks of gold freaking glitter! If I have to swear sunscreen, you’re darn right I want to be looking like a disco ball while wearing doing so! I believe I grabbed this tube at Walmart for around 8 bucks.

Drinking Nestea (Zero, now) while hanging out on a friend’s dock (all the while listening to Matchbox 20, Moist and Serial Joe) is a memory that I cannot shake from my teen years. I used to spend a lot of summers hanging out on my best friend’s dock at their cottage by the lake, and I drank these by the cartonful. I’m not a huge fan of drinking alcoholic beverages by the water when it’s too hot – it dehydrates me and makes me feel fuzzy, and not in a good way. When the sun is beating down on me mid-day, and I’m covered in greasy sunscreen and feeling sweaty – I want something refreshing. And that’s either going to be a Nestea (the Canadian version, not the American one – that stuff is too much like real tea for me) or an espresso frappuccino from Starbucks.

And I have to say, aside from a towel, a drink and some sunscreen, there’s not a whole lot I do while laying out to get some sun. After I get out of the sun though, that’s when I need a few more products.

After I’ve washed all the sunscreen off, I whack on Aveeno’s facial moisturizer. It has an SPF in it, but I mostly just like the moisture it provides. This is my daily moisturizer, it pretty much follows me wherever I go.

Inevitably there are times when I get too much sun and have to whack on some aloe. I like the gel version because frankly… it feels neat. It’s green, see-through and goes on smoothly. As you can tell from the massive amount of product I’ve already used, this helped me out quite recently when I was little overzealous in the sun. And it’s cheap too! Life brand for ~$2 at Shoppers!

And lastly, if I’m going anywhere after having been in the pool, the last thing I want to do is whack on a pile of makeup, but I do want to look at least somewhat alive. I’m currently going through a trial-size tube of Make Up For Ever‘s Smoky Lash Extravagant, so I’ll pop several coats of that on my lashes. Since I don’t bother with an eyelash curler, I make sure to push my lashes upwards with my finger while the mascara is drying to give my lashes a little bit of a lift.

And to bring out some colour in my cheeks, I’ve been using Revlon‘s Coral Reef cream blush. Nothing fancy here: I stick my fingers in the pot and blend it onto my cheeks and hope for the best.

It’s not much, but this is what I like to have around me when I’m visiting someone else’s watery area. Occasionally I’ll have a book with me, or my iPod for some music, but really… I just like laying there and dozing. (And then promptly jump in the pool when I overheat!)