Summer Essentials Part 1 - For Skin, Body and Hair

Hello my lovelies, I hope you're having a great summer so far! And speaking of summer, I thought I would share with you my beauty summer essentials. I know I should have done this post earlier, but hey it's still summer, it's never too late.This first post is going to be all about my skin, body and hair products that I use the most at summertime, and the next one will be all about my make up summer essentials. So let's start!

Face

Now that it's summer our skin tends to become more dry and dehydrated from the sun and the salt water, so it constantly needs to be hydrated. It's very important to use a sunscreen that is right for your skintype, here I chose a lightweight sunscreen, the Korres Sunscreen Face Cream Yoghurt Extreme Fluid SPF30, which is perfect for combination and oily skintypes, and the yoghurt hydrates your skin really well, after you apply it you can feel your cheeks very refreshed. I love the Korres Yoghurt Sunscreen line, the one for normal skintypes is also one of my faves whenever I feel that my skin needs more hydration. You always have to be sure that your sunscreen protects you from both UVA and UVB rays.

A good moisturizer is also very important for the nightime, the Garnier Moisture Match for normal skintypes is very good, I love using it at nightime because it can be a little to heavy underneath make up. It really helps with my dry cheeks a lot, plus is very affordable, and you can find it almost anywhere.

A thermal water spray is a summer essential of mine for years now, whenever I feel my skin dehydrated throught the day I always spritz a little bit of this on my face, and it instantly feels refreshed and hydrated. Avene's Eau Thermal Thermal Spring Water is the best one out there, and I've tried lots of them. It also helps with skin irritations from the sun.

 

 

Body

Sometimes we forget to moisturize our body along with our face, but hydrating your body is also very important. I really like exotic scents at summertime, one of the best exotic scents in my opinion is The Body Shop's Coconut Body Butter, which is super moisturizing it smells like suntan lotion and summer!

One more product that I love using now is a body oil, Garnier's Beauty Oil is one of the best I've tried. I used to use plain baby oil on my legs after shaving, but it was too thick and it was impossible to sink into my skin. Garnier's is like a dry oil, I use it on wet legs and my skin instantly absorbs it, and it smells amazing! If you like body oils you should try it.

 Here in Greece, the sun is super hot and dangerous, a body sunscreen shouldn't just be used whenever we are on the beach or the pool but also while we are outside in the city, the same way we protect our face we should protect our body too, especially when we're wearing shorts and short skirts because our skin is exposed to the sun. Since I'm very white at the moment (my body is a lot paler than my face which I don't understand), I always use a sunscreen on my body with SPF50, the Garnier Sensitive Advanced SPF50 is really good, and absorbs really quick, which is rare for a lotion with an SPF50, most of them are very sticky and whitish. After I get a little more tanned I like to switch to an SPF30 one, the Piz Buin Wet Skin is their new range of sunscreens and they are supposed to be used on wet skin, which makes the sunscreen absorbs really quick and it doesn't feel sticky at all. I'm quite impressed with this one, is the perfect sunscreen to use whenever you're at the beach or the pool.

And here's a product that I can't live without, Apivita's Moisturizing and Cooling After Sun Cream Gel, and if you remember from last year I've already done a post about it here. It's my absolute love, I will never switch to another after sun lotion, ever. It's the best product to use when you have skin irritations from the sun, even the bad ones. Please try it if you can, you won't regret it!

Hair

And now it's time for the hair. Sun and salt water is hair's worst enemy, especially if they're already dry and damaged. I personally noticed a huge change on my hair and scalp the past few months, they switched from oily to dry, and I'm trying a whole lot of different products to keep them hydrated, I also let them air dry a lot which is rare for me because I'm not particular a fan of my natural curly hair but that's OK, it's summertime and I don't care that much.  A hydrating hair mask is very important, a favorite of mine is Herbal Essence's Hell Hydration Hair Mask, it leaves my hair really soft and hydrated, and even though it's a drugstore hair mask is a lot better than many others from salon brands. And you cannot beat the smell, OMG it smells so coconutty and exotic, it feels like you're on holiday everytime you're in the shower!

 

I always use a hair oil after I wash them, and my choice is Sunsilk's Nourishing Oil Spray with Moroccan, Argan and Almond Oils. It's seriously one of the best hair oils I've ever tried on my hair, it leaves them syper smooth, and since it's in a spray bottle I can take it with me at the beach to use it as a detangler.

And as for styling products, since I don't blow dry or use a flat iron to straighten my hair, I need to use something to enchance my natural curls,  last summer I got the L'oreal Professionnel's Play Ball Beach Fizz and I haven't regret it, even though it's a little on the expensive side, it's the best sea salt spray I've ever tried, way better than Bumble & Bumble's which I absolutely hated! It never left my hair dry, and it creates the best cute beachy type of curls, I couldn't ask for more. Sometimes I use a curl cream from Sunsilk before I use the sea salt spray, and the results are even better!

I hope you liked the first part of my summer essentials and really soon I'll post my make up essentials for the summer too. Until then, let me know what are your summer essentials for your skin, body and hair.