Our first trip to the beach this season happened yesterday, where we enjoyed a gorgeous summer day along the shores of Lake Tahoe (in the shade!) and spent hours catching up on our magazine reading.

While we love a lazy day at the beach as much as the next girl, getting our beach bag ready is always a chore. Gone are the days of heading off to the beach with nothing but a towel and a girlfriend or two. (Gone are also the days of perfectly flat abs–but no sense getting nostalgic here.)

Nowadays, beaching-it takes a little planning and a lot of packing.

Aside from the essential beach umbrella, wide-brimmed hat and iPod, here’s what else you can find in our beach bag:

1. Boots Quick Thinking 4 in 1 Wipes: Great for wiping around our irritated eyes when sand, salt and sunscreen start taking their toll. (Even greater for the car ride home when 45 minutes seems like an eternity with beach grime in our pores.) These Quick Thinking wipes cleanse, tone, remove makeup and moisturize all in one swipe. Brilliant!

2. Neutrogena Ultra-Sheer Dry Touch Sunblock SPF 55: Complete UVA/UVB protection with Helioplex. Along with a big hat, this sunscreen leaves the skin on our face wondering if it’s even at the beach.

3. Laura Mercier Lip Kisses SPF 15 : Sun protection for our lips with a sheer, high-gloss finish. We like it in Nude Beach.

4. Shiseido Refreshing Sun Protection Spray: This light, waterproof formula makes protecting our hair simple and easy. The bottle even sprays upside down making it easy to reach the back of our head without having to play Twister.

5. Bobbi Brown Lip Balm SPF 15: This colorless lip balm feels silky smooth on our lips. Bonus: we also use it on our cuticles!

6. Dior Diorshow Waterproof Mascara: Thick, lush lashes in a waterproof formula. Just because we’re at the beach, doesn’t mean we can’t look fab.

7. Neutrogena Cool Mist SPF 30: Again, Helioplex gives us ultra protection while the cool mist spray bottle keeps us feeling fresh and cool in the hot summer sun.

Now that our bag is packed, beach-going will be a breeze. We can’t wait until next weekend.

Did y’all see the Today Show this morning where they featured Boots No7 and the UK version of Restore & Renew? (If you missed it, like we did, the video clip is still available to see here.)

Have these people never stepped foot into Target?

Don’t they know that Restore & Renew is basically the exact formula as the UK’s Protect & Perfect? And it’s totally available in the US at Target and select CVS pharmacies?

As much as we love Matt Lauer, we’re kind of disappointed that his misinformation is keeping our nation’s women from getting their hands on their very own bottle of Restore & Renew for just $19.99 at their local Target.

Spread the word, girls. Tell everyone you know. (But wait until tomorrow, after we’ve bought out the entire stock in our area!)

It has taken us a while, but we finally got ourself over to Target to see the incredibly popular British beauty product brand, Boots.

Since No7 is Boots’ best-selling line in the UK, it made sense for us to start there. The product we most wanted to try is the No7 Restore & Renew Beauty Serum, as earlier this month the UK equivalent to this product, Protect & Perfect Beauty Serum, flew off the shelves after a BBC program called ‘Horizon’ featured it. British retailers of Boots products are literally keeping lists to manage customer demand for Protect & Perfect, a product scientifically shown to improve photo-aged skin and the fine lines associated with it. And it’s available without a prescription!

Sadly, Protect & Perfect is not sold here in the US but its (equally good) twin sister, Restore & Renew Beauty Serum, is. And it was the first thing we scanned the Boots display for at Target last week.

While it takes up to 4 weeks to see results from Restore & Renew, we think we’re already starting to see benefits. Our skin seems brighter and smoother after only a few days (we know it’s probably not likely but, whatever, let’s roll with it).

The silky-smooth serum is used twice daily after cleansing and before moisturizing.

We can’t wait to try their other lines- Botanics, Feel the Difference, Mediterranean, Sleep & Time Dimensions.