theBalm Nude 'Tude Nude Eyeshadow Palette Review

I made a fairly large Birchbox points order, and felt like I had to start beefing up my palette collection. This was just one of the palettes I grabbed, but theBalm's Nude 'Tude Nude Eyeshadow Palette is such a great value at just $36, which is relatively inexpensive for a palette of this size and quality.

Tyler Florence Fancy Box April 2014 Review

My April Tyler Florence Fancy Box arrived! I don't know if I could ever avoid spoilers for this box, because it pretty much always take a week to get to me. I originally decided to get this box as a good way to collect some kitchen necessities, and I think it's paying off!

This box is shipped via FedEx and this one took 7 days to arrive, from Massachusetts to California. I just don't understand why Fancy is still charging a ridiculous amount for shipping on top of their fairly expensive box price when my box still takes a week to arrive. I do appreciate that it arrives to the door instead of in my mailbox though.

Rainbow Honey New Products for May 2014

Rainbow Honey has some new products for May including the start of their subscription Mystery Bag! 

Cosmetic Organizers Review and Hautelook Haul

Hautelook is a flash sale site with crazy deals on all kinds of things from clothing, home items, and beauty. I made a purchase of a kitchen item and some plastic cosmetic storage drawers.

New Julep Products for May

I just noticed some new Julep products under the May collection page, that weren't a part of the selection time window. One of the pages doesn't link anymore, but they're there! I am vaguely interested at what the Maven price will be when these are finally introduced, but as always they are products you can get elsewhere for cheaper.


EDIT: It looks like they took down the pages. But I'm sure we'll be seeing these soon. Secret Store maybe?

Julep April 2014 Secret Store Haul and Promo Code

I finally received my Julep April Secret Store order, which took a long while to get here, but it was just in time because I ran out of some essentials.

Regular Julep purchases (not monthly Maven boxes) are shipped DHL Global Mail, and this took 5 days to arrive from Washington to California, and was delivered by USPS.

Tokyo Milk Dark Lip Elixirs Review and Discount Codes

I bought one of the Tokyo Milk Lip Elixir lip balms a few weeks back at Sephora, (which was believe it or not my first time shopping at a Sephora, I know right, what have I been doing all my life!?) because of a kind of strange reason. They started popping up as a redeemable points bonus perk on Ipsy, but I found out they were only $7 and I didn't want to use my points to get something I could buy for $7. (Come on Ipsy, give us the Benefit High Beam, we know you have it!)

So I put it on my list of things to check out, and the more I was looking at these delicious looking lip balms, I decided to buy one at Sephora. Well, I loved it so much I bought 4 more flavors online! They finally all arrived, so I wanted to review them all together for you!

March Favorites

I've seen a few of these kinds of posts floating around, and wanted to start doing one of my own! Here are a few of my favorite things from the month of March!

Julep Maven February 2014 Review and Promo Code

It's safe to say I was very excited for February's Julep Maven box to arrive. I looked at all the spoilers I could find, and woke up early on the 20th to pick and chose the contents of my box. I think I'm a nail polish addict now, it's official. This month's box was the Dramatic collection, and once again, I couldn't pass up anything this month and I upgraded to the Ultimate Upgrade with all the polish and eye sheen colors. I did really want to get the Glitter Nail Polish Removal Kit and Goldie, the add ons for this month, but I'm trying to save a little bit of money, so I managed to resist.

They originally allowed you to skip a month anytime you wanted, but they've recently changed their policy, much to the dissatisfaction of many of their customers to only allow 1 skip every 6 months for those Mavens who subscribed after December 18th. Luckily, I signed up right before then, on December 10th or something like that so I am what they're calling "grandmothered" in to the original skip-all-you-want plan.

Julep Maven Plié Wand Reveal and Promo Code

Julep has been hinting at this new product they've been working on called the Plié Wand, and they're asking for preorders to crowd-fund their new product. They are going to have enough for all their Julep Maven's, but they want to be able to make enough to have for as many women who paint their nails as they can. 

Photo Credit: Julep

Glossybox January 2014 Review

I decided to try another beauty box, this time it's Glossybox! I signed up for this month's January 2014 box, mainly to get the Beauty Blender plus bonus cleanser! I wasn't really planning on trying Glossybox but once I saw the spoilers for January, I couldn't pass it up. The Beauty Blender alone justified the $21 price of the monthly subscription for me.

Julep Maven It Girl Intro Box Review and Free Code!

Yes, I realize this post isn't about food. But I have to admit, I've gone on a little subscription box binge. There are so many blogs just about subscription boxes! So I went through a bunch of them, and found some boxes I could afford, and wanted to try out. Even though this isn't a food post, I thought maybe some of you would enjoy reading some of these reviews. I promise, I'm not changing what I post, there will still be food, but I'm also receiving a few food subscription boxes so I'll share those as well as they arrive.

Julep Maven is mainly a nail polish subscription box. They do branch out and include various skincare and makeup items, but they mostly offer nail polish. Now I want to be clear here, I bit my nails for most of my life. I've tried to stop, thought I did a few times, but then it came right back. I also am not a big makeup wearing/painting my nails kind of girl. I don't do my hair, I still have my natural hair color, and I wear some makeup for events or parties, but mostly my makeup routine consists of some Clinique foundation and then I'm done. I did notice though that if my nails did start growing out, painting them helped me not bite them. They started growing out, and then I found out about Julep. I found a code for a free box, I just had to pay $4 in shipping. I was like "done, I'll try that." So I selected the It Girl Intro Box and received 3 polishes.

Food Huggers Review

I finally received my long awaited Food Huggers in the mail!

Photo Credit: Food Huggers

If you haven't heard of these, they were originally a Kickstarter with the idea that we cut fruits and vegetables in half all the time, throw one half in the fridge in a plastic bag and we forget it's there before it gets moldy. Food Huggers are silicone holders for your food! You can use them for all kinds of things, not just half an onion you're throwing in the vegetable drawer. Opened jars, cans, they even have huggers that will fit an avocado. I was really excited to get these finally so I could start saving my half used produce. They also save you from using so many plastic bags. Here are my Food Huggers:

Veronica Belmont #NOM06 Quarterly Co. Box Review

I want to do a little different post from what I usually blog about, and that's talk a little bit about subscription boxes. More specifically, about Veronica Belmont's box from Quarterly Co. I have been subscribed to this box from almost the beginning. I missed the first one because I didn't know about it yet. But Veronica is someone I respect in the tech world and her boxes are advertised as being filled with local foods from the San Francisco region. I had to try it out. Now, when I started subscribing to this box, it was originally $25 every quarter, or every 3 months. It has since gone up to $50 every quarter, so Veronica can pick a bigger variety and better quality items for each box. I didn't mind the price jump, since it means we get more items in each box.

I want to mention that I've had great customer service from Quarterly Co. There was one box that had a broken bottle of sauce in it, and many customers had the same issue. Quarterly refunded the whole price of the box, and sent everyone who had an issue a free poultry rub. Despite the fact that the other item in the box was fine. They didn't have to do that, but it was a great gesture. I also won a Twitter giveaway they were holding once, they didn't even contact me just sent me some free cupcake decorating items. This box for November was the first to change to $50, but I believe the people who had already subscribed who wanted to keep subscribing were given a credit for this box. All said and done I only ended up paying about $2 for this box. So it was a great value!

Each box has a theme, and each box comes with a little letter from the curator about each item. This quarter's theme was garlic, and what with the Gilroy Garlic Festival in Gilroy, California, most of the items were from the festival. So here's my November box:

Jiva Coffee Cubes

I had watched Dodger's review of these Jiva coffee cubes over on her YouTube channel, and she recommended them. Dodger drinks a lot of coffeh, so I trusted her judgment on this. Jiva's coffee cubes originally started as a Kickstarter, but they fully funded, and you can order these cubes over on their website. That is what I did after watching Dodger's review, I got an assorted box, with everything from Classic Coffee, to Caramel Hot Chocolate in the box. It did take quite a while to get these shipped to my house, almost a month, but I imagine this was to ensure I was getting the freshest coffee cubes possible. Here's what came in the box and bag:

• 4 cubes of each of these flavors: Classic, Mocha, Caramel, Hazelnut, French Vanilla, Hot Chocolate, and Caramel Hot Chocolate.

Zapp's Cajun Dill Gator-Tators

In case you missed it, my favorite podcast, The Morning Stream, I listen to every Monday through Thursday, has been doing foreign food testing, which listeners have been sending them food to try on the show. They've been doing it now for about 2 months, and being the food lover I am, I am thoroughly enjoying this segment of the show. So, I decided to track every food they tried, and what the consensus was on the food, and where you can buy it. You can view this here.

These were very dilly in flavor. As with all of my chip tastings, these bags are pretty big and tough to eat the whole thing in one sitting. But, if you had some onion dip with these, it would be amazing. I don't think these were my favorite, out of all the ones I've tried so far, but they are definitely a flavor to try once. That is if you were buying a few flavors from Zapps. So if you like dill flavored foods, try these!

President's Choice Buffalo Wings and Blue Cheese Chips

In case you missed it, my favorite podcast, The Morning Stream, I listen to every Monday through Thursday, has been doing foreign food testing, which listeners have been sending them food to try on the show. They've been doing it now for about 2 months, and being the food lover I am, I am thoroughly enjoying this segment of the show. So, I decided to track every food they tried, and what the consensus was on the food, and where you can buy it. You can view this here.

These chips come from Canada, and cost a fortune to ship, more than the chips themselves! I ordered them from this website in case you wish to order them for yourself. They are pretty expensive to ship, but they are pretty good. They have a great spicy, tangy flavor, just like you're eating buffalo wings and blue cheese dressing. They look like Ruffles, and would probably be great with some kind of sour cream dip. They're pretty big bags, and I ordered 3, and I've only gone through most of one so far. If you like buffalo wings, and feel like paying a lot in shipping, get these! So tasty and better than many of the chips in the store at the moment. The downside was that they hadn't been packed tight in the box, and almost all the chips are in small pieces. Tasty pieces!

Zapps Voodoo Chips

In case you didn't hear, my favorite podcast, The Morning Stream, I listen to every Monday through Thursday, has been doing foreign food testing, which listeners have been sending them food to try on the show. They've been doing it now for about 2 months, and being the food lover I am, I am thoroughly enjoying this segment of the show. So, I decided to track every food they tried, and what the consensus was on the food, and where you can buy it. You can view this here.

The next flavor I tried from my mixed grab bag of chip flavors from Zapps, was the Voodoo flavor. The flavor comes from when an employee moved a bunch of spices, they dropped and he liked the taste the mixture and they used it on the chips. Warning though, this flavor is quite strong but tasty. I tried this chip first, and didn't like it all that much. But I came back to it, and liked it more than I did the first time. I liked the Spicy Creole Tomato a little better, but this flavor is great too. It's difficult to explain how these taste, but it's like a creole spice mixture that's a strong, but tasty flavor. Definitely try these if you order some chips from the Zapps website!

Zapps Spicy Creole Tomato Chips

My favorite podcast, The Morning Stream, I listen to every Monday through Thursday, has been doing foreign food testing, which listeners have been sending them food to try on the show. They've been doing it now for about 2 months, and being the food lover I am, I am thoroughly enjoying this segment of the show. So, I decided to track every food they tried, and what the consensus was on the food, and where you can buy it. You can view this here. After doing all this research on what they tried, I just had to order some of the food items to try myself. The first of these was Zapps Spicy Creole Tomato Chips.

These chips are amazing! Spicy kick at first, with a tomato-y finish. I gave the second bag I ordered to B, and I was kind of sad I did! I want them all to myself! I almost finished the bag I have, there's just a few scraps left at the bottom of the bag. If you decide to order any chips from Zapps, I highly recommend this flavor, and it's a limited edition so get them fast!