Julep Maven Mystery Box Review- Product Lovers Sept

Julep did something a little different with their mystery boxes this time around. They offered two different boxes- A Polish Lovers box and a Product Lovers box. I opted out of the October Julep Maven boxes because I feel like I currently have more than enough nail polish, however, the product lovers box really got me interested.

I placed my order and it didn't take long before my mystery box appeared on my doorstep. I was very excited to open this baby up!

When I opened the main box I noticed that everything was very nicely packaged in one of Julep's reusable bags (they sent us one of these bags in the August Maven box, I believe). These bags are sturdy and they are a nice size, so I was pretty happy to receive another one of them.

Inside the bag I found 4 products. The mystery boxes were $20 and Julep promised at least $40 or $50 worth of product (sorry, I can't remember which).

The first thing out of the bag was the Julep Fast Dry Topcoat. This retails for $14. I already have one of these topcoats and I love it! A second bottle will definitely go to good use. 

 Next out of the bag was a Julep Brand Glass Nail File. I have ALWAYS wanted one of these, so I was just thrilled to receive one in my box. These nail files seem like they would last forever. I'm not sure if I should keep it at home as my go-to file or throw it in my purse. This file has a value of $6

 Julep Essential Cuticle Oil was the next item out of the bag. I don't think I have ever owned a cuticle oil before, but I can tell you my nails could definitely use one. This oil smells great and feels great on. I have been using it every day since I received my box. The cuticle oil retails for $18.

 The last item out of my mystery box was the Glow On Age Defying Hand Brightener. This product is supposed to reduce the appearance of fine lines and age spots on your hands. I will admit, I don't often sunscreen my hands (even though I know I probably should) so I think this product will come in quite handy. It smells good and absorbs quickly leaving my hands very soft. This hand cream is worth $32.

 The total value of my Product Lovers mystery box was a whopping $70! Definitely not bad considering I paid $20 for the box. I really hope Julep continues to offer these mystery boxes, and even more, I hope the continue to offer the product lover boxes. I was completely satisfied with this box, and I almost wish I had purchased a second one. As always, the Julep products do more than impress!

Friday High Five

Friday again!! And I know I missed doing my High Fives last Friday....oops!

Looking back it was a pretty great week!

1.  A good friend of mine married a Cuban girl earlier this year. Recently they received some great news and she was able to move here with her permanent residency. Dan and I were able to get together with the happy couple to meet her for the very first time last Friday night. It was the perfect beginning to the weekend. What a nice girl!

2. We were able to take advantage of the amazingly warm weather we've been having and host a bon fire on Saturday night. We had quite a few of our friends over for marshmallows and other snacks. It was warm enough that we were out past midnight enjoying the fire.

3. I won! I won! I thought for sure I had saved myself another holiday to use at Christmas time, despite my boss' thoughts that I had used all my holidays up. (Dan and I just booked a week in December so that we can hopefully get away to a sunny desitination). I started the year with 16 days and had one carryover day from last year. For some reason, the computer system at work was not adding in that carryover day so that's what was messing everything up. I am very happy now because that one holiday means i get a whopping 5 days off work at Christmas time, rather than having the weekend off, coming back for one day, and then having two days off.

4. A very exciting milestone this week! We have officially made it to the second trimester! I am still a bit nervous about something going wrong, but that is definitely a good sign of the health of our baby. Last week's ultrasound also made us feel a lot better about things. Baby looked great with a strong heartbeat! And the IPS screening showed excellent results.

5. Dan and I got to go do a little bit of baby shopping this week. That is such a fantastically fun activity! It's still a bit tough because we don't know the baby's gender. So far everything we have gotten has been as gender neutral as possible, but even so, we have managed to find some REALLY cute outfits!

Looking forward to this coming weekend! My cousin is coming over for an Italian pot luck with board games tomorrow night. Sunday we are hitting up the local corn maze with some of our friends.

Hope you all have a fabulous weekend!

Glymm September 2012 Review

After much thought, I have decided I will be cancelling my Glymm membership. I decided after I received last month's bag that it just wasn't for me anymore. Glymm's customer service convinced me to stay on for another month by enticing me with a free item in my next bag. (I'm assuming that will be showing up in my October box). At this point though, I don't think that extra item is going to make much of a difference though.

I was finally taken off the waiting list for Topbox. And really, there are only so many subscriptions a person can have and I already have a backlog of products from all of my different boxes. Glymm's samples are consistently small and I just don't think it's worth the money. Not to mention the cosmetic bag they insist on sending each month. Enough already!

Let's take a look at what was included in the September bag.

I had peaked again to see what would be arriving, and I noticed that one of the items was a shampoo. I will admit, my heart sank a little bit. I don't use conventional shampoo in my hair, only sulfate free shampoo. There wasn't very  much information in the other reviews that I had read, so I just figured this was regular shampoo. Boy, was I surprised when I pulled this out of the bag and it was, in fact, sulfate free shampoo! I did a little dance of joy!

Elvolh UltraShine Moisture Shampoo and Conditioner

Glymm says each of these is good for about 14 uses. After trying them out one time I can already tell that I will get way more that 14 uses out of the Shampoo and probably closer to 5 or 6 uses out of the conditioner.

The shampoo is very lathering. I noticed, with even a very small amount, it worked into a nice thick lather and felt really nice in my hair. The condition seemed to soak into my hair very quickly (which I guess is a good thing) but I can see how I would use a lot of this in a single hair wash. 

The next thing out of the bag was very similar to a cream we received from Glymm last month, or the month before. It is Bentaberry Super Moisturizing Face Cream for Girls (I think the only difference between this one and the previous sample was the last one was for boys AND girls.... whatever that means?!) I haven't had a chance to use this yet as I have a huge backlog of face creams. 

  
Next up are Waterprood Makeup Remover wipes from LA Fresh. I have used this brand once before and I will admit, I did really like it. The previous sample I received was acetone free nail polish wipes. I haven't given these a go yet, but I am looking forward to using them.

Last up was a really delicious smelling body cream. It is Villainess Dulce En Fuego Whipped Body Creme. I really like this cream, it is very moisturizing without being greasy. It smells heavenly... like cinnamon and spices. Reminds me of autumn.

I should also mention that Glymm was kind enough to send yet ANOTHER cosmetic bag this month. This time it was a cream colored one in the same style as last month's black one. This is getting old really fast, and definitely doesn't make up for a lack of samples included.

Review Befine Food Skin Care Warming Clay Mask

I don't normally do this, but I wanted to write a review of one of the items I received in the August Glossybox. This came in a package with 4 other Befine products to try and so far this is the only one I have used.

I was tired and sore last night so I thought I would curl up in a warm bath with a good book and a nice mask. The perfect time to try out this new one I received.

The first think I noticed about this mask when I was putting it on was how much it actually warmed. It was a really interesting feeling and I actually quite liked it. The mask felt nice on, it didn't dry out like I thought it might, so I may have had it on a little longer than I was supposed to. It didn't burn my face at all.

However, when I went to rinse it off I noticed that it was quite oily. The mask got even warmer when I added water to it, which felt nice and kind of refreshing, but there was a definite oily residue. It only got worse as I got more of the mask off my face. In fact, I had to wash my hair afterwards. The mask had just touched the edges of my hair around my face but that was enough for the oil to leech into my hair.

Overall I was not happy with this product. The whole purpose of a mask it to clarify your skin and make it feel healthy afterwards. This just made me feel like I washed my face with olive oil. It was gross! The warming effect was it's only redeeming quality, and I know there are tons of other warming masks on the market. I am holding out for better results from the other packets of this.

Friday High Five

It's hee--eeer-ee.... Friday! It was a very nice short week and I am glad to be back here with my friend Friday. Looking back, it was a busy one!

1. Bittersweet, but my husband and I headed out to the cabin for the last time this year. Soon the snow will be flying and you could definitely feel the chill in the air this weekend. It was really nice to spend some time with my parents. We don't get to see them a whole lot in the summer. My brother and soon to be sister-in-law also joined us this time. It was fun having the whole family together. The 4 of us went into the US for some shopping one day, and that is always a good time.

2. Dan and I got to tell my grandmother our news this weekend. She had the greatest reaction. Got a huge grin on her face and said "Oh. My. Goodness!" It was great. This will be her first great grandchild and I think she is through the moon excited. Hard to believe that we will have a little one by the time we make it back out there next year. I think the news also came at a good time for her. She fell and broke her hip in June. Since then she has been living in a rehabilitation home. It hasn't been going so well for her, and over the weekend they had to move her to a different facility. As such, we weren't able to stop in to see her on our way home.

3. This week has been the week of deals! We all know that having a baby is expensive, but it has been my hope to make this as inexpensive as I possibly can. I have been scouring Kijiji looking for good deals, and I have certainly found a few. Including our beautiful white crib that we purchased from a couple for $40. Can't beat that! I love shopping around for a bargain!

4. After not seeing one another for about 2 weeks, my best friend and I were finally able to get together yesterday afternoon. She had taken a trip to Vegas just before we left for our extended long weekend. It was so nice to see her. We went and had a nice lunch, and then I had to stop by the doctors for a bit and we went shopping for a little while afterwards.

5. I am pretty excited for this weekend. We get to see my little brother get married! It is going to be a very small ceremony with just the two of them, my husband and I, and one of her friends. They have decided to do it in the little mountain town I used to live in, so it promises to be a beautiful day.

Glossybox August Review 2012

I was so excited when I got home from work yesterday afternoon and discovered the mailman had delivered this month's Glossybox. This is definitely one of my favourite beauty box subscriptions. It always comes packed with stuff, and this month was no exception.

It occurred to me that I have often mentioned how nicely these boxes are packaged, but I have never posted any photos to show you. I made sure to take some unpackaging photos this time around. The boxes are always a really nice heavy carboard covered in a pretty pink paper. The contents are wrapped in black tissue and then tied with a pink ribbon and sealed with a little sticker with the Glossybox logo on it.

This is my first peek into this month's box, and as always it looks jammed with goodies!












One of the first things I pulled out was a package of Biore Make Up Removing Towelettes. This is a package of 10 so I am happy they gave us so many to try out. Sometimes with these boxes I find the samples are just too small to really see how well they will work for me.

10 towelettes / $3.99

Next up was this fabulous box of Befine samples. There are 5 in all, ranging from a mud mask to exfoliating cleansers and a gentle cleanser. This is the product information;

You hear about the benefits of different foods, when ingested, for your skin and even topically applied. Befine is inspired by the healing properties of food ingredients to create cleansers, masks and scrubs that are paraben free, made with vegetarian proteins and having allergen-free fragrance. A most colourful box holds five samples including:

• Gentle cleanser with sugar, mint, oats & rice this was really runny and lathered to a moderate extent but was effective in leaving my skin feeling clean and replenished
• Pore refining treatment scrub with coconut, jojoba & citrus
• Night cream with cocoa, millet & rice bran practically unscented and rapidly absorbed
• Warming clay mask with cardamom, arnica and pomegranate
• Exfoliating cleanser with brown sugar, sweet almond & oats

 I am really looking forward to trying these out. I loved the packaging on these, although i do think some of them will be tricky to use since there is obviously enough for more than one use.

5x 10 mL / $24

The next thing out of the box I'm not sure I will ever use. It is a gift card to a new website called Trend Trunk. Basically it is a consignment store online. I have a really hard time buying clothing without being able to try it on first. And since I am pregnant I don't think I would be able to buy regular clothing in the next little while. These gift cards supposedly have a value between $5 and $250. I checked mine out and it is a $5 card. So far I haven't seen any girls online who got more than $5.

I am excited to give this next product a try, although I will admit I am still a little confused as to what it actually is. Even the product info wasn't overly helpful. The best I can figure out is that it helps control frizz. (sorry for the photo, I'm not sure why Blogger flips them sometimes. I have no idea how to get them the right way around).

Sebastian Potion 9 Lite
50 ml / $7.25

Next up is a shade of lipstick designed exclusively for Glossybox. This is a Kryolan lipstick in Glossy Pink. Kryolan is made in Germany. I have mixed feelings about this lipstick. It is a pretty shade. I don't wear much lipstick. When I put it on it looked really pretty under the artificial light in my house. Almost like a very pale nude color. However, when I went outside into the sunlight it looked like a really bright pink. Not sure how much I will use this. Also not really sure of the value. (again, sorry about the photo).

















When I was perusing some of the other reviews online I saw that most girls got a really cool glitter mascara. It looked really neat, but then I got thinking... when would I ever use that?! I was happy when I found a tiny bottle of nail polish instead. A girl can never have too many nail polish colors! This is Layla "Smalti" Bijou in shade 107. This is a really pretty metallic blue color. I think I will get a lot of use out of it. This tiny 4.5 ml bottle of nail polish retails for $11.99 so that pretty much pays for my box right there.

Last up we have a sample from Elastoplast. It's an SOS Blister plaster. Apparently this is supposed to help out when us ladies fall victim to miserable shoes. I could see this coming in handy. It is only one blister pad though, so you better hope only one shoe is making your life difficult. A nice bonus though, great to throw in your purse. (also thought the little shoe size wheel inside the packaging was a really cute idea!)

1 unit / $1.20


















Over all another fabulous offering from Glossybox!