Influenster VoxBox: Colgate Optic White

I got a great package in the mail today! A VoxBox from Influenster! If you don't know what Influenster is the short and sweet version is that it's a site that allows people to test products for free in exchange for honest opinions. There's more involved than that, but I should probably give Influenster it's own whole post. I'll get that up in the next day or so for you guys.

So enough with that, on to the fun stuff...what was in my box!



I got the Colgate Optic White VoxBox! Inside was a mini toothpaste, a toothbrush, and a whitening pen. Plus like 6 coupons (you know how I love coupons)!

The claim that I am putting to the test is "whiter teeth in 2 days." That means on Sunday I will put up a post about how well I think it works!

Limited Edition: Birchbox Finds

I was so excited to get my birthday present from my parents yesterday! My birthday isn't for a month, but what I wanted was only available for a limited time, so my mom let me get it early! :) I got the Limited Edition: Birchbox Drugstore Finds box. (PS this isn't one of their monthly boxes, just in case the 'limited edition' part didn't clue you in).

This box was valued at $55, but you can still get it HERE for only $18. Are you ready to see what was inside?!

(I'll start from the left side of the photo). 

Covergirl Bombshell ShineShadow in Ice Queen: a shimmery cream eye shadow. 

Nivea A Kiss of Care and Color in Sheer Coral: a colored lip balm.

John Frieda Frizz Ease: pretty self explanatory, a frizz reducing hair oil.

Sally Hanson Complete Salon Manicure in Pink a Card: a base, polish, and topcoat all in one, says that it resists chipping up to 10 days.

Rimmel Stay Glossy 3D in Back Row Smooch: "up to 6hr shine in a 3D effect lip gloss."

Covergirl Bombshell Volume Mascara in very black: a 2 step volumizing mascara.

Biore Self Heating One Minute Masks: 4 pack.

I'm super excited to try all of these products and I'll probably do reviews of most of them since I've never tried any before. 

Did you get this box too? Let me know what you thought of it!

Edivv.com

If you're anything like me somewhere in your house/ apartment/ dorm you have a drawer or basket full of beauty products that you don't use. They could be samples that you got that you already had too much of or didn't like. Or full sized items you bought, tried once, and decided weren't for you. No matter what is in that basket its all useless to you. But I have a solution that you're going to love!

I found a website recently called edivv.com. It's a site where people can trade their unwanted beauty products for things they actually want! The site started around the idea of unwanted samples from beauty subscription boxes, but I've seen lots of full sized products on it too. And you can even trade your gently used products (those tried it once and hated it products you have). 

After you sign up you write a quick blurb about the kinds of items you're looking for and then you add photos and descriptions of all the items you want to get rid of. When you see an item that you like you send a divvy request (a trade request) and wait to see if the other person likes your offer. Only after a successful divvy will your address be made available to others on the site. And ten days after your successful divvy you get to rate the person you traded with. The rating system helps keep all the phonies off the site. And if you never receive your product in the mail you get to contact the administrators, who will look into it for you. (But I haven't had this problem).

I love the fact that everything on the site is organized by category. There's make up, skin care, hair care, body, nails, tools, and even a recently added section! There are so many great products available on the site; there's definitely something for everyone!

So far I have had three successful divvys and I am absolutely loving the site! It's at least worth checking out. If this sounds like something you want to try click here to visit edivv.com.

Awesome Savings at BBW and Walgreens

I had such a great shopping trip today! I can't wait to show you everything I got for $24.

One place I went today was Bath and Body Works. BBW always has something on sale and in addition to that I'm on their email subscription list, so they email me coupons sometimes. I usually wait until their semi annual sales to shop because that's when you get the best deals, but I had a coupon for a free item when you spent $10 and the free item could be anything up to $14. One of the sales they had going on was 3 mini candles for $10. This was the sale I took advantage of along with my coupon because I am a huge candle lover! These candles would normally be $13.50 for 3.  For my free item I got stress relief lotion from their Aromatherapy line. This usually sells for $13.

So overall the cost for these four items should have been $26.50 and I only paid $10. That's a 62% savings!


The other store I went to today was Walgreen's. I know this blog is fairly new, but if you saw my post a few days ago about Walgreen's you might be coming to the conclusion that I like that store. You would be absolutely right. Walgreen's is such a great place to get big deals. They fairly regularly have buy one get one free sales and I've even seen some buy one get two free! Combining these sales with coupons can get you huge savings. Another thing that I love about Walgreen's is that you can use a manufacturers coupon in combination with a store coupon. I've never managed to hit the jackpot and combine all of these deals, but I usually get 2 of them.

So anyways back to my haul of the day. I found two buy one get one free deals that I took advantage of. The first was Pond's products and the second was Caress shower gel. I got two packages of Pond's face wipes. I've never used these before but I also had a Pond's coupon and it was an offer I couldn't pass up because I had been thinking about buying them anyway. Each of these wipes sells for $6.49, so two would normally cost $13. By combining the sale with a coupon I got both for $5.49. The Caress shower gels are my favorite! I always use these because they don't irritate my skin. Buy one get one free was something that I couldn't miss. They had my favorite scent in a larger size for the same price as the other scents so of course I was going to get the bigger size. I also had a coupon for Caress. Normally buying 2 Caress shower gels would cost $10, but with the sale and coupon I paid $4.49 for both! The last thing I got was Clear shampoo. This is another product I haven't tried. It was on sale for $1 off plus I had a coupon, so I paid $2.50 for $6 shampoo!

Overall the cost for my Walgreen's trip should have been $28.95, but I only paid $12.47. That's a 57% savings!

I know that there are other blogs that are strictly about couponing and that they may get better deals than me, but I'm not interested in going crazy like they do. I respect that they take all the time to do it and write their blogs, but I don't have the time for it. I'm happy cutting down my spending the way I am. It's easy to do and really helps my college budget.

If you want anymore tips let me know in the comments, or if you want me to do a review of any of these products. Have a great night!

Wet n Wild Matte Top Coat Review

Today I tried out Wet n Wild's Matte Top Coat for the first time. I've never tried any matte nail polish before so I was pretty excited!

First of all it was just a top coat, so I had to find a color to go underneath. I chose another Wet n Wild product, from their Fergie line, called Miami Heat.

In the top right of the photo is the two polishes. The bottom right is a comparison of with and without the matte top coat (left is with, right is without). And the photo on the left is the final result.

The matte top coat dried quickly and gave the exact results I was hoping for. Another great thing is that it is very affordable (I found it for 93 cents at Walgreen's and got it free after a coupon!). I don't have anything negative to say about this polish. Although I do think it's funny that it is a matte coat and is from their Wild Shine collection.

If I were to give this a grade it would be A+. If you're interested in matte nails I would suggest this instead of individual matte colors because it is really cheap and works great and you can make all of your colors matte.

AcaChips Review

On Wednesday I posted about the upcoming AcaChips performance that I was going to. The show was last night and I wanted to tell you how great it was! Below are photos of the three groups. On the left is Central Harmony. In the middle is On the Rox. And on the right is Fish n Chips. They even did a song together at the end of the show. I have to say I absolutely loved the whole show! I had never seen any of these groups before last night so it was awesome to get to see all of them together. All of the groups mentioned they had upcoming performances and that tickets will be on sale soon (I'll post more about that when I find out dates). So if you missed the show don't worry you'll be able to see them before the semester ends. I think I'm going to go to the Fish n Chips show because they were my favorite of the night. If you went let me know if you enjoyed it in the comments!

                             

Walgreens Deal

Awesome savings today at Walgreen's! They had U by Kotex feminine products buy one get one 50% off. Then I combined the sale savings with a Walgreen's coupon (they had them on the shelf next to the product). Then I had 2 manufacturers coupons to add to my savings. For a total of 49% savings today! P.S. In case you didn't know you can combine a Walgreen's store coupon with a manufacturers coupon for double savings! 

imPRESS Manicure Update

Today was day 7 with the imPRESS nails on. I wanted to try to keep these on as long as possible to test out their durability, but I made it to 7 days and gave up. I ended up taking them off because I have a new nail polish I want to try! By the way the imPRESS nails were super easy to get off. I didn't even need nail polish remover; I just tugged at the edges gently and they came off.

Birchbox

Today I got my very first Birchbox. For those who don't know, Birchbox is a monthly subscription box that costs $10 per month and comes with 4-5 make-up and hair product samples. I will be doing individual reviews of some of the products later, but today I just want to talk about the company overall.

Signing up for Birchbox was really easy. I just went to their website and clicked on the link for the women's box (birchbox.com). I was on the wait-list for about a week, which I thought was very reasonable. When I went to claim my subscription I had some issues. For some reason after I put in my payment info I never got a confirmation. So I emailed the company and they got back to me within the hour and fixed my payment info. They were super friendly and prompt. It was awesome to get my issues resolved so quickly. After I got my payment and shipping info all set I took a quiz to help them determine what kind of products I would like. It was short, quick, and painless.

When my box shipped they sent me a tracking email to help me know when my package would arrive. I was very impressed with this. I checked the tracking code every day because I was so anxious for my box to arrive. It took six days to get here, but that was including the weekend; it was 4 business days. So like I said, it just arrived today and opening it was so exciting (I've never had a subscription box before).

Here's a photo of everything inside:

I haven't tried anything yet, but the box comes with a card that tells a little about each product.

The pink card in the back says Juicy Couture if you can't see it. Inside was a 0.05 fl. oz. sample of "Malibu." Actually this is the only one I've tried so far because it was easy to spritz on perfume. The scent was alright, this definitely isn't one of my new favorites, but I'll use it. And I for sure won't buy it because the info card says it costs $52-$72 and that's just not going to fit into my college budget.

In front of the perfume are three tea bags from Ahmed Tea. I'm actually really excited to try these because I love tea; I just need to buy some honey first haha. :) They gave me three different flavors to try, which are: Mint (green tea), English (black tea), and Blueberry (green tea).

I'm not sure if you can tell but behind the tea is a little glass bottle. It is Protect&Oil from Beauty Protector. The info card says to apply 1-3 drops to damp hair. I am going to try this out for a few days before I let you know how it is, but let me tell you it smells amazing! It's like vanilla heaven in that little bottle.

On the right side of the box you can see that long black stick with gold glitter. That is a Cynthia Rowley liquid eyeliner pen. I think I'm really going to like this. It is a marker style liquid eyeliner and I actually already own one from another brand. Since I love the one I have, I'm sure I will love this as well.

Last is the little blue rectangle in the front; I accidentally cut off the name-sorry. It is an Ayres bar soap. I'm usually not one for bar soap, but I'm going to give it a shot because it smells awesome! The info card says it's an all natural soap and the package says "shea butter soap with jasmine and rosemary."


Since I'm new to the whole subscription box thing I decided to cancel and tryout another company next month to compare. I did not cancel because I didn't like it; I just can't afford to do two subscriptions next month. When my subscription from the other company comes next month I will do a review of that one and let you know which company I decide to stick with.

Overall I was impressed with the service and quality of BirchBox. I only paid $10 for everything I just described and that includes shipping. It seems like a great service based off the first box.

If you're interested in trying it here's a link: https://www.birchbox.com/invite/hb61l (This link will earn us both points for their shop.)

Aca-Chips Tomorrow Night!

Tomorrow night at 7p in Plachta Auditorium all three of CMU's A Capella will be performing! On The Rox, Fish n Chips, and Central Harmony all in one show! And to make it even better, the show is free! I cant wait!

imPRESS manicure update

Day Five: still looking great! They even handled a scrub down of the bathroom yesterday.

Lee Brice Concert in March

Guess who’s coming to CMU in March?? Lee Brice and Keith Anderson!! So excited for this concert! I’m getting floor seats!

The show is March 29th. Get your tickets!

imPRESS Press-on Manicure Review

Review of imPRESS press-on manicure:

Last week that I won a giveaway from Broadway nails. Being that Valentine’s Day was this weekend and I had a hot date, I thought it was the perfect time to try them out. 

As you can see in the picture, the box came with clear instructions on how to apply the nails. It even had tips in case you had any other questions. One of the tips was to avoid contact with water for at least an hour after application, so I suggest you go to the bathroom before you start. 

With the picture instructions application was very simple. You just clean your nail then stick on the fake nail. I didn’t have any trouble at all putting them on. 

One of the tips was to continue to press nails down for an hour so the nails would be secure. I didn’t do that. I needed to get ready for my date so I only pressed on them for 10 or 15 minutes, then I went to curl my hair and do my make up. I didn’t have any problems with them while I was getting ready. Although, I was careful to follow the no water for an hour rule just in case.

So then I went out. My date thought my nails looked great btw. Woohoo :) 

I thought that I would be worried about them falling off all night- for some reason press-on didn’t seem very secure in my mind. But I actually didn’t think about them at all. Some times fake nails can be very uncomfortable and you feel like they could fall off at any time. These are not like that at all. I don’t even notice they’re on. I wasn’t thinking about them all night or checking them to be sure they were still there.

The package says they last up to a week. So I will let you know how long they last or if I have any problems with them.

By the way the color pictured is called “One Shine Day.”