Product Reviews / Part 2

Let the randomness continue! Its a mixed bag this week (per usual) and you're in the right place to get that nudge to try some new things.

What. A. Summer. Right?!

It feels like I've used Google more in quarantine than I have since the internet began. The amount of research, "trying things", & going down all my checklists during these shelter-in-place orders has been a mix of exhaustion and intrigue.

“Be curious. Read widely. Try new things. What people call intelligence just boils down to curiosity". - Aaron Swartz

Here are 5 selects from months of not being at the beach and adopting several habits of a life-hacker:

Cricket Protein Powder

I already know what you're thinking because I thought it too. EWW. Crickets? As in like John The Baptist eating locusts, as in the hopping arthropods, as in....creepy crawly insects? Let me plead my case.

When you're someone caught between an extremely restrictive diet (no grains, legumes, dairy, gluten, soy etc), an autoimmune condition, several food sensitivities, and you want to cut back on red meat/eating cow, the options are both many and few. I had originally learned about cricket being a protein from a person trying to pitch their company to Shark Tank; it was a legitimate thing. And if you know me you know I'm always looking to find more sustainable options in every aspect of my life. Cricket farming happens to be more environmentally friendly then livestock because they use significantly less water (about 1,999 gallons less than cows), they produce practically no methane gas, and require less food & land overall. This protein consists of 100% milled crickets (so don't worry about seeing or getting any random cricket legs caught in your teeth - haha). It has a flavor/smell that reminds me of raw cocoa's nuttiness, has 2x more protein than beef, more iron than spinach, & more B12 than salmon!

OverTone Coloring Conditioner

I haven't been my normal groomed self since quarantine started in March and realized I needed some sort of hack to get me by since I kept moving my hair appointment farther out every month when the COVID numbers stayed consistently unpromising. And yes, this is another Insta-ad success story.

I wanted to find an alternative to the non-organic option I had been using and OverTone came up in my IG feed. Rosegold has been one of my favorite colors to do for the past 5 years so I went with that when trying this brand too. The color looks initially super hot pink in the container (the lighting in my photo makes it look orange, #androidlife) but it didn't have a chemically-overpowering smell, didn't stain my turbie or my skin, and was 1-2-3 easy peezy. Even with all my hair I have enough leftover for 3-5 more applications. Looking forward to trying their Ginger color when this one washes out:)

Organic Half & Half Pillow

Am I the only person who goes through 2-3 pillows a year? No matter how many times you flip the thing it loses its firmness, shape, and fluff. Enough was enough. I honestly never thought in a million years I would be one of those people spending more than $20 on a pillow but I was spending triple that over the course of my life! I reasoned I rather spend more to have one that actually lasts, I like, and works. If I bought one more pillow that said "firm" but only stayed firm for the following month, someone was going to get a very long, irate email.

I kid you not - I've gotten an additional 2-3 hours of sleep since getting this pillow and my neck never feels sore when I wake up now. I can also tell my quality of sleep has been better. The filling is made of organic buckwheat hulls and the other half has wool from humanely raised sheep; this blend makes the pillow girthy & moldable to your liking but still firm (for real this time). It felt good to purchase this from a family-run business and also to take it off my book's wellness checklist. Although the bigger purchase will be a bamboo mattress next year, the point is to brick-by-brick stack the cards in your favor when reducing your exposure to chemically embedded toxins; especially those that are (unbeknownst to many of us) built into "trivial" things like a pillow. #greenliving

Custom/Unique Designed Temp Tatts

I get a 3-year itch for tattoos. I was able to just get henna done to fend off the urge for real inkage but having relocated & still securing all my local "vendors" I've felt that urge start to creep up again. An IG targeted ad strikes again.

This brand is like the Society6 of temporary tattoo designing. I love the selection and their mission to support independent artists (each time you purchase a tattoo from them, the artist who designed it gets a cut of the sale). The "ink" is made of a plant-based formula that lasts up to 2 weeks and seriously looks like the real thing once on the skin. I've been having SO much fun with these! New designs are added to the site almost everyday seems like so I just add to the "favorites" folder they provide you to save for future purchases.

Not-Your-Average Soaker

If you're quirky like me, you wonder what it would be like to soak your feet but not leave the couch. Sometimes a foot soak is as close to a foot massage as you're going to get that day and the idea of filling up your bath tub halfway while sitting on the edge doesn't exactly have a relaxing element to it ( it's also a waste of water & not nearly as comfortable as the couch - am I right?). Solution - bring the party to you. And that's exactly what I did:) Plus it's multi-purpose and collapses to the size of a pocket umbrella. No brainer + #happyfeet = a great self-care night in.

If you wanted to find a specific item we talked about over the phone, via text/IG DM, or face-to-face, just click on the little magnifying glass on the top of any post & search by keyword to pull it up on the blog quicker.

On the next episode of this series, I'll be reviewing a new set of 5 things I'm still forming an opinion on/just started trying out.

Until then, I hope you've been inspired to try something new!

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