The Random Writer Girl

The first thing that caught my eye was the box of Nectresse, made by the same people who make Splenda.  No little sample box or just a handful of packages.  This was the full 40-count box of the sweetener made from monk fruit.  (Hey, what's a monk fruit?  Remind me to google this and figure out if I want to try one.)  According to the box, each packet provides the same sweetness as two teaspoons of sugar.

Let me be clear.  I'm not a big fan of artificial sweeteners.  It's the aftertaste.  I can usually tell when it's been used in a drink (like sweet tea) and while I can normally push through it, sometimes the aftertaste is just too strong.  To me, Splenda has an aftertaste.  I know, I know.  "It's an artificial sweetener, Manda.  It's GOING to have an aftertaste."  Well, shut up, okay?  I'm a picky person.  :P

So here I am, skeptical as hell about Nectresse.  I mean, I don't even know what a monk fruit is, let alone whether or not I want it sweetening my tea.  So I decided to try it by itself.  It does NOT taste like sugar.  It's sweet, and I think mixed in a hot beverage, it wouldn't be intolerable, but it's not sugar.  It has a bit of an aftertaste, but it's not strong.  Maybe it's the monk fruit or something, but it almost has a bit of a fruity taste to it.  I kind of like it.  Would I use it in everything?  Probably not.  But good job, Splenda people.  You've made a sweetener that isn't sugar that I can handle.

Next to the Nectresse?  A box of Dickinson's Original Witch Hazel Oil Controlling Towelettes.  I like witch hazel.  It's cooling, it helps repel mosquitoes, and I kind of like the smell.  Just like the Nectresse, it's a full box - this time 20 individually wrapped 5"x7" towelettes.  They're made to be refreshing, to help remove dirt, oil, and impurities from your skin.  It's a quick clean in a wipe, and...I LOVE IT.  The wipe is soft.  I'm talking almost sensitive skin baby wipe kind of soft, and has aloe, but what you smell is the witch hazel.  These things are amazing and I'm not sharing.  Normally, I share products I receive with my mother and sister-in-law.  NOT THIS TIME.  These are mine, mine, mine.  Is there some kind of witch hazel rehab?  If so, I think I need it.  My love of this stuff has to be unhealthy.

Then there is Vaseline Spray & Go Moisturizer.  I actually JUST saw a commercial for this yesterday and laughed at it, but now I kind of want to run through the house spraying on my lotion as I get ready to go.  I literally just sprayed this on my arms to try it out (and subsequently sprayed my laptop screen).  This is another LOVE LOVE LOVE product. The laptop and I have never been softer. The spray is light and absorbs quickly, and isn't sticky or oily, like some lotions.  And it smells great.  It's not an incredibly strong, overpowering smell.  Just a light, sweet, clean smell that I now want all over my house.  Dear Vaseline, can you make candles in this scent?

Then, there are BelVita breakfast biscuits!  Let's just pretend for a minute that I didn't spend the first two weeks that these biscuits...no, cookies came out calling them Velveeta cookies, okay?  Because I have to apologize.  There's nothing cheesy about them.  I received a package of four Cinnamon & Brown Sugar ones (wtg Influenster - you're catching onto my weaknesses).  THEY ARE AMAZING!  They're crunchy and sweet and apparently will help release steady energy, which I am going to need because I've got a LOT of writing to do!  A single serving is 4 cookies (sorry, darlings - I don't do the calorie counting), and there are 5 packages in each box...so basically a work-week full of energy in yummy cookie form?  Sign me up.

So I tried the natural no-calorie Nectresse,  I tried the delicious BelVita biscuits.  I was going to have to brush my teeth, right?  Well, that's where the next bit comes in.  In this VoxBox was not only one Colgate Optic White product, but THREE.  A new toothbrush, and toothpaste and mouthwash in Sparkling Mint.  According to the package, it's a whiter smile in one week.  My only question is...do they have this in other flavors too?  The toothbrush is something I'm going to have to get used to, as it has a cheek/tongue cleaner on the back that feels incredibly foreign in my mouth.

For my next trick, I'm think I'm going to compare the Optic White system against the Crest 3D White system that I tested for Allure about a month ago.  By the time I'm done, my teeth should be able to glow in the dark, right?

And if receiving all this great stuff to try out wasn't amazing enough, there was a little square of BUBBLE WRAP in my box!  I'm such a child, but popping bubble wrap is such a guilty pleasure.  Influenster could have sent me an entire box of nothing but bubble wrap and would have received a glowing review from me.  Maybe next time? :)

Right away, the first thing I saw when I opened the box was a pretty blue box of CHOCOLATE.  IT WAS A SIGN.  I had been having a pretty craptacular day up until that point and had just been thinking that I could use a little chocolate.  And there it was - in the form of a Ghiradelli Sea Salt Escape milk chocolate bar.  Now, Ghiradelli is one of my favorite kinds of chocolate.  In my perfect dream world, they would have a bar that was milk and white chocolate swirled, with chunks of almond and a caramel center.  No, they didn't send me my dream bar (though if they'd like to, I'd be happy to test it for them!), but what I got was pretty darn amazing too.  Now I'd heard of their Sea Salt Escapes before - I'd tried the dark chocolate version of the bar I got.  But I'll admit that I was a little concerned about how the milk chocolate would do with sea salt.

I didn't have to worry.  The dark chocolate version was great, but the milk chocolate was incredible.  That amazing smooth Ghiradelli chocolate that can seriously do no wrong, mixed with little bits of almonds and the occasional salty bite was exactly what I needed to make the day better.  If you like chocolate covered pretzels or other snacks that are salty but sweet, give it a try.  The salt isn't so overpowering as to turn you away from the bar, but enough that when you get a bit of it, you think "hmm.  That's different."  And with the almonds, it just works.  I'm not a big fan of salted almonds ever, but with that yummy milk chocolate buffer, I can handle it the mix of almond and salt.  I was actually sad when I ate the last piece!  Thank you so much, Ghiradelli and Influenster, for making that stressful day a yummy one!

The next thing I noticed (it was kind of hard not to) was an adorable bag containing a Venus Embrace razor and an Olay replacement head.  The only way you wouldn't know about the Venus razor line at this point was if you were living on Mars, and I'm pretty sure even the Martians have them.  Since they came out, I've tried just about every version of the Venus available.  I'm actually a huge fan of the Embrace - I owned one before I got the one to test!  I'm kind of a visual person with my razor, which is weird, I know.  But I got the Embrace because of the colors - blue and green are my favorites!  So naturally, the Embrace was an instant favorite.  Plus, I enjoy that the Venus razors all work together.  If you don't like the Embrace head?  Switch it!

That's exactly what I did with this one.  I already knew the Embrace head was great, so I grabbed the Venus & Olay head and swapped them out.  It reminded me a lot of the Intuition razor, minus the bulky razor body.  I'll admit that I tried the Intuition when it first came out and I liked it for the lazy factor - I didn't have to use shave gel with it!  But it felt like a starter razor.  It was bigger.  Like safety scissors or those crayons for little hands.  But the Venus & Olay gives the best of both worlds and it's great.  I don't know that I'd drop any other Venus head to go exclusive with the Olay, but I liked it enough that I'll definitely add it to my list when I go shopping after all this holiday insanity dies down!

There was also a little bottle of Forever Red perfume from Bath & Body Works.  Given that Taylor Swift's album RED came out all that long ago and she is freaking everywhere these days (which isn't always a bad thing - I like Taylor Swift just fine), my immediate thought was that this was a product tie in.  But I know now that it isn't and I think, for that, I can appreciate it a little better.  It has a very sweet scent, with the strongest notes seeming to be pomegranate and vanilla.  And it lingers for a while, which is great if you love the smell, not so great if you don't.  I personally like it.  It's not something that I'd wear on an everyday basis, but it's an overall great scent.  Even though it has many of the same qualities as every other Bath & Body Works scent, it's different enough to leave its own impression.

However, I have to warn you of this.  I suffer from migraines.  Intense, debilitating migraines.  And while this scent didn't trigger one for me, it was strong enough to trigger migraines for two dear friends of mine.  So you should definitely use caution before spraying it all over the place.  On a one to ten scale - one being "I would never buy this awful scent ever in my life" and ten being "this is my every day signature scent" - I have to give Forever Red a pretty solid seven.

Last, but definitely not least?  PILOT FRIXION PENS!  I got two - one black and one orange.  THEY ARE INCREDIBLE.  If I could marry a pen, it would be this one.  In fact, I am marrying one.  Just don't tell the other - I'm using it too and I think it thinks we're exclusive.

I love to doodle, but hate writing with pencils.  So I write with pens.  But normally, I'd rather avoid pens with erasers.  Why?  Because they do one of two things.  Either the erasers are pointless and leave just as many marks on the paper as the pens do, or the eraser works and is so flimsy, they fall apart.  Sometimes, it's all of the above.  But the FriXion?  There is no "eraser" like normal erasable pens.  Instead, the entire opposite end of the pen is this grey rubber tip that erases your marking.  It doesn't bend or come loose like those pens with the eraser on the lid.  I can't tell you how many times I've lost an eraser on one of those things.  Instead, your eraser is always attached and I've yet to have one of the eraser ends start to crumble on me.

But the real test - does it work?  Let me begin by telling you that my niece is a year and a half old and thinks she's five.  She loves to color and let's just say I'm not opposed to buying her coloring books because it means I get to color too.  Anyway, I decided my first real test for the FriXion was the coloring book.  Somewhere in the depths of my niece's toybox is a picture of a My Little Pony with orange and black striped hair with streaks of color missing.  At first, I didn't think it was going to work.  I could still see where I'd colored with the pen after I erased but after a minute, you couldn't tell that I'd colored there at all!  As someone who is constantly writing and changes her mind just as much, I've needed something like this all my life!  I use them to jot down notes as I'm working and will definitely be getting other colors (I'm OCD - I color code EVERYTHING) to keep my serial fiction writing in gear! :)  (And no, you're not invited to the wedding between me and my FriXion.  It's a private thing!)

Overall, I have to thank Influenster for allowing me to test these amazing products.  This was the first-ever VoxBox I've gotten since I signed up over the summer and I was definitely not disappointed!