Darphynia's Diary

The un-boxing. I received this quarter's FabFitFun box just before we left, and was so excited!  It's a bit like Christmas (well, the consumer part of it), but quarterly.  I love hats, plus I needed a new gym bag, so this box already came with two things I was looking forward to.   Since I ended up upgrading (the only "upgrade" is being able to pick certain products and/or colors) I was able to pick most of what was in the box.  Image courtesy of shopprivateparty.com As I said, I needed a new gym bag, and while the Private Party gym bag ($59.00/ea) is incredibly small, it's very functional.  There were multiple phrases to choose from, but if you don't have the yearly subscription, you got whatever they chose for you.  I picked "Meet Me at the Barre".  There was also, "Gym & Juice" and "Will Workout for Cupcakes".  The image doesn't show the denim texture, and the bag itself is a much darker blue. 100% Poly...

A little un-boxing photo, literally. First off, how wonderfully simplistic is Herbivore's packaging?  It's minimal, crisp, and the containers are reusable.  The products are also vegan, natural, and cruelty-free.  For the entire month of August I used Herbivore Botanicals exclusively, with the exception of an added SPF in the morning.  I had read great things about them and wanted to see if their products were really worth the hype.  My day and night routines consisted of:  

Sorry for the dark image!  The flash just wasn't working out. My skin has been changing; also, the more I stress the more I'm break out.  My go-to product has always been calamine lotion.  I either mix it in my lotion or use it as a spot treatment, but I wanted to try something new.  Sunday Riley has a fantastic(ally expensive) serum, Good Genes , which I love because it works.  I went on to see what else she had.  I ended up buying Sunday Riley's UFO trial pack (no longer available) that included the UFO: Ultra-Clarifying Face Oil and travel-sized Martian Mattifying Melting Water-Gel Toner in the hopes that my skin would clear up.  The texture of the toner is like a thick water-- definitely more water-like than gel-like.  Martian is lightweight and absorbs fast; smells a bit earthy and medicinal, but is tolerable.  The oil is your typical face oil, but it smells horrendous (to me anyway).  It could be the cumin seed oil coupled w...

First off, a big thanks to Revlon and Crowdtap for the products in this post.  I recently received four face products to help create the perfect photo-ready look:  Revlon Photoready™ Pore Reducing Primer, Photoready™ Brightening Primer ($12.99 and up at Ulta), Revlon Insta-Blush™ in Nude Kiss ($12.99 at Ulta), and a 4-in-1 Blending Sponge ($7.99 at Ulta), (list provided by crowdtap.com ). Left to Right:  Pore-Reducing Primer, 4-in-1 Sponge, Insta-Blush, Brightening Primer.

I absolutely LOVED the spring edition of FabFitFun (I should probably finish my review), and was equally impressed with the summer box.  Since I don't subscribe annually, and I probably should, I never know which designs will be in my set.  Everyone knows I hate pink, with the exception of the Cheshire Cat.  The summer box had pink in three of their items:  bkr bottle, Michael Stars ruana, and travel tag/passport set.  Luckily, I received the blue bkr and blue ruana.  I also received the Salted salt kit, necklace from kris nations, a collagen pack from Vital Proteins, Cargo HD bronze highlighter, Juice Beauty Smoothing Eye Concentrate, Way of Will massage oil, and Eau Thermale Avene SPF lotion.  I love that these items are travel-friendly, especially since we will be traveling quite a bit. Image courtesy of mybkr.com