Hey everyone! Remember my Beauty Bloggers VoxBox review from back in October? So recently I got sent another box to review: the Spring Fever VoxBox! This is a little out of the way of my usual nail art tutorials, but I hope you all enjoy! There were some great products in this month's box!
If you're interested in receiving products to test and review, sign up for Influenster! It's fun and easy and it's always really exciting to open up a new box and see what the products are.
Here's the box everything came in. So cute!
And here's what I saw when I first opened the box. It comes with a little cheat sheet that names all the products, gives a little information about them, and tells us the price.
Onto the products!
Secret Outlast Clear Gel Antiperspirant/Deodorant
Retail price: $4.59
Okay, so I know it's a little strange, but I was actually kind of excited to try this one out. I have been using the same scent and brand of deodorant for years, and it's probably time to mix things up just a little bit. So the first thing I noticed about this one was that... it's gel. And that deodorant I've been using all my life was roll-on. It's pretty pathetic, but I had no idea how to use gel deodorant. So that took longer than I'd like to admit to figure out. The next thing I noticed was the smell: I couldn't stop thinking about it. I was really worried people would notice the smell if they were close enough to me. It wasn't bad, just... noticeable. And then I remembered that I'd used the same scent for forever and I was probably just noticing this one because I wasn't used to it. After a couple days I couldn't smell it anymore, so hooray! I didn't do any serious exercise with it on or anything, but I was never, ya know, smelly, so I guess it did its job. Wooh.
NYC New York Color Applelicious Glossy Lip Balm
Retail price: $2.99
Yay! Lip balm! Anyone who knows me knows I have a serious lip balm/lip gloss addiction (and oh, speaking of that, guess who left a stick of gum in a bag with seven of her favorite lip glosses? Now all my pretties are covered in melted gum *sigh*). So yeah, I was pretty ecstatic when I found a lip balm in the box. I read some reviews before trying it, and they weren't all that positive, so I didn't have the highest hopes. But then I tried it for myself, and I was pleasantly surprised!
My favorite part would probably be the smell. It's a very fresh apple smell. Which is what you'd expect with the name, of course, but I still really loved it. I also loved the way it looked. I didn't get a picture, but the main lip balm color is red, and in the middle is a pink apple. Very cute! I believe there are ten different shades of this style of lip balm; mine was Big Apple Red. It's also shaped like lip stick, which makes it very easy to apply. Speaking of lipstick, another thing I loved about this: the color! I'm a very less-is-more person when it comes to makeup in general. The most you'll ever see me wear is mascara and a teensy bit of eye shadow if I've got something important. Which means... no lipstick for me. Tons of women look great in it, but for whatever reason, I think it's just too much on me. And since this was a lip balm, it wasn't bam-in-your-face color, but it had a great pinkish-red tint that looked really great without overdoing it. Other than all of that, it's pretty moisturizing. It's a little bit softer than most lip balms, but that's not a bad thing. I definitely recommend this one if you like a lip balm with a great smell and a hint of color.
Broadway Nails imPRESS Press-on Manicure
Retail price: $5.99-$7.99
Being as picky about nail stuff as I am, I was pretty skeptical of this one right off the bat. Come on. Press-on nails? I mean, I think acryllics are fine and look great, but these kind of ones can only bring trouble. But being the open-minded person that I am (well, sort of) I tried them out! Here are some pictures of what they looked like.
They were pretty easy to apply and everything. Before you stuck them on, you were supposed to clean your nails with a little wipe that came with the package. Turns out it was just rubbing alcohol on a wipe (so nothing too fancy here!). Anyway, then you pealed off the plastic tab on the back, exposing the adhesive, and stuck them on. They were pretty strong once they were on my nail - I doubt they would have just fallen off randomly or anything. However, there were a couple problems. First, they were really, really short. I had to file my nails pretty low to put these on, and there was still some nail sticking out. This would be great for you ladies with shorter nails, but they didn't cut it for me. Another problem was that they didn't follow the curve of the nail bed as your nails get longer. So although they were touching my nail near the cuticle, there was a significant amount of space between the real nail and press-on nail at the tip, as you can see in the pictures. I can't emphasize enough how annoying this was. I wanted to test these out for the full week (the amount of time they're supposed to last) but I couldn't make it past about of half hour. I kept getting my nails caught on hair, clothes, you name it. So I gave up. Although, I have to hand it to them, these WERE pretty difficult to remove. I had to rub acetone around the edges and let it soak for a couple minutes, and even then I had some trouble getting them off. I'm saying that's a good thing though!
Overall, this might work for someone with shorter nails, but I probably wouldn't recommend them to most people.
Schwarzkopf Professional OSiS Dust It
Retail price: $23.50
Since the use of this one is probably less self-explanatory than most of the other products, I'll use the description from the cheat sheet:
"OSiS Dust It is a multi purpose mattifying powder that adds incredible root lift, texture and control."
There were also two other possible products by Schwarzkopf Professional, but this is the one I received. I don't have much to say about this one, but it didn't really work for me. I applied it to my roots and everything, but I didn't get any volume, and it left my hair kind of sticky. I might have been doing something wrong, since I rarely use fancy hair products like this, but it's a thumbs down for this one!
Tastykake Kandy Bar Kakes
Retail price: $4.49 per box
Hooray! FOOD! I was pretty dang happy about finding this wonderful little item in my box. I mean, who doesn't love cake? Plus, it's peanut butter flavored. Plus chocolate. My favorite flavor combination in the entire world (seriously, I have an extreme weakness for peanut butter and chocolate. I eat an unbelievable amount of DQ Reese's peanut butter cup blizzards every month and I'm not ashamed of it). So I really have nothing bad to say about this one. I mean, it's cake. It's made up of two layers of chocolate cake with a creamy peanut butter center, all covered in a solid chocolate layer. The flavor wasn't as peanut-buttery as I expected, but it was still amazing. I tend to dislike packaged cakes and brownies and stuff like this because they're never as good as the box makes them sound, but this was just so darn yummy. I felt a little guilty eating the entire thing in one sitting, though; the entire cake is a full 280 calories. Geesh. So I'm going to say that you should stick with your healthy fruits for the most part, and spoil yourself with this one on a few special occasions.
That's all, folks! I hope you enjoyed reading my reviews. Are you signed up with Influenster, and if you are, have you ever gotten any boxes? Which products here would you be interested in trying, and which ones would you skip? Let me know in the comments!
