August Birchbox!

My review of my July box!

At first I was thinking I would just write about my first Birchbox but I've got so many things to say I thought I would make it a regular feature! I always forget to take a picture of the box itself, though I suppose the box never changes. But I want to talk about how much I love the great boxes this comes in, they're high quality and I'm already repurposing mine.


But this is the box without the lid, to give you an idea of the presentation. It feels like a present every month, and it's all carefully wrapped.


This is what I got in my August box. Another month and again I'm very happy with everything I got. Well, perhaps I wasn't in love with the Violet Oasis 100% Organic Argan Oil, mostly because my skin is already a bit difficult to work with so I'm not really thinking I'll start applying oil to it anytime soon. It might be good for hair.

Speaking of hair, I got two samples of Miss Jessie's products designed for curly hair. Now, I din't have curly hair it's really more of a wavy texture, and even that is not really that pronounced. But I get all the frizz and problems of curly hair without the prettiness of it, so I was excited to try them.

First, I tried the Rapid Recovery Treatment. Now, I'm completely beauty stupid so sometimes even what normal people would think are clear directions confuse me. The directions on this sample said to apply it to damp hair, and then rinse it out after a half hour. I assumed this meant not to actually wash it out. I'm still not entirely sure if that was the right decision, but basically it went rather poorly.

The day after I used it, my hair may not have been frizzy but it was weight down and looked oily and just generally gross like I hadn't washed it. I wasn't thrilled but I think it may have been user error. So a few weeks later I tried the Super Sweetback Treatment and this time I actually washed out the treatment when I was done. First, I have to say that the Super Sweetback Treatment smelled HEAVENLY. I have no idea what was making it smell so good but it was fabulous. And my hair retained the scent for a while and I loved it.

It also did look nicer the next day, less frizzy, a little more normal. But there were two things that are keeping me from buying this one- first, I don't think it was really a miracle worker like they described and I might get the same results from any decent conditioner (perhaps it takes multiple applications to really work) but the other thing is the price. If I can find a cheaper alternative, then I don't really have the money to spend on this kind of thing. I wish I could find something that smelled this wonderful though!

My favorite thing this month was the Whish Deodorant Swipes. I'd never used a deodorant wipe before, and I found the idea intriguing. I was really pleased with it, I liked the scent and the feel of it and the deodorant definitely worked for me. I would have already bought a pack of these if Birchbox actually listed the quantity you receive on their webpage (unless it's $22 for a single wipe, in which case absolutely not!) and I don't know how much I'm willing to spend on them. They also supposedly inhibit hair growth, and I couldn't tell you how well that works since I only had one but if it does, then that's definitely worth a bit more cash.

The only other product that I've got any feedback for is the ModelCo Party Proof Lipstick. My sister wanted to try this one, so I decided to be nice and let her have it. The one in my box was a great neutral shade called "Kitty," and she reported that the shade was really lovely but while the color on your lips might not fade, it did rub off on her coffee mug. I'm still thinking I'd love to get the Neutral Collection sometime soon but I'll have to be quite careful not to leave lipstick stains everywhere.


Photo from my Birchbox account page
Overall, another really successful box! I definitely have a few more things added to my favorites list on the site, just waiting for me to build up some more points before I buy them. As a lucky bonus, I also got to see the samples that my best friend got in her first Birchbox this month, and they were completely different from mine! I'm jealous of a couple of them, and hoping I get them in a future box. If not, I'll just wait until she tells me if they're good and buy some of my own.

My next box will arrive in a couple weeks, but it takes time to try out the products so expect another review in about a month! If you think this looks fun to get a new box of samples every month, then you should definitely Subscribe! I highly recommend it!

Vera: Series One

Honestly, I can't remember how I discovered Vera, I think it was a Netflix recommendation. Possibly because I liked Sherlock, who knows. But I have been particularly interested in discovering new mystery series, in whatever medium, that feature older women detectives. Obviously there's Miss Marple, and I haven't really delved into that yet. But I'm tired of the typical mystery show cliches with the men always in the lead. And usually with some hot young thing that's impossibly in some expert role but never seems to have the brains for it. I'm looking at your casting decisions, CSI. You're constantly saying these extremely young, traditionally attractive women are experts in their field when that field takes 30 years post graduate work or something.

That's a tangent for another day though (and really, let's establish up front that I love the original CSI and have seen almost all of it). The thing that I love about Vera is how absolutely non-traditional it is. Vera Stanhope is not just an older woman as the lead detective. She's a woman in charge of an entire precinct, so she has a position of power. She's not a mother figure, she's actually quite acerbic and tough on everyone. And I'm not talking tough love either, I'm talking yelling and throwing things. She doesn't come across as a prodigy that people begrudgingly respect because even though she's a woman, she's still so brilliant. And the way they dress and style Brenda Blethyn, she's definitely not getting ahead on her looks.

She's just a good, solid policewoman who does her job at all costs and does it well. You get the sense that she rose in the ranks through sheer determination, along with a significant amount of skill. In short, she's exactly the way that male characters are usually written in this type of role, and yet there's no big deal really ever made of it. I can't recall a single instance of somebody being insubordinate because she's a woman, or even really commenting on it.

Her partner IS a hot young thing, but he's not a love interest in the slightest. He's actually religious, married, and his wife has their third kid in the first episode. He's a father and a family man, and always much more polite and respectful than Vera. It's a pretty distinct role reversal, and the actor, David Leon, plays the part extremely well. All of the acting on the show is top notch.

But the best part is the mystery - it's actually a mystery. I've talked before in my reviews of Castle (I think) about how I adore the genre but it gets a bit hard for me to love sometimes because I've read too much and usually can figure out the ending. But on Vera, there's no huge telegraphing of the main clue so that the audience doesn't miss it. The story progresses normally, the information is given to us with the same weight and importance across the board, and it's not the thing that was obviously meant to be forgotten because it was portrayed so unimportantly that you know it's important that ends up being the main part of the solution.

I've usually forgotten that part or dismissed it because it's all just so matter of fact. And because the show is about Vera, and Joe, and the rest of the detectives in Northumbria. You're too busy paying attention to the character development, which is so well done, that when you remember the mystery it's because the show is revealing the killer and you're just along for the ride.

The episodes are all very long, because that's the way the British do their tv. It's really more a series of tv movies than a series, and season one is only four episodes long. But they're all well worth it, and I wish that we had more stuff like this on American tv.

Hex

Normally, I review seasons of tv shows, mostly because I watch them too quickly to really do much else. This time I'm reviewing about two and a half episodes, because that's all it took before I gave up. I'm tempted to say the fan equivalent of "it's not you, it's me." Maybe Hex wasn't for me. Maybe it wasn't the right time. But really, while there are some things the show had going for it, in the end it was just too much of a big mush. There are shows that have recovered from such lackluster opening episodes, even shows with terrible first AND second seasons that then become great. I never really got the sense that Hex was one of those, and that's why I watched until something distracted me and never put the disc back in the dvd player.

The acting is good, and I think that's why I ended up with this in my Netflix queue in the first place was that several of the actors are more well known for other things (most notably Michael Fassbender, though he's really neither here nor there for me, just recognizable). The school principle is actually Colin Salmon, who I've really loved on Arrow this season. He was definitely the highlight of the episodes I watched.

But the actors can't really rise above the material or the general tone of the production. The story is a mishmash of old tropes and cliches that I've seen a million times before. Oh, the rich white woman is sleeping with a slave and she's fallen into using Voodoo! She uses it to summon a demon! The manor where she did the summoning has now been turned into something where impressionable young women are available to reenact the whole story, this time a boarding school! The main character is drawn to the demon because he's a sexy, sexy man but he's dangerous so she also has to stop him, or does she? I'm already bored.

That's not even mentioning the fact that the show has a preoccupation with sex that could have been interesting if it was done in anything other than the most exploitative and cliche way it possibly could have been.

Basically, the only thing in the first few episodes that made me take notice was when they killed off a main character that I wasn't expecting would die, but then she came back as a ghost immediately so meh.

I read a summary of what happens in the show in later episodes and I really think I made the right call. If I had continued watching it and saw those things happen after I'd invested time and energy I might have broken something and my dvd player has enough problems.