Valentine VoxBox Review

I'm so excited to be writing this! A few months ago I signed up at Influenster to be a tester for various products and a few weeks ago I received my first products, the Love Voxbox.

It contained:

• a 3.5 ounce (100 g) bar of Ghirardelli Creamy Devotion 32% Cacao Milk Chocolate PLUS a coupon for $1 off two more bars
• a box of Stash herbal tea bags containing two each of nine different flavors (like the one that's linked but only one box of 18, not two)
• six packets of Truvia Natural Sweetener (a smaller box than the one that's linked, obviously)
• a Gillette Venus & Olay razor 
• a package of Kiss Nail Dress nail strips in a leopard print pattern

My impressions:

Unfortunately, more than half of the products in this box were things that didn't suit my tastes very well, but that's the way it goes sometimes. Besides, it was all fun and the two products that did suit me were SO good that it MORE than makes up for the others.

For starters, I'm not much of a chocolate fan, and especially not milk chocolate, but as chocolate goes the Ghirardelli bar was very good. My husband likes chocolate more than I do (though he doesn't like milk chocolate much either) and he said it was great for milk chocolate. The coupon was a big plus because it's good for any variety and there are several Ghirardelli bars that he likes very much. So the next time I need a small gift for him, I'm all set. He can hardly wait!

Alas, we don't like tea much either so the Stash herbal teas were a loss on us, but the story has a happy ending. I honestly didn't like the tea at all, but that's not saying anything because I don't like tea in general. Again, my husband likes it a little more than I do and he drank a few glasses of it (we both like it cold a lot better than we like it hot), but we gave most of it away to a friend who loves tea. The good news is that she loves it and was extremely happy to receive it. I have no doubt that it's fantastic tea; it's just not my thing.

I was genuinely excited to try the Truvia but I rarely use any kind of sweetener at all so it was kind of hard to find a good way to use it. I tried it in the Stash tea but all I could tell from that was that it was sweeter. I do sometimes sweeten my coffee but I'm completely indiscriminate about what kind of sweetener I use. The first thing I happen to grab is fine with me and I don't pay a lot of attention to any minor differences in flavor. Therefore, I don't really have a sense of how different ones taste and, again, the Truvia just seemed like another sweetener, nothing special. The one benefit that I did find was that, unlike many sweeteners, it tastes pretty good on its own so if you use it on cereal or other things where it's not dissolved/cooked in, there won't be any offensive bitterness or aftertaste. I would absolutely use Truvia again but I honestly don't think I would ever bother to seek it out over any other sweetener.

And now for the things I LOVED!

The Gillette Venus & Olay razor was AMAZING. Admittedly, I'm kind of cheap so I'd never tried such a fancy razor before and was actually kind of skeptical that it would make any difference at all. I was so wrong! When I first started using it, I didn't think it was working because it literally just felt like I was rubbing a bar of soap on my skin. I thought the blades weren't touching me because I didn't feel that familiar "scritchy" sensation. But after just one pass over the whole area I ran my hand over it and, lo and behold, I was completely hair free! I finished the rest of my shaving with a grin on my face and was extremely pleased with the results. I've used it repeatedly since then and it's still going strong. I've found a new razor for sure, and I'd recommend it to anyone! Good job, Gillette!

The big winner in this particular Voxbox, though, was the Kiss Nail Dress strips. My nails are a constant source of frustration for me. They're thin, weak, usually short, and don't do well with polish. What's more, polish doesn't like them much either and usually 2-3 days is about the most I can expect from it before it gets so chipped that it has to come off. I'm also reeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaally bad at putting it on so it takes more effort than I usually have time to invest to make it look acceptable in the first place.

That all changed when I got the Kiss strips. They were SUPER easy to apply -- just carefully place the back of the strip at the back of the nail, smooth it toward the front and sides, fold it down over the end of the nail, then run the included emery board over the end of the nail to cut the strip off perfectly evenly. I thought they'd fall off within a day or two but, true to their word, they lasted through 10 days of showering, hair washing, dish washing, hand washing, etc, and in the end only came off when I TOOK them off because my nails had grown so much that I had a lot of uncovered space. I didn't put them on my toes because I wanted to let my niece try them too (she loved them as much as I did!) but I have no doubt they'd be fine there too. Despite sticking so well, they came off remarkably easily and my nails looked perfectly healthy underneath, which is not the case when I remove nail polish.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should say that after about a week the tips of my nails were starting to show a little bit but I really liked the strips and wanted to see how long they would last so I went over them with some clear glitter polish to camouflage the gaps. Not only did they take the polish beautifully, but they actually looked even cooler with the addition. The lesson there is that they can be modified with traditional polish if you'd like, which I think is super cool. 

The leopard print isn't a pattern that I would have chosen for myself but I liked it well enough. I am DEFINITELY going to buy more Kiss nail strips at the first opportunity and I'm really excited to try some of the other designs. I recommend this product wholeheartedly and enthusiastically. You'll love it! 

So that covers it, I think. Despite my general distaste for chocolate and tea, I was really happy with my Love Voxbox. I'm excited about discovering the Gillette Venus & Olay razor and the Kiss Nail Dress strips, I'm thankful for the Ghirardelli chocolate coupon and for the opportunity to try Truvia sweetener at last, and I'm even happy that I got the Stash teas because my friend is very pleased with them. Thank you, Influenster, for the chance to do this. I can hardly wait for the next one! 

If you're interested in doing this sort of thing, just head over to Influenster and sign up. It's fast and easy, and I can promise you won't be sorry!