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Honest Beauty Lip Crayon Review: An Honest Assessment

September 21, 2015 · by Tiffany Merritt · 2 Comments

I purchased this product on my own as a happy Honest Company customer. All thoughts and opinions about Honest Beauty are my own. Referral links may be included.

Friends I am SO excited to let you know that The Honest Company has launched Honest Beauty, which is a sister company solely focused on makeup and skincare products. Just as you will find with The Honest Company products, Honest Beauty products are honestly free of ingredients that aren’t good for our bodies or for our planet. This is shockingly hard to find with American cosmetics and skincare products, so I have been really eagerly awaiting this launch so that I can start the process of trying out pretty much everything they make!

My very first purchase was the Honest Truly Kissable Lip Crayon in Blossom Kiss ($18). Notice that fact that for every product, Honest Beauty shows you what it looks like on models with different skin tones. I found this feature to be enormously helpful! 🙂

I have found that I prefer shopping for Honest Beauty lip crayons at Walmart.com and there are a few shades on Amazon, as well. Y

Check out my video review where you can see what it looks like when applied!

I’ve been wearing this product for about 4 days now, and I love it! 🙂

Update: I now also own Sheer Chestnut Kiss and I wanted to show you how the shades compare:

Chestnut Kiss is much more peachy and Chestnut Kiss is more brown. Both are quite understated, as far as their level of intensity. As someone with fair skin with blue undertones, I prefer sheer blossom kiss to sheer chestnut kiss, personally.

Honest Company Dish Soap Review: An Honest Assessment

September 14, 2015 · by Tiffany Merritt · 3 Comments

Affiliate links included. I make all my Honest.com purchases and review them to help others out! 🙂

I’ve had Honest Company dish soap for a long while now, and it was on my list of things to share with you about that I would NOT recommend. And then I realized that others must have felt similarly, because the bottle design AND the formula changed.

So I ordered the new Honest dish soap, and have been using it for a few weeks. The price went down (actually, I think the price, itself, stayed the same, but the number of ounces in the product increased). I’m going on memory so somebody correct me if I’m mistaken about that.

I really like the improvements made to the formula of the dish soap. I think it cleans great now and the scent is also really nice (I tried lemon verbena).

The packaging is another story. Aesthetically, it is also a big improvement. I love that the bottle is tall and also clear. It has a really fresh, really pure look and the graphics are better than the old design. The problem lies with the hole where the dish soap comes out. It’s too big, and so dish soap pretty much spews out of it every time you use it. I have more dish soap than I did with the old design, but it’s getting used at a faster rate because every single time I use it, even now that I know to be careful, more comes out than I want or need.

So would I buy the product again? It’s hard to say. Again, I think the formula works great, but in order to not be dissatisfied overall, I’d need to move the contents into an entirely different container. And if I’m going to go through all that hassle, I’ll probably just buy something different altogether. But that’s just me.

If you want to try the Honest Dish soap, I recommend that this item be one of the + 3 items in your bundle due to it’s low cost. You can have up to 3 +3 items included with your order, and those items get marked down by 25%. This is the place to put your lower cost items.

I had a commenter once advise me not to always think that anything cheaper than $7.20 (that’s the per item cost for your budle items) needs to be +3, and I think she was really on to something. She said that she adds up the total cost of the items in her bundle and if the total cost is greater than what she is paying for the bundle (bundles are $35.95) then she is satisfied that she got a good deal. With more and more items available that are under $7 retail, I actually think she’s on to something, because I have quite a few of those items that I love…more than the +3 spaces I usually have to offer.

But with all of that said, at $3.95 the Honest Dish Soap is one of the very cheapest items on the entire site. So I would firmly say that this one should go in your +3. If you need to put some low priced items into your bundle, at least save those spots for items that are $6.95 or even $5.95. You’ll get a better overall value. 🙂

Want more suggestions for what to get and what to avoid? Check out my list of Honest product reviews. I also have information about how to get 3 free trials of products from the Honest Company for anyone out there who is brand new to this great line of eco-friendly and affordable products!

Honest Company Organic Cotton Blanket Review: An Honest Assessment

August 2, 2015 · by Tiffany Merritt · 2 Comments

I’ve been eyeing the Organic Cotton Blanket on the Honest Company website for quite some time, and finally decided to take the plunge and order it this summer so I could try it out and tell you all my thoughts.

Here’s the short version: it’s a beautiful, but awfully tiny little blanket that won’t “grow” all that much with your kid.

Now let’s dig a little deeper, shall we?

First, let’s take an up-close look at this blanket that retails for $64, but that Honest company members can snag for $48.75.

It is an absolutely beautiful blanket. I will certainly give credit where it is due, friends. It has a gorgeous, creamy gray color that is truly gender neutral and even color scheme neutral so that it will look great in most any nursery. It is as soft as soft can be, and according to the Honest Company, it is handmade, which does help explain the price tag.

That’s really something you just have to keep in mind when buying from The Honest Company. You are certainly getting high quality products that are made with the environment in mind. They are also made with the employees and craftsmen in mind, too. The Honest Company pays a living wage, and that means that prices are going to look different from what you will find in the aisle of Walmart, plain and simple.

So what’s my beef with this blanket? Well, it’s just so darn small. But let’s be fair to Honest Company for a minute: they advertise this as a blanket for babies and nothing more. The truth is simply that I was hoping that it would be big enough for me to use as a throw. And it isn’t. I wanted it to deliver more than it promised, simple as that.

I think this would be an outstanding gift for a mother-to-be, but I will qualify that statement with this simple truth (at least it’s true here in the South): people LOVE to give handmade baby blankets (and even store-bought ones) as shower gifts. So it is not uncommon for a new mom to find herself with over a dozen blankets, and half of them have been lovingly knitted or crocheted by someone she knows. This could make this beautiful blanket fail to be the standout gift it could be if you knew that the parents weren’t getting any other blankets.

Since I don’t have a baby anymore, and since I happen to know that my little niece has an overabundance of blankets, my plan for this blanket is for it to become a throw at the bottom of my youngest’s bed, which is a twin. I think we can get a few years of decorative use out of it, and it certainly can serve as a throw for little kids. But once they are a bit bigger we’ll need to pass this on to others.

If you are new to Honest Company, be sure to check out my information on how to get started with freebies from the Honest Company, and how to make sure that every bundle you put together has the best products at maximum savings. This is one of the memberships that I enjoy having the most, as it is completely hassle-free. You can push your order back as many times as you want online and if you want to cancel altogether, it just takes a simple phone call and they don’t give you a hard time at all about discontinuing your membership. 🙂

For more tips on how to get maximum savings with Honest Company bundles, check out my full list of Honest Company reviews (so you can know what to skip, what to buy, and exactly how to buy it).

Honest Company Swim Diapers Review: An Honest Assessment

July 20, 2015 · by Tiffany Merritt · Leave a Comment

Affiliate links included. I only promote what I use and love.

I am SO happy to report that we are now well past the diapering years in my home. If you aren’t past it yet, take comfort…it WILL end! 🙂 But for now, you might be trying to find some eco-friendly swim diapers for your little one. Last year we purchased an Honest Company reusable swim diaper, and we really loved it.

photo credit: Honest Company

Some people may be a bit confused about the concept of reusable swim diapers, but let’s all just be honest about what swim diapers ACTUALLY do: they keep poop contained. They don’t really keep urine contained at all. And while they are made differently than regular diapers, they do still swell a little bit once they are wet.

A reusable swim diaper, on the other hand, is going to feel and function more like a bathing suit, only it has more intense elastic around the edges to help contain anything that really needs to stay put, if you know what I’m saying. We found the Honest Company swim diaper to serve very well in that capacity. Our daughter just wore it under her swimsuit. You could also wear it in lieu of a swimsuit, though it’s only a bottom (but Honest Company does sell swim shirts separately, FYI).

The prints are cute and the swim diaper works well. If you spend a lot of time at the beach or the pool, you might want to get more than 1. But for us, we only visited on occasion, so 1 was plenty! They are priced at $13.95, but you can choose to add a swim trio to one of your bundle orders (the trio comes with a swim shirt a hat and a swim diaper) and if you add it to a bundle then you get 25% off the price, which is quite nice! Currently they are offered in 4 prints, and the prints seem to change every year (our swim diaper had pinepples on it, and that doesn’t seem to be an option anymore).

What the Heck is a Bundle?

If you aren’t familiar with how it all works, check out my post on getting started with The Honest Company (and note the info included about how to score freebies!). You can shop with The Honest Company a la carte, or you can bundle items together to save money. It’s a great program and I promise you, it’s SUPER easy to shift how often you order or even to cancel your subscription. I change my order dates all the time and it only takes a few clicks of the mouse!

For more tips on how to get maximum savings with Honest Company bundles, check out my full list of Honest Company reviews (so you can know what to skip, what to buy, and exactly how to buy it).

Honest Company 3-in-1 Facial Towelettes Review: An Honest Assessment

July 4, 2015 · by Tiffany Merritt · 1 Comment

In the past month, The Honest Company released it’s newest product, their 3-in-1 Facial Towelettes. I put them in my latest bundle order to see how they would fare, and I was not very confident that I would like them. This is because I typically find this type of makeup remover to be wildly insufficient for actually removing makeup; I feel like they tend to just smear the makeup on my face around a bit, more than anything else. And I also sometimes find the cloths to be a bit scratchy.

But The Honest Company has a winner with this product, overall! I will say this: if you have gone “all out” with your makeup and are rocking BB Cream, foundation, multiple layers of eyeshadow, mascara, eyeliner, blush and lipstick, then you aren’t going to get all of your makeup off with one of these cloths. I dare say there isn’t a makeup remover cloth on the planet that will be able to help you with that, at least not in one shot. This cloth is no different. But for days when you didn’t wear makeup or you just put on some BB cream and some lip gloss, then you are going to LOVE this product.

The size of the cloth is generous and the feel is SO soft. But at the same time, it’s quite strong. I have given it a really good tug (I try to be thorough for you guys!) and it didn’t rip or tear at all. The smell is very clean, too. It doesn’t appear to me that it is fragranced in any way. It just smells naturally nice!

The 3 things this product is supposed to do, if you were wondering, is cleanse, moisturize and remove makeup. I think cleanse & remove makeup are sort of one and the same, but whatever.

I have rather dry skin and my skin feel soft after using the product. I still apply a moisturizer after using it, though I could probably get away without it, especially during the warmer months.

And of course, these towelettes will travel well, which is one of the reasons I like them so much. They are a convenience product. You get 30 towelettes for $6.95, which is enough to last you a month if you only clean your face with this product once a day.

How to Buy Them

I always will let you know when something is best to make part of your bundle or if it’s best to make it an add-on item. At $6.95 retail, you’ll be paying more for the product if you put it in one of your 5 bundle slots, as each bundle slot item breaks down to $7.20 per item. If you make it one of your add-on items, the price drops to 25% off, making it $5.21. So that’s the way to go!

One complaint I have heard from folks about the bundles is that a good chunk of the items available for bundling actually retail for less than $7.20. While I try hard to only buy those items as add-ons, there is something to be said for including one in each bundle if it is something that you need and use all the time AND if you are getting more expensive items in your other slots so that you are still coming out money ahead. Since this item is only 30 cents away from the $7.20 per-item-price, if you are struggling to fill your cart with items that cost more, this might be one to include in one of the slots.

What are Bundles?

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, here’s the Cliff’s Notes version of the story: The Honest Company offers “bundle” deals to folks who subscribe to their products. You can get any 5 products from a select group of offerings for $35.95 and then get up to 3 more items for 25% off retail price. By default, you will get one shipment each month. However, it is SUPER easy to change the date of your bundle. You can push it back a week, a month, 2 months, whatever. You aren’t promising to spend a certain amount within a set time limit. And I LOVE that! The Honest Company also alerts you when it is almost time for you bundle to ship, and that gives you the chance to hop online and change your dates if you aren’t quite ready for another shipment. In exchange for being signed up with them, you will find that you can get some pretty good buys in the bundle. For example, my husband’s shave oil retails on the site for $15.95 but by getting it in the bundle, I’m only paying $7.20!

What are the Best Buys?

I have you covered, friend! I am slowly working my way through most every product offered by The Honest Company to tell you what you should buy and what you should skip. Start with my master list of Honest Company Reviews, and also be sure to check out how you can get several Honest Company free samples before you make a purchase. 🙂

Honest Company Mouthwash Review: An Honest Assessment

April 6, 2015 · by Tiffany Merritt · 1 Comment

Affiliate links included. I enjoy promoting Honest Company products because I use them in my own home!

I’m so excited to be telling you about Honest Mouthwash, because this has quickly become one of my favorite items from the entire Honest Company catalog.

I actually put off trying it for quite a while because in my experience in the past, I’ve never been terribly impressed with more eco-friendly mouthwashes. Frankly, they’ve all just seemed weak, for lack of a better term. Maybe I just got too used to that “knock you back” feeling that Listerine offers!

So when I tried The Honest Company’s mouthwash, I expected it to taste super mild and for my mouth to not really feel any cleaner. And I’m so happy to tell you that I was wrong! Honest Mouthwash has a very minty flavor and scent, and while it doesn’t leave you feeling uncomfortable and like your mouth is on fire the way Listerine does toward the end of your swooshing, there’s definitely a kick here, which I so appreciate.

Reading over the ingredients, I’m very impressed with what I see: aloe, ginger, green tea extract and witch hazel all make the list. There are no artificial flavors or dyes, and you know the same is not true for those bright blue and green bottles other brands offer. This is a really high quality product that leaves out all those questionable chemicals while still getting the job done. I very highly recommend it.

How to Buy Honest Mouthwash

Since it comes in at $9.95, this is an item to purchase in a bundle instead of on it’s own. Buy getting a bundle, you’ll bring the price down to just $7.20. That may still seem a little high for mouthwash to you, but my opinion is that it’s definitely worth it. This particular product makes a frequent appearance in my monthly orders! Heck, you can even buy more than 1 at a time if you want to get stocked up for a while in your home. Remember, changing the date of your bundle (including setting it back several weeks) is super simple to do. I LOVE being a bundle subscriber because I get the savings and I don’t even have to order monthly. Honest Company also lets you know when your order date is coming up just in case you want to make any changes to what’s headed your way or push the date back. They aren’t interested in surprising you or tricking you into getting more products. And I honestly love that!

If you are brand new to The Honest Company, start by getting some free stuff! I’ve got information on how to get your totally free trials of products. And I’ve also got a detailed listing of Honest Company reviews so that if and when you want to order a bundle, you can hear from a happy subscriber what to buy, what to pass on, and exactly how to build your cart for maximum savings!

Honest Company Lunch Box: An Honest Assessment

March 7, 2015 · by Tiffany Merritt · 1 Comment

Affiliate links included. I love the Honest Company and I was not provided with complimentary products for this review. I always give it to you straight! 🙂

I’m someone who subscribes to the Honest Company bundles (though I recently eliminated my diaper bundle…three cheers for the end of potty training!). As such, I’m always paying attention to the emails I get from the company announcing their new products. So when I recently learned about their lunch boxes I knew I wanted to get one right away, especially since my husband had recently commented to me that our kindergartner’s lunch box was getting “kind of gross.” Yikes.

There are 4 designs currently available, and I’ll be honest and tell you that I’m not wild about any of them, in terms of their prints. I ultimately settled on the tribal stripe print. Here’s what it looks like:

And I will say this about the print: I like it more in person than I did on the website. Or perhaps I was just impressed with the overall look of the lunch box. It looks sturdy and of a good quality (which is much more than I can say for the Honest Canvas Tote!). It just looked well designed, so now that we have it, I really quite like it!

Here’s a peek at the inside of the lunch box:

There’s a place on the inside to put your child’s name, though at our school, identification has to be on the outside of the lunch box. Darah really loves the shiny, silver inside. I really love that the lunch box comes with a detachable insert, which makes cleaning it much more simple to do. This will help this lunch box last longer before it, too, becomes “kind of gross.”

Now for the price: if you go to the Honest website and just purchase this one item, it is going to cost you $29.95 plus tax and shipping. And as much as I like the lunch box, I think that price point is a smidge too high. Here’s what you need to do to get the price down and to score free shipping.

1. Sign up for the everyday essentials bundle if you aren’t signed up already. It is, indeed, an auto ship program…BUT…you can switch your delivery date effortlessly online. You are NOT required to place an order every month and there is no hassle to be had for moving your date around. You do have to call in to cancel the service, but I can tell you from personal experience cancelling bundles that this is also not a pain in the rear and that the reps you speak with are wonderful and happy to help you.

2. Once you are signed up for a bundle, pick out the items you want for your household for that month. Not sure what to get? I can help you! I have an extensive list of the Honest Co reviews so you can learn what is worth buying, what is worth skipping, and exactly how to place things in your cart to save the most money. Some things are best saved for the 3 bonus items you are allowed to tack on to your bundle order for an extra 25% off! 🙂

3. The lunch box should be one of you “+3” items. You are not allowed to count it as one of your bundle items, but you can score 25% off if you add it on. This will bring the price down to $22, and it is absolutely worth $22. Once your entire order totals $50, your order ships free, and adding this on to a bundle will take care of that for you!

If you haven’t ever ordered anything from The Honest Company, you should actually start with your free trials, though. I’ve got the inside scoop on how to get free Honest Company products for you. .Start there, and then move on to your super smart bundle orders! 🙂

How to Brighten Your Laundry: Honest Company Oxy Boost Review – An Honest Assessment)

January 8, 2015 · by Tiffany Merritt · 2 Comments

Affiliate links included. I only promote what I use and love.

Ok, so I’ve had Honest Company’s Oxy Boost in my laundry room for quite some time, and honestly, it took me a while to use it because I didn’t really understand why it was something I needed. I even went online to research more about it so that I could understand, and I thought I’d share that with you!

Reasons to Use an Oxygen-Based Brightener

So basically these oxygen-based brighteners on the market are meant to be an alternative to chlorine bleach, and at least in the case of the product put out by the Honest Company, this alternative is not only safe for whites, but also for colors.

It is also intended to be like a boost for your detergent. The Oxy Boost product from Honest.com will help destain, deodorize, whiten, color brighten and soften the water so that the detergent can really get to work.

So I’ve been opting to use it in my loads of whites to help them perk up a bit (and I’ve noticed a difference!) and I’ve also been using the product on any loads that have laundry with heavier stains in them, just to help ensure that they come out after one wash.

I don’t think this is a necessary product to have, but I do think it can come in handy. My family will probably take close to 6 months to get through the pack of 24, so this isn’t a product I will be ordering monthly. But with that said, when I do purchase it again I will be adding to my monthly bundle as an add-on rather than in one of the 5 bundle slots. That’s because the price per item for the bundle is $7.20, and that price is better than the $7.95 retail price. But in each bundle you also can order up to 3 extra items for 25% off, each. At 25% off, the Oxy Boost costs $5.96. I’d rather pay that amount and save one of my bundle slots for something more expensive.

For more tips on how to get maximum savings with Honest Company bundles, check out my full list of Honest Company reviews (so you can know what to skip, what to buy, and exactly how to buy it). The bundle service is GREAT if you know how to work it, and I can teach you that!

And if you are new to The Honest Company, here’s how to get a free trial (3 of them, actually). 🙂

Honest Company Immunity Defense Review: An Honest Assessment

December 28, 2014 · by Tiffany Merritt · 1 Comment

Affiliate links included. I only promote what I use and love.

This is the time of year when it is SO easy to get sick, even if you are trying to take preventative measures such as washing your hands regularly. Most members of my own family caught the stomach bug last week, and unfortunately, we passed it along to other family members over Christmas. We thought we were past the contagious stage since fevers were gone and everyone who had been infected had experienced a return of their energy. But we were most definitely wrong. I feel SO bad about the fact that our ignorance led to 5 other people getting sick. Yikes!

As soon as we got back home from our holiday travels, I grabbed our bottle of The Honest Company Immunity Defense and Tim and I started taking it. This product contains 60 capsules, and since it recommends taking 2 capsules daily for wellness maintenance, it is intended to be a 1 month supply for 1 individual. Since Tim and I also use essential oils as a piece of preventative care, we are only taking 1 capsule each at this time. I would suggest following the instructions, though, if you aren’t using other methods like essential oils for preventative care.

The pills are a very reasonable size and are easy to swallow. I have not noticed any residual tastes after taking the pills. And while I can’t promise that these pills are going to keep me from getting sick in the near future, I feel like taking them is a wise choice, as I like their ingredients (Arabinogalactan and Elderberry and other botanical extracts). This product is free of additives and fillers and that’s something I really appreciate.

How to Buy It

When purchased a la carte, Immunity Defense will run you $21.95. There’s a better way to buy the product, though, and that’s through the Health & Wellness Bundle. If you sign up for a subscription with The Honest Company, you’ll save quite a bit on your purchases (if you are smart about it!). I LOVE my subscription service with The Honest Company for several reasons, but one of them is that you aren’t actually locked in to making a purchase monthly. You can order as often or as infrequently as you wish, and changing your scheduled shipment date can be done online. I have all 3 subscriptions, and there have been months where I have ordered more than 1 bundle in a month, and other times when I have put a bundle on hold for 3 months. No problem!

The Health and Wellness Bundle is $35.95/month (it used to be $39.99/month but they dropped the price! Yay!). For $35.95 you can get any two items from their list of options in this category. It wouldn’t be unwise to just get 2 bottles of Immunity Defense, actually. You can get a 1 month supply for 2 people or a 2 month supply for 1 person and you are going to save about $9 on the 2 bottles just by doing the bundle. Additionally, you are eligible to get anything else on the list for 25% off (up to 3 more items). I highly recommend doing this in order to get your grand total up to $50, as that will net you free shipping. My personal suggestion is for one of your additional items to be the breathe easy rub since it retails for $9.95 so it will only be $7.50 as an add-on. You would never want to select that product as one of your two bundle options since it is so inexpensive, but it’s perfect as an add-on. And it works well, too! 🙂

If you haven’t yet tried The Honest Company, I have a large list of Honest Company reviews so you can better know what products are great and which ones aren’t, and I’ve also got information on how to get all 3 trials of Honest Company products for free!