BEB Favorites: July 2016
Happy Thursday and welcome to a new feature here on BEB – a roundup of some of my most recent favorite things!
Sometimes I mention things that I love on Fridays, but I usually save those posts for life updates and fun links and stories that I think you would enjoy. I wanted to be able to share some of the things I use all of the time and have found and loved and wanted to recommend to you! This won’t be a super frequent series – maybe a few times a year? – but I’m definitely excited about sharing some of my favorite things with you!
ButcherBox
I was recently introduced to ButcherBox and absolutely LOVE this service! ButcherBox offers grass-fed beef, hormone-free chicken and heritage breed pork products delivered to your home on a monthly basis. Each box contains enough meat for 15-20 meals, at around $7 per meal. The products are flash-frozen and packed in dry ice for shipping – everything came ice cold in the middle of summer, which was super impressive. The meat is fresh and absolutely delicious; it’s sourced from a collection of small farms, which I also love. You have the option to customize your box – get a variety of beef, chicken and pork, or opt out of any of them.
SPECIAL OFFER: ButcherBox is offering Brown Eyed Baker readers a special treat! Use the code “browneyedbaker” at checkout and receive a free package of 10-ounce no-sugar added, uncured bacon + $10 off your first order.
La Tortilla Factory Flour Tortillas
These La Tortilla Factory Flour Tortillas have been a pantry staple at our house for months. I honestly can’t remember why I bought them initially, but my husband and I both love them – they’re super soft and make the best wraps and soft tacos! These may very well be on everyone’s radar already, but since I apparently live under a rock, I had to share! I always keep an extra package (in addition to the one that’s open) in the pantry, just in case there’s an emergency!
Juice Beauty
I ran out of most of regular skincare products about a month after I found out I was pregnant, and I wanted to replace it with something more all-natural. I experimented with some Alba and Burt’s Bees products during my last pregnancy, but wasn’t crazy with how the skincare products worked. I did a ton of research and decided to try Juice Beauty – they actually have a dedicated section of their website for products that are pregnancy-safe. On top of that, everything I have used so far has been fabulous – my skin looks great and I have no flaking (a problem I was having prior to trying this) or breakouts. Plus, a little bit goes a very long way; I’ve been using it for over 2 months and have only used a fraction of the products. Totally recommend!
MyPillow
This one is kind of funny because these pillows were never on my radar until Joseph became absolutely obsessed with the commercials on TV about six months ago. Like, he would dance when they came on! He had a few favorite commercials and I started saying I was going to get brainwashed into buying everything he loved.
Well, fast forward a couple of months and my in-laws bought me the MyPillow for my birthday. I had been having awful neck pain and headaches for at least a month, but no one knew that. As soon as I started sleeping on these pillows, the pain and headaches completely disappeared and have never come back! It never even occurred to me that the pain could have been coming from a crappy pillow. I’ve been using the MyPillow for about four months now and still love, love, love it!
SiriusXM Elevations
We have a speaker in our master bathroom and my husband usually puts on some music while we’re getting ready for bed at night. Most of the times it’s either 1940’s music (a la Frank Sinatra) or 80’s music, but about a month ago, he started putting this station on, and it’s AWESOME. It’s piano, string and orchestral versions of classic rock and pop songs (think instrumentals of songs like Bohemian Rhapsody and Taylor Swift), which might sound kind of boring or weird, but I adore it. Perfect for winding down at the end of the day!
Treatsie
Treatsie is another monthly subscription box that I was able to sample recently and it was ahhhh-mazing! There were vanilla-pretzel caramels and caramels with black sea salt that my husband and I fought over. There were also salted brownies (YUM) and some lemon cookies that my husband adored (I’m less than enthusiastic about citrus desserts). Needless to say, we loved everything in the box and would be happy to welcome a sweet surprise every single month!
SPECIAL OFFER: Treatsie is offering Brown Eyed Baker readers a special discount! Use the code “browneyedbaker50” at checkout and receive 50% off your first box!
What are YOU loving??
Do you have some favorite products you’ve found recently? Lay ’em on me in the comments below!
[These are all items that I have used and loved, and wanted to share with you! There are some affiliate links above; thanks so much for reading!]
I have fallen hard for several of the Farm Pantry products from Beekman 1802 Boys at Target – the cornbread mix is terrific, the Chipotle-Parmesan Vegetable Seasoning and the Brisket braising sauce. OMG. Terrific stuff and a percentage goes to small Farms.
I just signed up for my first Treatsie box! And MightFix, thanks to a commenter above. Birchbox has been my go-to, and StitchFix for clothes. I am one of the few people who didn’t like Ipsy. Can’t wait to try some more of these products! Thanks for posting this!
I forgot to mention – LaTortilla Factory has the BEST tortillas! I’m ashamed to admit that I didn’t realize (until I clicked on the link to see their packaging) that they are the tortillas we routinely buy and prefer. Yum!
I have just been exploring some of these sites mentioned above. One in particular MightyNest has some wonderful kitchen items. But perhaps most impressive is they donate 15% of your purchase to a school of your choice. I personally like sites that give back. You can also purchase items from their website without subscribing. I found a few kitchen items I will buy as well as a sippy straw ckeaning brush.no little kids but I have a collection of all sorts and sizes of brushes.
Butcherbox will expose us to cuts of meat we may have never cooked before. So, they provide recipes. I will need to do a little comparison shopping but it seems to be cost effective and convenient. It would be important to plan on how you will use each type of meat so that you dont forget what is in your freezer.
I will be trying both next month.
We LOVE La Tortilla Factory! They are located within 5 minutes of our house and are a fantastic company. Run by a local family and dedicated to helping several local charities. Great people, great product. Their tortillas are the best! :)
Which juice beauty products do you like?
Hi Lindsay, I currently use the exfoliating cleanser in the AM and the cleansing milk in the PM, both of which I follow with the antioxidant serum, and smoothing eye concentrate. I finish with the antioxidant moisturizer in the AM and the nutrient moisturizer in the PM. So far I’ve loved everything. I hope that helps!
Like the idea of Butcherbox, will check that one out. I like my monthly MightyNest (MightyFix) subscription – it is so varied but still always follows the basic tenet of “amazing products to make you live healthier”. Well worth the $10/mo, I always feel like the product is worth more than I spent and it exposes me to products I would not have known about. The product varies – I have received stainless steel straws, wool dryer balls, safe effective sunscreen and more.
I LOVE my wool dryer balls! I should have put those on this list! Could you share a link to those stainless steel straws? I’m interested!
Sure thing – I forgot to mention that the site mightynest.com is an online store for all the mighty fix items. Here is the link to the straws http://mightynest.com/shop/reusable-gear/utensils-straws/endurance-stainless-steel-straws-set-of-4-2-options
Thanks for this recommendation, Josephine – I checked it out and have signed up!
Thanks for sharing all this!
I absolutely love BirchBox and have been getting it for over 4 years. I believe they were one of the first to set off this whole box delivery craze.
Just recently signed up for BarkBox, which is a little more costly but comes with so much stuff for my dog it has eliminated my need to go to the pet store for toys and treats! As you love your dogs, this may be one to check out!
I had a My Pillow and for a few months I liked it. But found it was just not firm enough for me.
This one is obvious: Amazon Prime. Best decision I ever made (my husband is pretty high up there, too :p ).
Amazon Prime is quite literally the best thing ever.
I love this post! I am so excited to check out Treatsie, Elevations, and the tortillas. I love MyPillow. They are so nice. I love Goldbely. I have ordered so many different fun foods from them. They have Momfuku, I tried my first macaron from Sucre, and I’m waiting on ice cream from Coolhaus. They have awesome customer service too and the best caramel marshmallows ever! Mouth is really great for checking out new foods too.
Oh my gosh I’m drooling, need to check out Goldbely! Thanks for sharing!
I have been sleeping on My Pillow for a few years. I really like it & travel with it too. He tells you that you can wash it…there’s a reason for that…after a few months it seems like it gets hard or something, hard to describe. I put it in the washer & dryer, & it comes out like new.
I knew they were washable, but thanks for the tip on doing it every few months!
So funny! Remember that “Olay Quench-love the skin you are in” commercial? My son could recite that one word for word. It became a party trick when we would visit family. Made everyone smile to see a 4 year old recite the whole thing. Thanks for the tips… We live in a small town with very limited access to grass-fed meats. And that Treatsie deal would make a great gift!
Hahaha! Joseph definitely has a few party tricks up his sleeve that always guarantee a laugh.
Is there a time limit to the discount at Treatsie? This would be a cool thing to send my son who’s going off to college soon.
Hi Amy, There is no expiration date, so you will be able to use it in a month or two! And good luck to your son! :)
I love Color Me Monthly. It’s a nail color subscription. You pay $7 a month and they send you a new nail polish every month. I love it cause I get a surprise every month and never know the color. Some of the colors I would never pick some of the colors I’ve been sent but I love that cause it’s made me go outside my comfort zone.
Oooh fun, thanks for sharing!
I’m happy that the MY PILLOW worked well for you. ? I on the other hand ABSOLUTELY HATED MY PILLOW.? It felt like I was sleeping on a bunch tiny rolled up socks all bunched up together inserted into this pillow. To me it was junk. It was terrible to sleep on and reminded me of those crappy pillows that you buy for a few dollars that go flat in a matter of days. I finally found a pillow that I ABSOLUTELY LOVE and ended up buying 2 of them because I love it that much. It cost a bit more but hey I’m sleeping more soundly and have no neck pain whatsoever.
We had the same reaction to My Pillow and returned them for a full refund. I kept expecting those little pellets to go away so I could sleep soundly, but they had other plans!
So weird, the inside of my pillow is nothing like that, I wonder if they redesigned them??
Funny, I bought one a few years ago and hated it. For some reason, I decided to try again and I love it. I’m thinking it was redesigned.
Do you have to subscribe to Sirius radio to get that station? I tried to put in on Pandora and it couldn’t be found.
Hi Carla, Yeah, it’s a SiriusXM station, so you’d need a subscription.
It’s literally on right now.
Hi Michelle,
You’ve got me curious about that XM Elations channel on Sirius, which channel is it? I also love listening to the 40’s channel; when I listen to that music I imagine my parents listening so many years ago, I also love the 60’s music channel, I was quite young then but my there was always a radio or a record playing in my house growing up, so many of those bring back happy memories. One of my current favorites is Sirius Escape, channel 69, those are old jazz classics like Summer Wind, Moon River, etc. I just love relaxing to that type music.
Hi Lucy, It’s 703 on the app and online; not sure if it’s available on the hardwired radios (I’ve noticed some of their stations are app/online only).
I laughed when I read the comment about Joseph and the MY PILLOW commercial.
That commercial seems to be on all the time and I have been very tempted to purchase one…actually the TV special gives you one free with the special code. After your endorsement, I might actually give the product a try. Thanks!
At least Joseph likes a commercial for a pillow. When I was a little girl I used to sing the Hamm’s beer commercial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o83xxWCel8g
Oh that’s so funny!