Foxbrim Vitamin C Lotion Review

I was very excited when Foxbrim invited me to review their Vitamin C Lotion.  I had seen other reviews of this product, and I really wanted to try it!  

Expect more from your Daily Moisturizer. It Starts With Quality Skin Protection With Proven Vitamin C.  
Moisture and More. All The Benefits In A Single Bottle. 

Foxbrim provides you Vitamin C Lotion.

Create healthy hydrated skin that radiates.

• Effectively lighten spots and discoloration
• Reduce wrinkle formation and existing wrinkles
• Refine and even skin texture 
• Promote skin cell turnover

Key Ingredients include:
+ Vitamin C (15%)
+ Aloe Vera
+ MSM
+ Shea Butter
+ Jojoba Oil
+ Green Tea

I think that Foxbrim certainly produces a good quality product.

The packaging is clean and neat.  I particularly love the dispenser for this lotion; the pump-action dispenser provides the right amount of lotion for application each time.  There's no need to worry about squeezing a tube to hard, and wasting valuable product.

This lotion feels extremely silky to the touch, and feels great on my skin.  It is highly moisturizing without feeling greasy.  I have used it on my face during the day, and was very pleased with how well it performed.  

Something to note about Foxbrim's lotions, they are fragrance-free.  While I don't particularly enjoy the scent of this lotion, I love how it feels, the way it moisturizes, and its container.  

Verdict: Yay!

Foxbrim's Vitamin C Lotion is available at Amazon for $15.99.

Disclosure: I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

Monthly Obsessions (Lips)

As winter approaches, I know one of my first thoughts is how to protect my lips from the cold and the wind.  Chapped lips is one of the fastest ways to put me in a bad mood!

So, a few times a week, I use this fantastic set from Julep.  Their Buff Lip Scrub and Luxe Lip Conditioning Treatment are simply fantastic!

Buff Lip Scrub

This scrub exfoliates with fine sugar crystals and then moisturizes them with shea butter and vitamen B5.  The applicator has soft microbristles that help with exfoliation and distributing the product evenly.   

Luxe Lip Conditioning Treatment

This treatment has pumpkin seed soil, vitamin E, and botanical waxes hydrate and smooth your lips.  The metal applicator is cool to the touch, which is why I love using this product after the Buff Lip Scrub.

This set makes exfoliating and treating my dry lips quick and easy!  I find it particularly helpful when I want to wear lipsticks and glosses that show off any dry flakes on my lips.

I then finish my look with either some type of lip gloss.  Bare Minerals Moxie and Pixi by Petra Lip Gloss are two of my favorites.  

Marvelous Moxie lip glosses are highly pigmented, lightly minty in flavor, and extremely smooth.  Avocado and Murumuru butters provide  moisturizing while vitamins A, C & E provide antioxidant defense.  I enjoy this line for day or evening looks.  They have a whole range of colors; pictured is Rebel (sample size) and Party Starter (full size).

Birchbox introduced me to this line of lip gloss by Pixi.  Shea butter and vitamin E offer excellent moisturizing for your lips.  The pigments are true to their packaging, and are somewhat buildable.  I love that these are appropriate for easy-going days.  Pictured are Coral Crush (left) and Honey Nectar (right).  My next purchase of lip glosses will be the Breath of Fresh Air set from Birchbox.

At the end of the night, I usually slather on lotion.  I have to take care of lips too, right?  My new favorite is this night balm from C.O. Bigelow called My Favorite Night Balm.

I was hooked on Chapstick Brand Night Lip Treatment for years.  Apparently it is now out of production, and even though I could track some down, it runs upwards of $17/ tube on ebay right now.  That's just astronomical.  C.O. Bigelow My Favorite Night Balm is $7.50 on birchbox.com.  This night balm is seriously magic!  My lips have never been more supple.  They chap much less easily during the day, even if I forget to regularly apply my day lip balm.  This product is creamy, not sticky, and feels great applied.  Even better, it works!

Participate!

What are your favorite lip products right now?  How do you winterize your lips?  Have you used any of the products above?  What do you think of them?

Nighttime Skincare AKA My Fabulous Fruitbasket!

Apparently, a recent beauty trend is incorporating fruit extracts.  I love fruit and I love moisturizers!  And so, I'm sharing my fruity lotions favs with you today!
  I recently starting using Yes to Blueberries Eye Firming Treatment and Deep Wrinkle Cream.  You can find both, and the rest of the Yes to Blueberries line here. 

The Deep Wrinkle Night Cream is a rich and luxurious cream.  I use only a little bit each night since it is so thick.  The lemon peel extract in the night cream makes it smell lighter and more fruity than the eye cream.  I don't know that I'll buy this again, but I'm enjoying using it for now.
 The eye cream smells a little odd, but I can tell there are blueberries in there! However, it feels really good.  It performs okay, but its not nearly as good as the Balance Me Wonder Eye Cream I got in my October Birchbox.

What I like most about this little dynamic duo is the fact that my face never feels dry and flaky anymore.  Throughout the day my skin feels great!

I also recently received a bottle of GÜD's Ruby Red Groovy Natural Body Lotion in my Burt's Bees Summer Grab Bag.  

With my aloe vera sensitivity, I try to stay away from body lotion that contains it; when my legs are freshly shaved, they really don't like aloe vera.  Much to my happy surprise, this lotion is aloe free!  Yay!  

This thick, creamy lotion has smells like ruby red grapefruit.  Its an excellent body lotion.  My skin dries out really fast here in the East Bay, so I usually slather this on my legs, hands, and feet every night.

So, between the blueberries, lemon, and grapefruit, I crawl into my bed smelling like a sweet basket of summer fruit.  A great way to wind down another grey day in the Bay!

My Fabulously Frugal Guide to Coupons!

Grocery Shopping on a Budget!

So, I've been couponing for years now.  I'm not only addicted, my budget mandates that I do everything necessary to save pennies where I can.  Otherwise, there's no splurges, no Birchbox, no dates with Hubby, and no treats for Puppy.  While most of the information here is geared towards grocery shopping, these basic principles can be applied to shopping for basically anything!

I know that there are entire blogs devoted to couponing, and they are helpful.  However, they can also be totally overwhelming to any who's a novice or who doesn't want to keep a notebook full of pieces of paper.  These tips are NOT for Extreme Couponers.  My tips are for those of us who simply want to be careful with our dollars and cents.

Step #1 Finding Coupons

There are two major sources of paper coupons:

1. Your Sunday Newspaper

2. Online sites

Yes, you're going to have to cut some coupons...

Sunday Newspaper Tips: I've lived in Atlanta Metro, Chicago Area, and San Francisco Bay.  In all three places I've been able to find Sunday-only newspaper deals.  (Yes, even out here in SF where the Sunday paper usually costs $4+delivery fee/ week I found a deal.  I pay $3/week.)  Unless you actually read the paper everyday, this is one of the best ways to get coupons.  Make sure you get a hefty paper like the SF Chronicle or Chicago Tribune; they have better coupon inserts!

Online Coupon Tips:  I recommend the following sites for general coupons - coupons.com, smartsource.com, commonkindness.com, and redplum.com.  Target also has its own coupon site for Target store coupons (this is important).

Step #2: Sorting Coupons

I highly recommend sorting your coupons.  Since I've been doing this for years, I've figured out a sorting system that works for me.  I recently upgraded my coupon book, and tweeked my categories, but the idea remains the same.  I sort based on grocery aisles - dry goods, snacks, baking, frozen, cold, cleaning & paper products, beauty & health (which have subcategories using unfolded coin wrappers), Target-specific coupons and restaurants.

Labels, labels, labels!

Labeling is vital.  If you can't lay your hands on your coupon quickly, you won't use it.

Step #3: Electronic Goodies

Target has the Cartwheel app.  My local Safeway (grocery store) has a program called Just4U, which gives me special sales that aren't on the shelves.  I go into more detail here about all of these additional ways to make your coupons + sales stretch even farther.

Step #4: Know Stores' Coupon Policies

Did you know that at Target you can use one manufacturer's coupon, one Target store coupon, and one cartwheel discount per item?  Take a look at the picture below:

The manufacturer's coupon requires I purchase two, so I would print a second Target coupon before cashing in on this deal.  Hubby loves making pumpkin pie, so this will be coming home this week!

2 Cans of Libby's Pumpkin on Sale = $3.20 (before tax)

Value of Target Coupons = $1.10

Value of Manufacturer's Coupon = $.75

Value of Cartwheel Discount (5% off after coupons) = $.07

Total Cost of 2 Cans of Libby's Pumpkin = $1.28 (or $.64/each)

Step #5: Planning

I recommend stacking your deals.  Keep an eye on your sales ads in the Sunday paper.  Know when your favorite stores change their sales.  Target has new sales on Sunday.  Safeway has new sales on Wednesday.  Pair your coupons with sales and any other deals/ discounts you can find.  This will help your money stretch as far as possible!

Step #6: The Mindset

Through years of couponing I have adopted a helpful mindset about grocery shopping in such a fabulously frugal way.  I use coupons to ensure that there are new types of food that come into our home.  Hubby gets bored with food types easily, so this is a helpful way of changing our diet and not getting stuck in a rut.  The challenge, though, is that sometimes the foods that go on sale with good coupons are frozen, processed, etc.  I help balance this conundrum by researching food quality in canned vs. frozen vs. fresh produce.  This helps me ensure that no matter what other items come home, we have healthy fruits and vegetables in our diet.

At the end of the day, couponing requires balance.  There are weeks when life is too crazy to cut and sort coupons, search through the sales, and strategize my grocery shopping plan.  However, when I can, our budget thanks me profusely.  It takes discipline to keep up, but I've managed to shave hundreds of dollars off our living expenses, which is especially helpful in the land of "everything is so ridiculously expensive."

Participate!

Was this post helpful?  How might you incorporate some of these ideas into your daily shopping routines?

What are your strategies for saving money?  Do you use coupons?  Do you hit up sales?

A Few of My Favorite Frugal Things! Part #3

My Favorite Apps for Saving Money

I shared my favorite websites in part #1 and #2 of this series, and now its time to talk about phone apps!  I love using apps on my phone to save money.  I regularly forget my coupons, but I always have my phone!  So, here are a few of my favorite phone apps.

Veo

Veo provides monthly opportunities to request free products, to claim great online deals, and receive messages from brands you love.  The parent company of Veo is Latinum Network.  This little application just hangs out on your phone to offer you fun products.  Above are the free samples I've received over the past 2 months.

Cartwheel

This is Target's discount application.  You can load discount offers into your cartwheel and then scan it at checkout.  So, at Target you can really load up on the discounts.  Target permits one manufacturer's coupon, one Target coupon, Cartwheel discount, RedCard Debit/Credit 5% discount, and $.05 off per bag.  

Safeway

This is my local grocery store.  You might have a different store.  I love this app, because I get special discount sales on items, as well as easy access to all the coupons in the Sunday paper without any need to cut anything!

ibotta

This delightful little application provides discounts for various items at specific stores as well as online sites.  I like using these discounts in addition to items on sale + coupons or to try out new products.  For those of you who love Sephora, they're running a $5 rebate for any $50 purchase!  Each month they run special bonuses so the more rebates you and members of "your team" redeem, the more cash you get!  You can cash out your ibotta rebate earnings through paypal, and a few different giftcards.  I've been using this app for about 2.5 months and have already cashed out over $100 in rebates!  If you're interested, then I invite you to use my referral link above!

Checkout 51

This site is similar to ibotta; however, this site is not store-specific.  Additionally, you can only cash out once your balance reaches $20.  This app offers fewer rebates than ibotta, so reaching that $20 takes longer, but that's not so bad if you use this app to purchase items you'd want anyway.  Sometimes rebates for items overlap between ibotta and Checkout 51, which is a nice little double bonus on savings!

I hope you've enjoyed this post, and have found a new app that will serve you well!  What are your favorite phone apps or websites for saving money or scoring freebies?