review – Page 2 – Luv Saving Money

Earth Day Feature: NOVICA

I’ve been a fan of NOVICA for a long time. They find true artisans, skilled in their crafts to hand make products and purchase them at fair trade. If you use my search bar on the upper right side of my page and search the term NOVICA you’ll find other posts. There’s a reason I keep agreeing to work with NOVICA and have made several purchase from them on my own.

NOVICA seeks out artists from around the world. They are skilled artisans often using natural materials. There are artists from all over the world such as Mexico, Thailand, India, Argentina, West Africa, etc. Finding jewelry makers, glass blowers, wood carvers, and more.

Each piece is unique. I’m absolutely in love with the NOVICA glassware that Javier and Efron create in Mexico. Each and every piece is just a little different, even if you buy a set. You can see the tiny bubble marks that are almost a hallmark of hand blown glass.

These glasses are a thick smooth glass. I has a beautiful turquoise color. When you pick it up you can feel that it has just a little more weight than a juice glass you’d buy in a store.

I have 2 other sets of glasses from NOVICA. When people come to visit and we use them I usually get compliments on them.

Another thing I like about NOVICA is that the artisans hand craft these items, NOVICA does not mass produce products in factories so it cuts down on the environmental impact.

I encourage you to check out Novica.com and see all the beautiful and unique handmade pieces there are. Jewelry, baskets, decor, clean beauty, and more.

I’d love to know one piece that catches your eye on NOVICA.com

I did received these glasses to review at no cost from Novica in order to complete this post. Any opinions expressed are my own.

TreCeuticals Eye Love Infusing Eye Cream Review + Coupon Code

A couple months ago I received a free sample of TreCeuticals Eye Love Infusing Eye Cream to try. I’ve recently been making more effort to take care of myself. The TreCeuticals Infusing Eye Cream was just one easy step to add to my self-care regimen. When I review skincare products or supplements I like to try it for at least a month or 2 to get the full effect. I don’t like to just use a product for a couple days.

TreCeuticals Eye Love Infusing eye cream is packed with all kinds of good stuff for your skin. Peptides, hyaluronic acid, antioxidants, and even CBD. Good for your skin ingredients like green tea, jasmine, cucumber, and more. You can read more about their formula HERE. TreCeuticals Eye Love can help reduce puffiness, dark circles, and fine lines. I’m also not one to shy away from product that contain CBD. I’ve seen some benefits from CBD products. CBD is also rising in popularity with beauty products.

To be fair, I’m not the skin care guru but I’m very impressed with the size of this eye cream container. 15 ml/0.5 fl oz. I’ve bought other eye creams and I feel like the container sizes were smaller than this. I’m not one to be rigid about my regiment but I’d say I’ve used this product at least a 3-4 days a week for about a month now and I still have a decent amount of product left.

I also get excited about the little things sometimes. I LOVE how this eye cream dispenses. It kinda takes the guesswork out of how much to use. You simple push down on the top and a single use dispenses from the container. I like it because I don’t have to dip my fingers into a container and get product under may nails. Then I feel like I’m wasting it. Or getting too much or not enough from other containers.

The eye cream itself, absorbs nicely into my skin. It didn’t feel greasy. It has a faint fresh scent. I feel like after I apply it within about 15 min my skin feels more taut. I don’t tend to have puffiness around my eyes so I can’t comment on that part but it does have a firming effect. I did feel it had a soothing effect around my eyes when I was particularly tired.

My only complaint with this product is that, if I apply it in the morning then workout in the afternoon it tends to “run” and irritate my eyes a little bit. It says to use it twice a day but what I’d end up doing is putting it on in the morning. Washing my face before I workout. Then I’d apply it again at night. That might not be ideal but having it run in my eyes did bother me.

Check out TreCeuticals size for all their skincare product with game changing formulas. Go through this link: https://dealspotr.com/getcode/sdm4Y and use code: LUVSAVINGMONEY1 to save 10% off your order!

I’m Trying the Most Recommended Hemp CBD

It turns out I’ve become somewhat of a CBD oil connoisseur, self proclaimed. I’ve tried so many different brands of CBD oil. Some of them were really good, some of them were, meh. I’ve tried flavor and unflavored tinctures, CBD rubs/ointments, and sprays.

I take CBD to help with my anxiety, ulcerative colitis symptoms, and IBS. This is not medical advice, I just feel it helps me get some relief of some of my symptoms and helps with sleep.

I was contacted by Calm by Wellness to try their CBD. My favorite way to take CBD is via tincture with a few drops under the tongue. Flavored or unflavored it really doesn’t matter to me. I received a bottle of their tincture to try in strawberry lemon-aid flavor.

Before I accepted I had to do a little research. One thing I always worry about is any amount of THC. I’m a healthcare worker and mom of 4. I have no desire to be high or fail a drug test. Calm by Wellness products are 100% THC free.

Calm by Wellness grows their own hemp which is non-GMO certified, organic, and uses USDA certified seeds. They also have the highest level of food grade certification possible with ISO9001 and CGMP certification. There’s a lot more info on the Calm by Wellness About Us page.

They also advertise about features on different sites. Perhaps the most interesting to me was the article on the American Sleep Association site that included Calm by Wellness.

I took my first dose last night and again this morning. The strawberry lemon-aid flavor (I’m not misspelling it, that’s their flavor name) is pleasant. It’s not tart or overwhelming. It’s more of a subtle hint of flavor that made it pleasant to hold under my ton for a few seconds as you should with tinctures.

I’m gonna do an update post in about a week and let you know my continued feeling on Calm by Wellness CBD tincture. Until then, I encourage you to check out their site to learn more about them and a little more about CBD in general and decide for yourself if it’s for you.

CBD Oil Tinctures from Calm by Wellness provide all-day relief with delicious natural flavors

I received the sample at no cost in order to complete a review. Any opinions expressed are my own. This post is in no way providing medical advice, simply my opinions. I encourage you to do your own research and talk with a medical professional if you have questions or concerns. This post also contains affiliate links. I will earn a commission from sales made through my links

My Experience Proform Studio Bike Pro

How We Ended Up Choosing Proform Studio Pro Bike

I had a gym membership. I wasn’t a “gym person” until I found the right gym for me. I looked forward to it. I had a routine. Then when the pandemic hit, like many, the gyms closed down. I was lost. I tried to do workouts at home but it just wasn’t the same.

We first got a Proform treadmill around March. Shipping was fairly quick then and I had no issues. This is when we were also introduced to the iFit app. It wasn’t something I didn’t think we needed but immediately fell in love with. I was doing the beginners running series with Tommy Rivers Puzey and it was amazing. I had never been able to run my whole life. Even in my younger days when I was in better shape. This built me up to running more than anything else ever had. And when I didn’t feel like running, I could do a restoring walk in the mountains, or beach or whatever.

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I missed the exercise bikes from the gym though. I had tried a spin class at my local community building and it peaked my interest. I had full intention of doing more classes but…stupid pandemic.

I would have never asked for a studio bike but my hubby brought up the idea of getting an exercise bike. I had already had my eyes on the Proform Studio Pro bike. It was built similar to the spin class bikes and we already had ifit so I could start doing the ifit cycle classes. Thankfully my hubby was in agreement.

Now The Wait, And Shipping Experience

We ordered it around the 2nd week of September. When we ordered it said they were behind on orders (again due to the pandemic) and we should expect our bike around Oct 12. You might know that home exercise equipment company sales have greatly increased during the pandemic so most exercise equipment whether it be bikes, treadmills, benches, etc have been behind with shipping. For a while it was also hard to find hand weights and kettlebells too

Well it was Oct 9 (a Friday) and we hadn’t heard a thing so I used the customer service chat to see what the deal was. I was told our bike had been sent to the shipping warehouse and we should receive our bike “shortly”. That pacified me enough though I was super anxious to get our bike. We did not receive our bike until Oct 30.

When we received it we noticed there was a fairly big hole in the side of the box and it had very obviously been taped over. So someone saw the whole, taped it, but never bother to make sure the product was ok.

My 17 year old loves putting stuff together so he put it together for us. He said “uh mom, there’s a problem” The back of the monitor had a sizeable crack in it. I was so upset. The monitor is what you use to view your classes. We tested the monitor and it still worked but I worried about the safety. I don’t want to be using it and have sparks fly out or something. I also saw that the smaller box that the monitor was packed in, also had a whole in it and we deducted it must have been located where the whole was in the big box.

I contacted the company and they didn’t give me a hard time at all. They said they’d send a new monitor out. Unfortunately that was back in November and we’ve yet to receive the replacement monitor. Fortunately the cracked monitor has been working and you don’t leave the bike plugged in when you’re not using it anyway so we just went with it.

We had also heard NOTHING about the 3 yr iFit family membership we were supposed to receive with it. Again it took a few phone calls and several emails to finally get our iFit membership set up. Then we realized we’ve received ZERO information about our financing. We were told, via another phone call, that our info was sent to the financier and we should receive our finance packet “soon”. After almost 2 months we finally received financing info and could start paying for our bike. We were worried with how disorganized everything had been that they would ding our credit because we weren’t paying but we were trying, we really really were.

After The Initial Fiasco, (And Some Calm Down Time)

My husband and I have been regularly using our Proform Studio Pro bike. I can honestly say I love it. It’s easy to adjust. The iFit app works great. My hubby and I will swap workout brags. So I did a 4.5 mile bike ride in the Moab desert today. Cool, I did 10 miles in Japan today. It’s fun though because it gives us ideas and helps motivate each other.

The seat did take some getting used to. We ended up buying one of those gel bike seat cushions from Amazon and that helped. Over time, we got “used” to it and the seat isn’t uncomfortable anymore.

The bike is very adjustable. I’m 5′ 4″ and my hubby is 6 foot even. We have no issues adjusting for either of us. The ifit family account allows up to 5 people on the account. They must be invited by email so whoever you add in your family has to have an email account.

You do not need special cycling shoes like you do with some studio bikes. I just use regular running shoes. There are straps on the pedals and teeth on the pedals to help ensure your feet don’t slide.

So What Can You Do On The Bike With The iFit App

There are lots of options depending on your fitness and cycling level. Workouts have a difficulty level bar. I tend to stick around 1, 2, or 3 for now. They go up to as high a like 10 or something.

There are many different setting and types of workouts: spin classes, mountain biking, endurance rides, recovery rides, interval training, and classes that include both bike work and off the bike work. Oh that reminds me, the Proform Studio Pro also come with 3 lb hand weights. There’s tons of different settings from dessert, mountain, beach, forest, studio, and international.

They recently added feed.fm so music can play during your workouts but you have the option to turn the music down/up/off. There are also challenges you can participate in and live classes if you like. Just since we got our bike they’ve added several new features. They’s constantly adding new classes and challenges too.

Overall Opinion

Love the bike. I know that the shipping and customer service issues were not the norm and is strained due to the pandemic. We had no issue at all when we got our treadmill earlier in the year.

The iFit app is awesome and continues to improve all the time. If we were to get another piece of equipment we’d definitely look at buying another piece compatible with iFit.

The bike is very adjustable and well made. It’s sturdy and hold up to 250 lbs. My husband was slightly over that so before we ordered we asked if that would be an issue or void the warranty if we were to order. Being as it was only a few pounds over they told us it would not.

If you’d like me to do a post on our treadmill, I’d be happy to. Just let me know.

This is NOT a sponsored post. We bought the Proform Studio Pro bike ourselves. There is an Amazon affiliate link in the post.

Adagio Tea Advent Calendar and 12 Days of Christmas Teas

I love advent calendars. They’re so fun to countdown the days until Christmas. You can find an advent calendar for just about any interest. I you or someone you know is a tea lover, the Adagio Tea Advent Calendar 2020 is perfect for you! OR gift someone a 12 days of Christmas tea gift set.

First let me say that I LOVE Adagio tea. They have TONS of teas to choose from loose leaf teas, to tea bags, to iced tea you can find what you like. I used their teas when I tried my hand at making boba. This particular one was a strawberry boba that used real strawberry bits and the Adagio Libra blend which has bits of strawberry and chocolate notes in it. But they have several strawberry teas on their site. So you can make it to your taste.

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Back to the Adagio Tea Advent Calendar though. 24 days of a tea taste adventure. I’m always leary about revealing too much when it comes to things like advent calendars. I figure people want to know what they might expect in it but want the excitement of wondering what flavor will be next.

So what I did was I just popped open day 1 so you can see about what size the packets are. These are loose leaf teas. I personally popped open two other days too just to get a feel of what to expect. I can tell you, based on my snooping, that there are different flavors of loose leaf tea for each day. Some holiday flavors, some “enjoy anytime” flavors.

My mouth is watering thinking of the couple flavors I unveiled. But, I’m gonna make myself wait to try them until the proper day. I mean, i gotta have something to look forward to on those days that I sneaked a peak on right?

At a price point of only $29, you don’t have to feel guilty about getting yourself a little something for the holidays. Hey it’s practical too!

The Adagio Tea Advent Calendar would make a great gift but so does the Adagio 12 Days of Christmas gift tea set.

So this little set include 12 tins of different holiday flavored teas such as Candy Cane. But that’s not all. Each tin is decorated festively and can double as an ornament!

So many amazing teas in this little gift set. Perfect for the tea lover. Or keep this around when you need a festive cup of cheer while decorating or baking cookies.

At a price of only $19, this is a great “under $20 gift” and they get some fun ornaments out of of it too.

I highly encourage you to check out the other items on Adagio’s site too. I have their travel loose leaf tea glass and I use it all the time. They also have tea pots, infuser, a tea of the month club, rock sugar crystals for tea, and more. You’re sure to find the perfect gift for the tea lover. Or treat yourself. Their prices are amazing but the tea is so good.

Check out my twitter and facebook blog feeds too. I’ll be sharing Adagio coupons for new Adagio shoppers!

I received the above mentioned samples to complete this post. any opinions expressed are my own.