NOVICA Sterling Silver Hoop Paradise Earrings

     NOVICA is a jewelry company that works in association with National Geographic to bring real, fair trade jewelry from artists who work hard on their craft. With these particular earrings, they come in a little plastic bag that's inside a decorative pouch with a tiny booklet and it's all inside of another little plastic bag. The booklet tells you where the jewelry comes from, who made it and other tidbits you'd like to know. The pouch is a beautiful little decorative bag to keep the earrings in and the earrings are keepsakes and handmade.

     This is the pouch and booklet. You receive different color pouches for each pair you buy and the booklet is just two pages.

Within those two little pages, you can feel good about the purchase made because the artists put their heart and soul into making them and neither you or them are getting ripped off. The artisan who crafted these earrings, along with her team of 10 other people is named Made Sriasih. She was born in a village in Indonesia known for silver production and her father was a silversmith. Made has known about this trade since she was 12. After college, Made started a silver business and the rest is history. This story with more detail is included in the booklet. It helps you know more about what you're buying, who you're buying it from and the impact it has.

     It's real jewelry with very strong and beautiful detail. It's a Balinese design made with arabesques swirls along with silver petals and granules. These earrings are perfect as a gift for yourself or others and work for almost any occasion. I don't think anyone would hate to receive these as a gift. They cost $45.99 on Amazon and they are a worthwhile investment. I received these earrings heavily discounted in exchange for my honest review. Get them here: NOVICA Paradise Hoop Earrings

Banshee on Cinemax and Amazon Prime

Credit: Wikipedia

     There is a show on Cinemax called Banshee. You can also see the first season for free if you have Amazon Prime. Because it's coming from Cinemax, it has a lot of adult content. If you're still interested and need something to watch before Daredevil comes back on, this is the show to watch. I know I made it sound like a filler, pass the time type of show, but this show has everything. I will also say that this show only has three seasons and the next season comes out this year as it has been cancelled. This should not steer you away from the show. It has a lot of action in every sense of the word.

     It's about a master thief who served 15 years in prison after his last theft almost gets his girlfriend arrested. When he is released, he tracks down his girlfriend to the small town of  Banshee. She has a new identity and a new life. The only thing he wants is her, but she has settled down and has been hiding out from her father, who is the person they stole from. He is not ready to leave and after a series of events, adopts the identity of the new sheriff, Lucas Hood.

     He makes for an interesting sheriff who gets the job done, but there is a trail of bodies and loose ends that plague him. His former girlfriend's father is a well-connected Ukrainian, who wants revenge and what they stole. Every time the town goes through something, it leads her father closer and closer to them and it doesn't help that Lucas makes a great sheriff as well as a great thief. He continues stealing, making friends and enemies along the way. 

     Lucas is the good fake sheriff who likes stealing, Ana/Carrie is his former lover/almost former thief, Job is a computer hacker/comic relief and Sugar is a bar owner/ex-con/wise person who helps them. The town has Amish people, Native American tribes and a former Amish guy, who is currently a gangster. Lucas and Ana know how to fight and Job is trans and awesome. He's like the Lafayette of the show with how sassy he is and the show is from the creators of True Blood. Sugar is an ex-boxer full of wisdom.

     This show has great fighting scenes like you wouldn't believe. There are some fighting scenes that look like Mortal Kombat, but it doesn't look fake. If you played Mortal Kombat, there are parts where you do special moves that are so powerful, that they show what bones are breaking inside the body. This is how intense their fight scenes are. It has funny parts, gangster parts, nasty and gory parts and lots of violence, fighting, shooting and sleeping around.

The story line is good, the action is better than expected, it has good character development and a high rating. It is not for kids though, so don't let them watch. I guess there were so many great shows that this one kind of fell under the radar, but this is definitely a show to watch. Watch out for Kai's right hand man and see if you can watch it without binge-watching it.

#TryDry VoxBox

     I received Degree MotionSense Dry Spray to try for free in exchange for this review. I use Degree and I already know it's a pretty good brand, so I when I tried this I wasn't too shocked. You slide the top button forward to unlock it, shake the can and spray your underarm. You shake and spray per arm. It has a very strong scent. I used to spray it on in my bathroom, but my bathroom is small and not very ventilated. I spray it on in my room, so I have room to breathe. You have to spray it about 6 inches away. The scent is powerful for a minute or two and then it goes away. It lasts all day and you will stay dry. It feels cold as soon as you apply it and then it instantly becomes dry.

     It doesn't leaves any marks on me or my clothes and there are different scents and brands to choose from for men and women. It says it lasts 48 hours, but I think it lasts for a day as deodorant and for 48 hours as an antiperspirant. The amount in the can is gonna last for a while, like maybe a month depending how much you use it, and it costs about as much as regular deodorant or less if you get it from a cheaper store. It holds up well and works for me. The only thing is that it is not environmentally-friendly, but regular deodorant isn't either.

8" Green Earth Frying Pan by Ozeri

     This is a big frying pan with a silicon covered handle, so you won't burn your hands. The handle is long, so you also don't have to worry about putting your hands too close to the heat. The pan is made from German technology and was assembled in China. The inside of the pan has a beehive design. You don't have to use butter or cooking spray, unless you just want it for the flavor because this pan is 100% nonstick. It green on the outside, black on the inside and steel on the bottom of the outside. It comes with a green felt cover to protect the pan as well.

     This cover is to push down on the inside of the pan to protect it. You can also buy a lid for this pan, but it is sold separately. They come in different sizes as well. I really like the size of this pan though because I can cook so many things in it. Another great thing and probably my favorite thing about this pan is that it has equal heat distribution. I've used a large pan trying to cook two grilled cheese sandwiches and they'll come out two different colors because one will get more heat than the other. With this pan, I can put any food anywhere in the pan and it will cook thoroughly.

     Someone put butter in this pan when they didn't believe that the box said nonstick. The butter made the food taste great, but it wasn't needed to keep the food from sticking. Although this is a wonderful pan to use, I do have to let you know that you have to clean it differently than you would other pans. You can't just use soap and water or you will have leftover food starting to stick and you won't be able to clean it off.

     Don't let that discourage you, though. Someone told me that if you put in a tablespoon of powdered dish-washing soap into the pan with water and boil it, the pan will come out fine. You can't just scrub it out or use any of your normal tricks to clean it, but the way to clean it is easy enough that you should seriously consider using this pan.

This pan is worth it if you just adjust how you clean it because it takes the same amount of time to clean it any other way. You can eat food in a healthier way and not have to worry about if part of your food is overcooked or under-cooked. It's a large pan and I made chili in it the other day. Those eggs in the pan cooked up nice and fast, tasted great and slid out of the pan without a spatula. I received this product free in exchange for my honest review.

GWEN STEFANI - USED TO LOVE YOU VIDEO

Gwen Stefani is turning heartbreak into a hit and getting personal. Watch her perform #UsedToLoveYou on The American Music Awards this Sunday night, Nov. 22 #o2o http://Bit.ly/videoGwen

Midori Spring Ceremonial (GOLD) Matcha Green Tea

     My mother loves green tea and I can drink some teas, but this tea is different. It's in a powder form and you mix it with water and whisk it until it's frothy. I haven't tried it as traditional tea though. I think if you love tea, especially green tea, you will like this. It's a high quality tea and very strong for people who aren't heavy tea drinkers. If you are not a heavy tea drinker or a tea drinker at all, it may take a while to get used to, but it has a lot of health properties and can taste great in a sweet treat.  I tried this Midori Spring Matcha Green Tea as cupcakes. 

     This is what it looks like inside the can. They said you should freeze it after you open it to seal in the flavor. If you are using it the traditional way, you use a special bowl, sifter and whisk and when you stir it, don't let the whisk touch the bottom of the bowl and stir it in a "W" motion. If you are like me and don't have all of those things, just whisk it with hot or cold water as best you can. Since I haven't tried it as tea yet though, I'll talk about the cupcakes.

     I made them as regular cupcakes, but you can make them healthier if you want to. They come out very green and you can add as much or as little green tea as you want. I decided to make icing with it, too. It's regular icing with green tea in it and you can add as much or as little tea here, too.

Since most of my family aren't green tea drinkers, I thought making cupcakes was the best way to introduce them to this tea and these cupcakes didn't disappoint. My nephew was afraid to try them out because they were green, but I got him to try one and he realized that it was still a cupcake and not bad at all.

If you don't want to make cupcakes, make the tea and you can add in sugar, milk, honey or whatever you usually use in your tea. It holds up well in cupcakes, but it is technically not a cooking grade tea. This means it might not hold up well in every recipe you would want to make. This is real premium grade traditional Matcha tea and it is organic and a superfood. Teas like this can reduce stress, improve metabolism, help your immune system, help cleanse the body of harmful elements and so much more. This is the highest grade you can get for a Matcha tea. It comes in different levels and this is the one you want. I received this product free in exchange for an honest review.

Sound Intone CX-05 Metal Detachable Headphones

     This is a second and completely different pair of Sound Intone headphones. They are smaller and made with metal, fabric and faux-leather. They have as great a sound as the other pair and they comes with detachable nylon cords. These are not wireless headphones and one cord comes with a button and mic. The button is for answering or ending a call or playing and pausing music. They fit comfortably on the ears and on my head and I have a lot of hair. The other cord is just a cord, but I like that I have a backup cord.

     They fold up for easy storage and if you wanted to buy these as a gift for someone, they come in a sort of gift box. You can take it out the shipping box and it would be ready to go as a gift or you can wrap it up, but you wouldn't have to go out of your way to buy a gift box.

     The fabric is on the top and if you don't like brown, it does come in other colors like blue, black and red. They have a big white "L" and "R" inside the headphones, so you'll always know which side is which and they are very sturdy and durable. You can let anyone use them or get them their own pair if you wanted to.

     You can use these for a variety of devices from your phone to your laptop to your mp3 player. When you put them on before you play anything, you can hear reduced sound coming from outside of the headphones. When you play music, it doesn't sound loud to people in a room with you, so you won't bother them and depending on how loud you play it, some people don't hear it at all. I received these headphones heavily discounted in exchange for my honest review.