This is my 8th year living outside of the United States. For the first 6 years of my life away, I was living in a mainly international community in Bahrain for 2 years, and then Ukraine for 4 years. After marrying Drew and moving to Italy, however, I now find myself living in an Italian community, but having my main “community” consist of Americans, due to our affiliation with the post here in Vicenza.
Most of the daily “business” that needs to get conducted happens on post: both of my part-time jobs are on post, as is the post office, library, gym with $3 yoga classes, lady sent from God who irons Drew’s shirts, commissary, and PX (kind of like a Target). That’s why I say that even though we are living in an Italian community with AMAZING Italian neighbors and attempting to live as Italians would (with a 7-8pm dinner:), a lot of our “community” and “community events” happen with Americans or in an American area.
For the last 2 years, I have completely re-acclimated to the US postal system and loved having an APO. It’s not something I ever missed while living in Ukraine or Bahrain, but now that I have it here, I will miss it when I leave! Basically, we have a US address that we can have mail accepted at here in Italy. That means that amazon is super easy to use, along with many US vendors who ship to APO. Probably it’s a good thing that we’re leaving the APO behind, because then there will be no more online shopping.
For the last 3 months, I have enjoyed a very nice Christmas subscription gift from my parents to Petit Vour. I told them that if they were looking for something to give me, I was really interested in this service but could only take advantage of it when using an APO (and I was pretty sure that we would be leaving Italy over the summer). My mom took the not-so-subtle hint and bought me a subscription to leave my APO behind with a bang! Shout-out to the Pashby Parents, who are always sweet, generous and very thoughtful.
Petit Vour is a vegan cosmetics and beauty product service that compiles a box of cruelty-free products each month and sends to them you to sample. Although not all of the products are certified organic, a lot of them are and most use all-natural, chemical-free ingredients. This is an ultimate try-before-you-buy luxury item program that can make you aware of products that align more with eco-friendly, natural and vegan products. I’d like to give you a little review of the 4 products featured in the February box. I usually don’t receive my boxes until the first of the next month, since our mail has been slow recently, so yes, I’m still working on February, even though we’re well into March.
Each box has 4 items inside of it. Here’s my review of the following products:
- Lily Lolo Mascara, Made in the UK: This is a basic mascara that has given my lashes the “wow” factor over the last few weeks. For me, it washes off much easier then Bare Minerals and does not irritate my eyes. The one con I noticed is that it tends to clump. Would I buy again/recommend? YES
- Ellovi Body Butter, Made in the USA: This is a decadent body butter that I enjoyed applying after my shower. It is made of only 6 ingredients, with no chemicals, something that is difficult to find. In the future, I would probably choose another flavor. Mint Chocolate is a strange smell to have on your body all day! Would I buy again/recommend? YES
- Balanced Guru Body Scrub, Made in the USA: This is an energizing and exfoliating scrub that will make your skin feel divine. It does make the shower into a bit of a mess, but it is worth it. Would I buy again/recommend? YES
- Mi-Me Tangerine Hydrating Lip Butter, US-Based Company: This was an unexpected addition to the box. Most February boxes ended up with a fragrance sample, but air regulations prevented the fragrance from being in my box as the fragrance contained alcohol. In general, this lip balm is high-quality and has been very helpful as Winter finishes and Spring approaches. The main issue with the butter is that it is messy, probably because the first ingredient is coconut oil. If you can see in the accompanying picture, the lip balm comes in a plastic tube, but the container that the lip balm is actually in gets greasy from the oils, so that then makes the plastic tube greasy, which means that your fingers will become greasy after using it. Would I buy again/recommend? No, but only because of inefficient packaging, otherwise it is a very nice product.
Thank you Pashby Parents for my Petit Vour subscription. I will miss it when we move to Uzbekistan!
Intentionally International 