I’ve been putting these quick reviews together over the last few weeks and I kinda love it.

I love being able to share bits and pieces that I try out with you; there’s a pretty decent variety packed in here, some lifestyle, some beauty bits, a new blog that I discovered as well as some feminine hygiene products… and a few other suprises.

Let’s jump right in!

Seva coffee filters: Slowly but surely we are swapping things in our home to be more environmentally conscious. It’s difficult to do everything in one go but if you approach it with a “slow and steady wins the race” mentality, I find that it’s a loss less overwhelming and intimidating.

Something that we go through a lot are coffee filters. We use one or two a day, every day and while coffee grounds are easy to recycle, the filter papers are a different story. Seva Sustainables popped up on my IG feed one day with an image of their reusable coffee filters and I was immediately intrigued. You buy these unbleached cotton coffee filters in packs of two and there are different sizes available depending on what you need.

We’ve been using ours for about 2 months now and love them. The coffee grinds don’t “leak” through the cotton and they are so easy to clean; simply empty out the grinds and then rinse in the sink. Easy peasy.

If you’re looking for a simple thing to change up in your home to be more green, this is definitely something to consider, especially considering the great price point.

Seva Reusable Towels: Another quick and easy change that we’ve made is to ditch the single use paper towel and rather opt for reusable ones. Our old ones were looking a bit worse for wear and so when I bought the reusable coffee filters, I popped some of the Seva “Unpaper” Towels. I bought the folded set of 10 and it’s the perfect amount for how often we use them (daily, sometimes twice daily). When one is dirty, I just chuck it into the washing machine to get cleaned with the next load that we do. These reusable towels are made from cotton flannel and come in a few different colour and patterns.

Clinique Take The Day Off Cleansing Balm: My dehydrated skin loves a good balm cleaner and so when Tori from Kiss, Blush and Tell was having a great Clinique Black Friday special, I finally nabbed myself this cult cleanser. Spoiler, I am obsessed.

I’m pretty sure that if I was wearing tar on my face, this Clinique balm would remove it, it really is that effective. I massage it into dry skin with dry hands and then add a bit of water to emulsify it before removing it with a warm flannel cloth.

I often find that cleansers leave my skin feeling stripped but this hasn’t been the case here which is really great. Another bonus is that it’s lasting me an actual age, so real bang for your buck.

Highly recommend.

Clinique Moisture Surge CC Cream: This is the second Clinique product that I purchased last Black Friday and again, I am loving it.

I’ve really gone off wearing full coverage foundation (lockdown will do that to a gal) but still want something lightweight to give me a bit of cover for when I do venture out of the house.

Foundations, BB and CC creams in general are difficult for me as they can look quite orange but this  Moisture Surge CC Cream really is great, not a hint of orange at all! In terms of coverage it is definitely light to medium, but being a CC cream, it really evens out my skin tone which is great. I’ll be repurchasing this without a doubt in my mind.

Spotify Premium: I’ve had a Spotify account for ages but about 6 months ago I decided to subscribe to Spotify Premium. The main reason for this was so that I could download the songs that I had saved to playlists and have them readily available whenever I wanted them. This has honestly been such a game changer for me; the girls can listen to their audiobooks and music on the way to school, I can listen to my music while running errands and the area of my life where I’ve loved it the most is while I do my morning workout, exercise is so much more enjoyable with music.

Other pros of Spotify Premium include no adverts (yay) and unlimited skips (I love to song surf), plus it’s only R60 a month – totally worth it! You can get a month free before subscribing which is also great.

Flo tampons: A while ago I mentioned on my Instagram stories that I had purchased a new brand of tampons and a lot of you asked me for some feedback once I had used them. The brand I purchased was Flo, for two main reasons:

1. They are eco friendly made of 100% organic cotton and natural bamboo
2. 5% of profits go to women and children in need

They are slightly more expensive that your average tampons but the factors above outweigh that for me.

Didn’t think I’d ever be reviewing tampons on my site, but here we are… The Flo tampons were really great. I have the non-applicator ones and they were easy to insert and comfortable to wear. In terms of absorption they passed the test as well, I don’t have a very heavy period so I can’t comment on how they would fare for that type of flow but they worked really well for me.

They did feel ever so slightly more dry (only way I can think of describing it) but nothing that would deter me for purchasing them again.

Tiny Dollhouse: Oh the dollhouse… a project that turned out to be a lot more intense than I thought but I have really loved doing it up (don’t worry, there will be a full transformation blog post once we’re done).  I discovered Tiny Dollhouse a little while ago and have subsequently bought a decent amount of stuff from Karin. Everything is so beautiful and really well made, plus a lot of the items are in collaboration with local small businesses.

Tiny Dollhouse has both classic and modern items so you’ll definitely find something that matches your taste. Their wallpapers are self adhesive which is amazing and I am obsessed with the furniture that I bought. You can also buy your actual dollhouse, or single room off the site which is really helpful.

If you’ve been sucked into the dollhouse trend like I 100% have been, then this little business is well worth having a look at.

Liza Perold: I only recently discovered Liza’s Instagram account and blog and I am so glad that I did!

Her “Beginners Guide To Joburg” posts are amazing – I’ve definitely discovered a few places that I want to go and visit, and they few recipes that I’ve seen (I know that there are a ton more!) look so yummy. Her content is beautifully presented and I love the conversational tone of her captions, makes me feel like I’m chatting to a friend.

I’ve been looking for new Instagram accounts to follow and this is definitely one of my new favourites!

Well I think I’ve given you a decent chunk of goodies to potentially get involved with, they’re definitely all things that I have loved adding to my life and bringing into my home. Let me know in the comments if you like this kind of blog post, I definitely enjoyed putting it together and popping up a quick little write up on each item.

Featured image taken by Tamaryn Lee Photography