Candy Review- Pocky Strawberry, Cute Fabrics and Totes from Japan

I'm not sure if Pocky can rightfully be considered a candy, but I'm going to stick it in that category. In my mind, the cookie sticks only serve as a vehicle for the candy-like outer coating.
I bought these over a month ago at Cost Plus World Market, totally in love with the packaging- they make me think of Strawberry Shortcake in Strawberry Land.


The box came with four packs with six sticks in each one, 
each pack has a cute print of little strawberries and the Glico logo.
When I opened the first pack, the strawberry scent hit me right away. The scent was so strong, I was surprised how mild the strawberry taste was. The ingredients list includes both dried strawberries (you can see the little bits suspended in the cream coating) and artificial strawberry flavor. The taste of the cookie stick actually stood out more than the outer coating.
I was a bit disappointed, but since I bought the box for the excellent packaging, I really can't complain.


I am trying to decide on what I'll order from Shinzi Katoh's website. If I had the money, I would order one of every item, but I can't do that. The tote bags are oh-so-adorable, and there are aluminum bottles to match quite a few of the totes. They also have some vinyl-coated bags, they cost quite a bit more than the totes 
(around $50 compared to about $18 for the totes) but seem like they would be sturdier, and they are a nice, big size. This one with the Elephant/ Oranges is too cute!

 

I use tote bags all the time, since I like to carry my sketchbook with me. Tiny purses just don't do it for me, and I don't want to run into anyone with even a similar bag to what I'm carrying.
Here in Phoenix, it seems like every other girl and woman has a real or fake Coach or Louis Vuitton bag on her arm. It all strikes me as being so unbelievably boring.
Shinzi Katoh has a selection of fabrics, not a lot but the ones they do have are darling.
Another online shop carrying some Shinzi Katoh products, and a much wider range of cute fabric, is Nuno-plus, they have a lot of teeny-tiny adorable prints. The fabric can get expensive, over $20 for a yard, so check Reprodepot first if you are in the USA, they carry quite a few of the same exact fabrics at cheaper prices.

Candy Reviews- Hot & Cold

I bought a bar of Frey's Hot Chilli Pepper chocolate (described on their site as, "Extra fine dark chocolate with an extra hot kick".) last week. I've been holding onto it, because my dentist warned me about eating spicy foods after having my wisdom teeth out. I decided it was safe today, and tried my first square.



I let a small piece of the chocolate dissolve in my mouth. The dark chocolate is extremely rich and smooth. A few bits of dried chili (the fourth ingredient after chocolate liquor, sugar, and cocoa butter) trickled to my throat along with the melting chocolate, and created a slight 'burning' sensation. Once most of the chocolate had dissolved, I was left with most of the dried chili pieces in my mouth, and then I could actually taste the chili instead of just a plain 'hot' flavor. 
The next piece I chewed and ate, and that created a better effect- the heat of the chili and the smoothness of the chocolate combined perfectly, and afterwards there was the slight flavor of chili in my mouth.

Now, Frey's website claims they are Switzerland's #1 chocolate. I have to wonder, does that mean they are the best? Or, if I were to tell a Swiss person I like Frey, would they think, "EEEEEEWWWW. Nasty."? I mean, here in America, certain things that are popular and considered to be '#1' are NOT always the best, they just appeal to the lowest common denominator. So I wonder....

After savoring the last of my square of Hot Chilli Pepper chocolate and pondering over what the Swiss like, I decided to finish with my last Ice Cube.

With an ingredients listing of: "partially hydrogenated coconut oil, sugar, low fat cocoa, whey powder, soy flour, hazelnut paste, lecithin, spice, and natural flavor", one might expect these to taste sort of nasty. One would be wrong.
These are the smoothest, meltiest chocolates I've ever had.
I used to get these all the time, they were easier to find when I lived in the NorthEast. 
Here in the SouthWest, especially at this time of year, if I want them I have to order them online and pay extra for the shipping option that keeps them cold. So, I savored the last one in my stash. What makes these great is how they manage to make them taste cool.
It has to be that hazelnut paste.

Lemon Yellow

I'm very into citrus-y, tangy, lemon yellow right now. It puts me in a summery mood, and the scent is just very refreshing now that it is starting to get unpleasantly hot out.

I love a good lemon scented lotion, any lemon-y skincare product actually.  
My favorite that I'm using right now is Booth's 3-in-1 Multi-Action Body Lotion in Lemon Sugar.



I got it at my local Walgreens, it was a new item they were just setting out, a 32oz bottle for 9.99.
It has alpha hydroxy acids and caffeine to firm the skin. The scent is wonderful, like a buttery lemon cookie. This seems like a hard-to-find product. Usually I can find something online before I see it on store shelves, but the only place I've seen this is at Walgreens. Their site doesn't have it, but they do have a coconut-fig version of the same product.
Walgreens also has a good lemon lotion in their Apothecary line. The scent is a bit more tart, less sugary and buttery than the Booth's lotion, and the price isn't as good, it is about 7.99 for an 8oz bottle.
They also have a lemon cuticle balm that is almost an exact copy of Burt's Bees. Burt's Bees calls theirs a "lemon cuticle creme", but it is more like a wax or balm than a cream.




Even though I have an open tin of the Burt's Bee's brand stuff, when I got a gift set containing the Walgreens lemon balm last holiday season, I had to open it to do a side by side comparison. I couldn't see or smell any difference, so I looked up their ingredients lists, and they are both the same: Sweet Almond Oil , Beeswax , Lemon Oil , Tocopheryl Acetate , Tocopherol - Vitamin E , Cocoa Butter , Candelilla Wax , Rosemary Extract , Beta Carotene. Exactly the same on both!
So, I might just start buying Walgreen's version in the future, it costs $3.99 compared to about $5.99 for BB's.

Another yummy lemon-scented body product- philosophy's Frozen Lemon Custard.
It doesn't have a strong lemon scent, more sweet and... custard-y. It has that good-enough-to-eat scent a lot of philosophy's products have. And like their other 3-in-1s, it makes a great body wash/ bath gel, but kind of sucks as a shampoo. :(



Makeup-wise, the only yellow product I own is in a L'Oreal HIP shadow duo, #538 Flamboyant. I've used it, 
and it isn't terrible, but it really is hard for me to use yellow without looking sickly.
Yellow nail polish just makes me cringe. I don't want people to wear yellow nail polish around me. And I see yellow polish on the toenails as a good indicator of poor taste. *EEEWWWWW*
 

Moving along. For candy, because you have to have candy, two great lemon candies:
Ferrara Pan Lemonheads. You can visit their site and take a mini-virtual-tour to see how they are made! Pretty fascinating, no? It involves a lot of machines that look like you could lose an arm in them, and a lot of swirling around to get that nice shiny yellow exterior.




For a more sophisticated candy that it less likely to leave hard candy deposits in your teeth after chewing, Frey chocolate in Citron & Poivre is excellent. I try a different flavor from the brand whenever I visit Target, this flavor is described on Frey's site as, "Extra fine dark chocolate with a refreshing dash of lemon and black pepper". I know this may make me weird, but I wish I could taste more black pepper in it,the citrus taste was more obvious to me.  But, the whole combination worked out quite well.