I have previous mentioned Zenmarket as a proxy service option. Now I want to write a post on after using it for several years. I’m doing this because they recently changed some things which isn’t good in my opinion. 

One change that I think makes sense is increasing the fee from 300 yen to 500 yen. The inflation and current exchange rate between yen and usd, I can’t hate them for increasing it since everywhere else is increasing their prices. 

The change I don’t like is their rewards. Before the change, if you ship packages from them within 12 months they will give you a certain amount of credit that you can use to buy something through them. The credit is the same idea as a credit card  you will have to pay the amount back. But they have changed that from 12 months to 3 months! I don’t buy that often enough so I’ll never get that benefit anymore. 

This company also has branched into selling certain things themselves  even subscription boxes. I even bought a ramen box from them but sadly customs has taken 5 out of 7 of the ramen in the box! Leaving me with only 2. I contacted both zenmarket and customs. Customs says it contained meat products prohibited in the US. Zenmarket won’t take any responsibilty and won’t help give me any of my money back. They don’t list full ingredients for these ramen either  their website only lists the warning of meat products that could be prohibited on their FAQ page  

I find services like Blackship to have a much clearer information on what is allowed and what isn’t. I would highly advise going there to research what is allowed in your country before buying anything outside your country  

Another time I tried to order a product that had a limit of one per customer. I asked Zenmarket to check if they could buy it before I give them money. Unfortunately they couldn’t even do that  they have to try buying the item before knowing which is weird to me. 

Zenmarket is still one of the easiest and cost effective proxy service but I fear their quality in customer service has decreased. 

 I decided to try this out since I've been getting their ads rather often as well as other meal delivery boxes. What got me to subscribe was their selection of asian dishes. I had a 50% first order offer but this was sadly only on the first box. I decided to just get a 8 meal box just to try them out. I didn't want to get their largest box since I didn't know if I'd like their food enough to get that many even though it be a better deal.

Price

The prices are a bit high! Each meal is around $11-14 depending on how many you get in a box. And they add on a $15 fee to the total. So its not much cheaper than eating at a restaurant or getting doordash. And you don't get a lot. Its probably about 1 cup amount of food so its not going to make you feel stuffed.

Taste

This is by far the most delicious ready made meals I've had! They do taste like restaurant quality meals. They're not frozen either and the sleeves do say when they are packed, but not when they were cooked. Most of the meals I've tried are on the salty side. One Thai dish I had even has MSG as a ingredient. I don't mind salty, but it is weird how these are suppose to be made by different chefs and yet all make it salty? 

You got about one week to eat it, or you can freeze it! They freeze fine, but I would advise not freezing dishes that have sauces like sour cream that don't freeze well. I frozen a burrito that had sour cream and I think salsa which didn't thaw or reheat well so I had to throw away the sauces. Do be sure to read the cooking instructions since some may contain a sauce that needs to be taken out before microwaving!! I do feel foods like burritos or anything with a tortilla should be cooked in a oven or else the tortilla will be soggy. So do pick your meals carefully if you don't have access to an oven when you plan to eat these meals at. So for me I eat these at work so I would need to eat the burrito at home.

Delivery

I've seen comments on reddit saying that their food arrived with broken seals. Luckily, all my food arrived safely and undamaged. These were shipped from NYC and I live about 4 hour drive from there so it usually takes one day for packages to arrive from there. They used Fedex, and somehow it got delayed. I picked Tuesday as my delivery date, but it came in on Wednesday instead. It still arrived cold-ish and I was home when it came so I was able to put it all in the fridge right away. The seal on these tray are pretty easy to remove so I can see how they can be damaged. But my box was packed well. The insulation is thick and the meals fit snug inside the box. They used cardboard to layer in between the meals and ice. I don't live in a city and they delivery folks in my area have been pretty good at handling our packages well. I don't think I ever had them deliver anything that came broken! So this may depend on your area and how the delivery drivers handle packages.

Overall

I would like to keep getting CookUnity because it is tasty and they have SO MANY OPTIONS! There's hundreds of meals and add ons that you can choose from. However, it is out of my budget. When I go to cancel my sub, I put my reason down as Price and they did offer a 30% discount for the next 4 boxes, but still its a bit too much, There's also a expiration date on the offer which I don't like. I like being able to pause/skip as much as I can and not lose that deal! Perhaps if they ever do a come back offer, I may use it to order again. But right now, 30% isn't enough as its still nearly $100 for 8 meals. I sadly do not make enough money to justify this! So I would recommend this meal service IF you can afford it!

I recently got a Come Back email offer and its only 30% off the next four orders so its still the same as the canceling offer sadly. Wish it was a bit lower!

 I've been fortunate enough to be invited to this program to review products on Amazon. Why or how I got invited, I honestly don't know. I have reviewed some products and there was one that seem to get a handful of helpful votes so that could be it? This program is invite only and it seems they invited quite a few people, but they could also kick you without a clear explanation.

Free??

If you're interested in this program or are new to it, its a program where you can "order" items and you review them. 

Do you get paid for doing this? No.

Are the items free? Sort of.

To elaborate, most of the items have ETV (estimated tax value) which is usually the price of them item. This gets tallied for the tax year you ordered it on, and will be filed to the IRS. You will get a 1099 if you have $600+ in ETV so you will end up having to pay taxes. So in a way, the items are discounted! 

Good news is that there are items with 0ETV which are usually stuff like food and certain beauty items, etc. But these go FAST since they're 0ETV.

Tiers!

At the moment there are 2 tiers: Silver and Gold.

The difference is the # of picks you get per day and the product cost. Silver gets 3 items a day and items $99 and under. Gold gets 8 items a day and see all products above and below $99. 

To get to Gold, you must order and review 100 items within your evaluation period which is 6 months. So yes, you do need to order 200 items a year to stay Gold. It is a lot of items. Its definitely something you will need to talk to about with your spouse or whoever is living with you about this. It can get addicting and it may cause problems!

Queues

There are multiple queues to look for products. Items get added at random times during the day. One queue is "tailored" to you and you can only see it. In truth they're not really "tailored to you" as you may get items for pets or babies when you don't have even have them! Also these items are also shown in other peoples' recommended so it could disappear from your queue if others have taken them up. These items are usually shown in these queues first before before they offer it for the rest. Most of them items are from third party sellers than from Amazon. So most are small business or resellers. You will mostly see stuff you don't like since its stuff thousands of others aren't ordering. So yes, this will feel like a job if you want to get something useful to you!

Community

There are several places you can find other Amazon Viners!  These are usually Viner members only so do not join if you're not part of the program. People in these communities can help you with questions you may have. There's reddit, Facebook groups, and Discords! 

Keep in Mind

Do not treat this program like a store. It may be part of Amazon, but they will not make it easier for you if you do not like getting certain items showing up and you want to filter items. 

Use the Contact Us link on the top right if you have an issue and need customer service. Regular Amazon customer service may not be able to help with your vine orders!

 So lately I've been trying out foaming hand soap tablets that are advertised to be more eco friendly and such. I got the Blueland glass foaming hand soap bottle and their tablets as well as another brand I got from Amazon. Normally I don't use foaming hand soap but gel hand soap so I'll be comparing both.

 The biggest difference is that foaming hand soap has to be used with a foaming hand soap bottle. A regular pump bottle that gels are used won't work at all. Since foaming hand soap is basically watered down soap, that's what you're getting in a simple pump. The bottle also has to have a big enough opening to fit the tablet inside. Not all tablets are the same size either so this is why I got the Blueland bottle since it has a big opening.

 Second biggest difference is longevity. These foaming hand soaps get emptied much faster than the gel hand soap. Of course this all depends on how many people are using it and how often. But so far I would say that foaming hand soap has been emptied faster since I've only emptied the gel one once and refilled the foaming soaps 3 times now. On the plus side the tablets are cheaper, but overall I think it even outs in price from how often I had to refill them. 

Overall, I don't think the tablets are any better than the gel ones or any already made hand soap. I do think it is better to not have to throw away plastic bottles, so I think its worth it for that only.

  I've heard about The Conqueror from an influencer and when I checked it out they started a LOTR series! As a LOTR fan it greatly interested me. The Conqueror is an app that provides distance based challenges and uses locations to determine the distance amount. It gives you a map and the route and shows how much you progress along the route. Once you finish they provide you a medal that is mailed to you. The medals are huge and come with a neck strap so it looks rather similar to a Olympic medal. For the LOTR they give you the map of Middle Earth. These challenges are about $50 per challenge which isn't too bad but not cheap. You can walk, run, or anything else you'd like. You can link fitness apps like The Health app from Apple to automatically input your daily steps, or you can input distance manually. So its possible to "cheat" if you're only interested in the medal than the fitness challenge as you can't buy the medal outright.

 I'm not a big fan of how the medals look personally, but I do like The Shire's medal a lot enough to buy it. You can't buy it through the app but rather through their website. Be sure to right your email correctly and it will give you the code to put into the app to start the challenge. 

The app experience is relatively simple. As you progress it gives you a simple recap of the movie. The recap is just a screencap with a simple panning or zooming animation with a line from the movie from that scene. There's no music or any other sound. You also get digital postcards that also gets emailed to you. You get a choice of planting trees or removing bottles as another kind of milestone. The map doesn't just show you where you are but other people as well. So overall its pretty simple and not the most exciting thing. I wish it was a bit better!

Since the Shire challenge is 145 miles its going to take me awhile. I will have to update this when I finish it and get the medal!

 I’ve heard about how good Hoka shoes are but they are rather expensive so I never took the plunge to buy them until now. My job had me in a position where I have to stand all day full time when I’m usually sitting all day. So after the first couple of painful day of standing I bite the price bullet and bought the Bondi 7. 

 I even had expedited shipping and for some reason it still took a week to get to me. It was free shipping so maybe the “expedite” was a lie? I don’t know but it was painful waiting for it to arrive. But once it got to me, thankfully right before I had to go to work, I tried them on and they were comfortable enough that it didn’t need to be broken in! I did get a wide since my feet are a bit on the wide side and would like the room when I have thicker socks during the winter. 

 These helped so much! It may not make standing all day pain free, but it lessened so much pain and soreness that it’s tolerable. After getting use to standing sometimes it’s pain free. 

The soles on these are quite thick and it kinda feels like I’m stepping on a mattress at first. It did put some pressure on my knees due to how the soles are designed but after getting use to it it feels like walking like a normal shoe would feel. To me at least. Their page has said it’s has feet health benefits and someone with knee problems says these have been helped with it so I feel these shoes are legit. I don’t have knee problems and I’ve heard standing all day isn’t healthy for you. I feel wearing these would help me health wise from all this standing. I don’t want to develop health problems because of my work! So I feel paying $160 for these shoes is worth it. I’ll definitely be bringing these for travel! And I do hope to maybe get a 2nd pair. 

Sadly Hoka shoes aren’t in big box stores so these isn’t one near me for me to try other shoes. The only time I've seen these on sale was during the holiday season on Black Friday so I suggest waiting till then if you're interested. Its not a huge sale so I wouldn't expect these to be 50% off.

After wearing these for a year now, I do enjoy it as my everyday shoe. It hard to go back to my other shoes since Hoka just makes them feel uncomfortable. So far it has held up pretty well! I would definitely like to get another pair.

 I/m not a smoker but like the smell of tobacco and regreted not buying one tobacco candle I found in a store. I searched for others since that one was discontinued and PF Candles came up. I ended up getting a few of their candles for their scent and to be useful when we get blackouts. So far their candles are a hit or a miss.

 Since there's no PF Candle stores here I have to blindly guess what these candles will end up smelling like. Most often than not I am wrong on what I imagined them to smell like. None of them are bad smelling, but some I enjoy more than others. And none of them have caused any issues or gave me any headaches.

Some scents like Golden Coast and Amber & Moss are very light that I can barely smell it while it burns. Other scents like the Teakwood & Tobacco, and Electric Surf I can smell. None are very strong smelling even in a small room so sometimes I don't notice the smell. The candles do last awhile but I'm not sure if it actually lasts 40 hours.

They do have sales and a rewards program. The rewards isn't the most generous as you have to have to a $50+ order to get any. I do like their Teakwood and Tobacco scent even if its sweeter than I would've liked, but its still a great scent that I would definitely order again.

 I have previously made a post about my experience with trying to preorder a fanmade merch on taobao. And Superbuy was what I used to help get it from the seller to me. Since then I've used them quite a few times to get more preorders and I have some things to say about it!

FIRST you don't really get emails for updates. I've only gotten an email when there's a "shipping deferment" so if you're waiting on replies from your agent you may have to check the site yourself.

SECOND if you're preordering somethings that's going to take awhile you may have to babysit it. The stuff I wanted to get can take as long as 6 months and understandably your agent may end up forgetting about your order. Its good to try to check the item's page or seller's page to see any developments. Do check the reviews section and see if there's any with photos which is an obvious indicator that the product is ready to be shipped. You can also message your agent to ask for any updates from the seller. 

I do recommend messaging at least once because I've had an order that was marked "complete" despite it wasn't and the agent's name was gone from that order. If its gone I can't message them to fix it! Luckily I did message them before and was able to go back to that message and mention this mistake. 

This has been the most annoying part to babysitting your orders! But so far the agents have been able to correct it and helped me get the products promptly.

English The agents English is pretty good! I would still advise keeping your messages to the point and as politely as you can. 

Shipping They have a huge selection of shipping options! They even have their own shipping called Superbuy Air mail which is rather reasonable. I searched for it and people said it took about a week, well for me it took over 2 weeks! They only give you an estimated weight and price. They will adjust the amount once it shipped and any refund amount is sent to your balance. This is annoying since it will make it that you're always have some money left with them. You can Withdrawl it back but I haven't tried that out yet so I will update this once I do!

 Thanks to so many influencers taking sponsors from this vitamin company, I thought I check it out when I was getting discomfort. I decided to try out their Multivitamin (ad link your support is appreciated!) and their Gut Health Supplement (ad link). Both cost $80 together! Rather pricier than I would like. While they are one Amazon, you can get them on their website and use any promo codes you can find to get a cheaper price. Also if you try to cancel your subscription they will give you a half off offer! So I got my second bottles for about $40 instead of $80!! Kinda hard to say no to that.

 So the big question is did I feel any different from taking these? No, but my health has been good so I may be normal to not notice anything. Before I would take multivitamin gummies I would get from cvs and those were much easier to eat. I'm not a fan of swallowing pills and these ones are a little big so I will have to take them one at a time carefully. I don't take these everyday either. The expiration date are printed on the bottoms and they can last awhile! I just got my second bottles on November and the expiration date isn't till May of next year! 

 I've seen some reviews say they didn't like the "mint" or rather menthol in these pills but I honestly hardly notice it. I don't know if I would recommend these supplements or not since I don't every feel any different but if you want a multivitamin and have the money then it can't hurt to try these.

 Retinol has been one of those skincare ingredients that many recommend having in your skincare routine due to its anti aging benefits. I have been lazy about it since its something I've seen recommended for older people, but it can benefit younger ones as well! I'm in my mid 30s now and getting to me late 30s so I figured I should really start on retinol! 

 Since retinol can be irritating  I wanted something gentle to start off with. I'm new to retinol so when looking at reviews on retionol products I've noticed some mention the percentage. It seems percentage of retinol is important and not every product tells you this. I would assume its because its really low that companies choose to not say it. 

 I saw this CeraVe Retinol Serum (ad link, your support is appreciated! ty) has good reviews so I figured I try it! Its a 1 fl oz bottle so it lasted me about 5 months of use. I did not use it everyday. It hasn't irritated me at all so its a good sign for me that I can go for a higher percentage product next time! This doesn't disclose any retinol percentage so I assume its really low. I don't really see much skin improvements but I do regularly use exfoliating products. I think this product is a good stepping stone to retinol and its does feel a bit calming and hydrating on my skin. I did get a higher retinol product which does sting slightly so I find using this CeraVe on days my skin is more sensitive is better. Overall I do recommend this product! Its relatively scentless and affordable!

 Both of these dating apps follow the same design, you get someone's profile and you can either be interested or uninterested. There will be a section where people who are interested in you are listed, and a section where people you get matched with will have chat options. I want to share my take on both of these apps!

 Hinge's profile requires 6 photos! They're prompts are a bit more interesting than Bumble's. People can respond to your prompts or they can just like your photo or prompts. My first day using it I got like 15 likes. Hinge will only show you the most recent person who liked you. You have to pay more to see everyone. I really enjoy responding to those who left a message to one of my prompts as it was much easier for me to strike up a conversation. Even to those I would normally not be interested in. I do not get alot of likes on this app so that's unfortunate. I wonder if less people use it? Also you can change your location whenever you want and doesn't use your gps. If you want the security of not giving your location to strangers try this app. 

 Bumble not only has dating, but all BFF, and Biz modes. You can make a profile in any one of them too. I made my profile for bff but have gotten 0 likes, but dating the first day I've gotten 200+ which is a lot more than I got on Hinge. What I don't like is that they don't show anyone who has liked you unless you pay. It does separate them into "New" and "nearby" which is interesting. Bumble uses gps so it will use your location and it will be listed on your profile even though there is a separate prompt to say where you live. From what I understand they will randomly put the people who liked you while you go through people's profiles. It will not tell you if the person has liked you. If you swipe that you're not interested it will say "you missed a potential match" which indicated that person has liked you. This won't happen to every person that liked you either. Sometimes the number on the Liked will just go down one after you swiped not interested. Obviously when you swiped you're interested and you've matched it will mean that person has swiped they're interested. This app has a weird rule that ladies has to be the one to message first when you've matched. Because of the lack of seeing who liked me and going through so many profiles, I have yet to match anyone outside of accidental ones. It is somewhat easy to accidentally trigger a swipe when you're scrolling through the profile. And you have to pay to undo it! The paywall on this app is very annoying and the prices they're charging are insane to me. Sometimes I'd be swiping 30+ profiles and the number of my Liked would not go down. Everyday there be new Likes too. Even though the app is not all helpful in getting me matches, there's just seem so many more people using it than Hinge that I'm still on it.

 I've ordered and managed to navigate through japanese and korean online stores, but taobao is by far the most confusing online store I've tried to buy from. And there's hardly any help online in english with it! There is a sub reddit and a website with guides, but they didn't help with my situation.

 There was a fanmade thing I wanted to try to get and saw from that guide website that you can directly order from taobao if you're from the US. I made an account and proceeded to preorder it.  Please note that doingit like this is like using a proxy because the item will be shipped to taobao's warehouse in China first. Then you have to pay for international shipping for it to be shipping to you. 

 If this product was in stock I probably would've had a easier time, but since it was a preorder then it became a headache. This is because taobao will automatically mark your order as complete after a certain time. Since the product I bought took months to produce my order got automatically completed. Why is this a problem? Because taobao will no longer recognize your order and will be rejected at their warehouse once it does ship. 

 For some reason there isn't a way to talk to the seller on a computer, but you can on their mobile app. There's no where on the site on the computer that lets you know if the seller has contacted you either. If you need to contact the seller you will have to get taobao's app on your phone. I used DeepL to translate my words into chinese to talk to the seller who thankfully has replied to me. If you were to talk to sellers please keep sentences as simple as possible because machine translation doesn't really make longer sentences make sense. 

 The seller didn't want to ship it before confirming the address with me because the address is a warehouse which is understandable. This is when I learned taobao had rejected the package. So I had to look up a proxy. I've heard people use Sueprbuy so I used them and told the seller the address superbuy gave me. And luckily it did reach Superbuy and they accepted it! And yes, shipping from superbuy is like double the price I would pay for shipping from Japan. My package was the size of a poptart box and it costed me $40! YIKES! But I am happy to have bought this so even though it was an expensive ordeal to get it I don't regret it!!!

 So its been some years since I've tried Daily Harvest but I have seen them promoting their subscriptions at the beginning of the year since then and sometimes it was tempting to try them again. Since the last time I tried them they have expanded their selections and I figured it be good to have a convenient healthy meal to bring to work. So yes, I did take up on one of their promotions and re-subscribed to them. I did this during the winter so I didn't any smoothies. I mostly got their harvest bowls and some other stuff. I didn't take a photo of them, but if I get another box I will remember to photograph them.

 First off I do want to say their website had worked the first time I used it to customize my box, but after that it doesn't work right anymore. It was impossible to even get to the page to choose the food I want. It works better on my phone at least so I can do it there. Since the choices don't really change you can skip ahead really far in advance. 

 Other than harvest bowls I got their matcha and chocolate latte. They charge $6 for two little pods of one flavor. You melt these pods in the milk of your choice. I do like them but they are light in flavor for the price. Also i had to wait a couple minutes for these to soften a little from the freezer as they're stuck to the packaging. They're not bad but not impressive.

  I've also got their matcha bites which are little dough-like balls that you eat after they soften from the freezer. These are actually pretty good! Its got flavor and its soft with some texture from the seeds or whatever it was it inside it. They charge $8 for a cup of 7 bites. I do recommend their bites!!! I've only had the matcha one so not sure if the other flavors are as good.

 And then the bowls. I've got mostly savory ones but also some oatmeal ones. The oatmeal ones aren't bad, but the taste is standard. The harvest bowls are what I got their box for and they were all disappointing. They were not  appetizing or appealing when cooked and eaten. I cooked them on a pan and cooked them with a microwave and it didn't make a difference. They were bad enough for me to not eat them, but I had to mix them with other stuff so it wouldn't be so disappointing to eat. 

 I don't understand why premade food from these food subscriptions taste so off when the cheaper frozen food ones from the supermarket taste so much better? I personally would not recommend the harvest bowls. I probably will just stick with their sweet selection than their savory ones.

 My everyday bras were getting too worn so I need to replace them. Decided to try these two bra brands that I’ve seen ads and sponsored content on. 

 I do like the shape of the v-neck bra from Third Love. I do find the padding a bit too thin since I’m still headlighting through them. Though it doesn’t seem to show through my clothing. The bra coverage is also a bit wider for my small frame but it doesn’t bother me due to the soft material. This bra is pretty comfortable so I don’t regret buying it but it’s not my go to bra.

 My go to bra is Neiwai’s Barely Zero bra. This bra is so lightweight I didn’t think a bra can be like this! The shape and design isn’t the most appealing or sexy but it’s the most comfortable bra I’ve ever worn! This bra is only in one size and for my small frame and A/AA cup it fits me quite comfortably. I’ve enjoyed this bra so much that I do plan on getting one or two more. 

 So the Neiwai bras is the winner in my opinion and worth its price tag. I’m too lazy to hand wash bras and just use a laundry bag for bras. So far both have kept their shape from washing machine and dryer machines. But since I've worn the Neiwai bra so much it is starting to show a bit. The material does pill a bit, and since the padding is removable I can remove them. One of the padding is forming wrinkles in the middle that the big one is showing through the bra. But it doesn't show through my clothes. I personally don't care how it looks as long as its still comfortable and doing its job so so far these issues don't bother me, but I may have to consider just hang drying it instead of machine dry.

  I have previous blogged about menstrual cups when I tried the Diva cup years ago. But in the end I didn't keep using it due to finding it more troublesome compare to reusable pads. Well now I've decided to go back to menstrual cups now that I'm not at home as much anymore. Reusable pads can risk getting messy and plus it can be a bit smelly on heavy days. Not a problem for me to deal with when I'm at home, but not something I want to deal with when I'm away from home. 

 So I've went an bought Tampon Tribe's brand menstrual cups due to them using medical grade material rather than silicone. It arrived in a small eco-friendly looking box. Since its been awhile since I've used menstrual cups I'd have to relearn it. There is a small instructions paper to help you out, but its still something you have practice and figure out. 

 First time using it I had a difficult time removing it and was rather frustrated with it. I was not on my period yet but a couple days before it starts so it may be due to that. But after that first day trying it out it was a lot easier to insert and remove. I got the large size due to my age and at first I thought it might be too large but after using it on my period I feel its a good size!

 The large size is big enough even on my heavy days to get through the day without having to empty it which is exactly what I wanted! I do find it much more comfortable compare to to the Diva cup. It is more expensive compare to the Diva cup but I think its worth it since its medical grade material and something you put inside you so its better to have higher quality product in such a sensitive part of your body.