SlimEdge BioBidet (Review/Giveaway)

Bathroom functions can be embarrassing to talk about, provoking snickers and providing raw material for countless adolescent movies, laxative commercials and schoolyard jokes.

Underneath the emotional discomfort, though, is a serious subject: hygiene. It’s a fact of biology that everybody poops, and cleaning up afterward is part of it. That is usually accomplished with a wipe of tissue paper and maybe a daily rinse in the shower. There is a better way, though, a technology that we might encounter occasionally in an expensive hotel, if then—the bidet.

Bidets are essentially standard equipment in much of Europe. Italy and Portugal each made them mandatory in 1975. Why the bidet isn’t routinely installed in American bathrooms is a mystery to me. The device sprays your hindquarters with a well-aimed jet of water, efficiently and thoroughly cleaning away the material left behind in your behind. You stand up from the act with no lingering dirt, ready to continue your day in comfort and cleanliness.

BioBidet has a solution for the bidetless—a series of aftermarket products that easily add a bidet to your existing toilet, without the need to undergo any extensive remodeling. Their least expensive products, the Economy line, are simple inserts that mount onto the rim under the seat and retail for either $59 or $69, and two toilet seat replacements for $79 or $129. All of these models are unpowered, so the intensity of the water stream is limited by the water pressure in your water supply line.

Most of these connect to your cold-water line and provide room-temperature water. One model, the BB-270 Duo, retailing at $69, provides a warm water stream, but it has to be connected to both hot and cold water lines. (Higher-priced models provide warm water without the additional plumbing work. More details on those below.)

For this review, BioBidet provided me the SlimEdge, an insert that sells for $59. I put off trying it for a few days, expecting a messy and difficult time installing it, but that turned out to be really easy. 

There are a couple of simple plumbing connections, and you will need to remove and reattach your toilet seat to secure the insert beneath it. All the hardware you need is included in the box. 

I was also sent two squeezeable poop emojis, available separately at their website for $10 -- we passed these on as stocking stuffers for a couple of our grandchildren.

Installation took me about a half hour working alone, and the only tool I needed was a screwdriver to remove and replace the seat. 

Using the provided thread tape, I was able to get tight, leakless connections with just hand tightening. 

If this seems like more than you want to take on yourself, a handy friend can do it for you, however I found it to be very simple even in the tight quarters of a tiny bathroom.

Because you don't need access to pipes hidden behind walls, most BioBidet products are suitable for renters as well as homeowners. When you move out, just remove the BioBidet system and put the original toilet seat back on. Your landlord will be impressed with how little wear you put on it. 

The controls for the SlimEdge are simple: It’s a single knob that you turn in one direction for a powerful stream aimed at your posterior, and in the other direction for a more gentle stream intended for delicate female parts. 

There is no warm-water option on this particular model, which might be uncomfortable for some, although I don’t mind it. The water is room temperature, cool but not (to me) cold.  My wife expressed a stronger desire for warm water.

Because we were just installing this to test it and didn’t have any particular expectations of whether it would work well or be a pleasant experience, we installed it in our secondary bathroom. 

Now I find myself going to that room whenever the need arises, which is messing somewhat with our distribution of bathroom reading material.

After a few days of using it, getting used to its particular operation and how it feels, I’m sold on the concept. It feels luxurious, even without the advanced features of higher-priced models. 

At the same time, I will probably buy one of those higher-priced models for our primary bathroom because having experienced the SlimEdge, I can see the potential pleasure, comfort, and hygienic value of some of the enhancements.


What you get at higher prices

The next level above Economy, the Luxury class, features full toilet seat replacements priced from $199 to $499. The Premiere class offers more toilet seat replacements ranging from $549 to $699. Topping the list is the IB-835 Integrated, a complete toilet replacement with the company’s most robust set of features, priced at $2,299.

The feature set increases at higher price levels, offering more spray and stream options, increasingly powerful and versatile control panels, and self-heating warm water options that don’t require the dual plumbing connections of the BB-270. Some models offer warm air drying, night lights and easy cleaning features. Most of these models require power, so look at your bathroom layout and figure out how you’re going to plug it in.

Features, depending on model, may include:

·        Warm water heated in a tank, so no plumbing connection to the hot water line is needed;
·        Options for oscillating and pulsating jets
·        Deodorizer
·        Bubble infusion (making the cleaning jet more effervescent)
·        Warm air drying
·        Heated seats
·        Remote control

The remote control features look particularly interesting to me, as it allows for placement anywhere that is convenient and removes jutting out controls on the seat itself.  

BioBidet also sells an array of accessories and spare parts on its website. It offer warranties on all of its products, but only when purchased from an authorized retailer. Warranties range from 1 to 3 years, depending on the product. 

The SlimEdge provides an inexpensive and simple introduction to the joys of using a bidet.  BioBidet is offering a giveaway for RCH readers located in the United States. The lucky winner will receive the SlimEdge, the same model featured in this review. Read on to see how you can enter to win!

https://biobidet.com/

https://www.facebook.com/biobidet/

https://twitter.com/BIOBIDET

https://www.instagram.com/biobidet/

One winner in the US will win a SlimEdge BioBidet, valued at $59.00.

This Giveaway ends at just before midnight ET December 23, 2018

To enter the giveaway, please leave a comment in this entry as instructed by the Giveaway Tools Entry Form below. This will open up additional optional entries to increase your odds of winning. (If you don't leave a comment, any additional entries will be void.)

The winner will be notified by email 24 to 48 hours after the end of the giveaway by email. In order to claim the giveaway prize, the winner will need to respond within 24 hours of notification, or an alternate winner will be selected.

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#ChoctoberFest: Keto Bulletproof Mocha

We're kicking off a week of #Choctoberfest with a little something healthy!

My wife and I started eating according to the ketogenic diet at the start of September. The keto diet, as it is usually called, is a variation on the high protein, high fat low carbohydrate diet that first become popular through the work of Dr. Robert Atkins in the 1970s (although there are differences between the two, both in purpose and process).

Keto, put simply, suggests eating mostly fat, with a moderate intake of protein and lower proportion of carbohydrates. While many people still believe the old dietary guidance that demonizes fat—and saturated fat in particular—there is a great deal of research calling that association into serious question. (For a good summary of the science, try this New York  Times article.  For a much more thorough and detailed analysis, Nina Teicholz’s book Big Fat Surprise is a good choice.)

Keto depends on eating a significant amount of fat, which calls for a significant shift in the way most of us think about food. Meanwhile, you also need to reduce carbohydrates. Most sources recommend a maximum of 20 grams a day when getting started, then up to maybe 40 or 50 grams once you’ve entered ketosis.

To help get started with the day, many ketogenic diet books and online resources offer some variation on “rocket-fuel coffee,” coffee with rich quantities of butter, heavy cream and sometimes other fats such as coconut oil added.

The problem I had with these recipes is that the fat additions feel gratuitous. To my taste they contribute nothing to flavor or palatability—it’s just a mechanism to consume the fat. Something more was needed to turn the fat into a needed component of the recipe, so I set out to experiment.

After a few trial runs, I developed this recipe for keto-friendly mocha

You can make this with either heavy cream or full-fat coconut milk. The coconut milk lowers both fat and carbohydrate levels—it lowers carbs by slightly more, but that’s essentially a wash—but it also adds another flavor note that I like. Try it both ways and see which you prefer.

Keto Bulletproof Mocha
Makes 2 servings.

Make with hot coffee to ensure good butter melt and mixing.

Ingredients
2 cups hot coffee
4 tablespoons butter
½ cup unsweetened nut milk (plain or vanilla flavored)
1/4 cup heavy cream OR 2/3 cup full fat canned coconut milk
2 tablespoons cocoa
(optional) 2 scoops collagen supplement
2 teaspoons monkfruit sweetener

Place butter into blender. Softening or slicing it beforehand won’t hurt but isn’t necessary.

Pour coffee on top of butter to begin melting process.

Add dry ingredients, then add remaining liquids.

Blend until butter is melted and ingredients are well mixed, 20-30 seconds.

Macro-nutrient Information:
With heavy cream: Per serving: 42g fat; 5.5g carbohydrate; 11g protein
With coconut milk: 41 g fat; 3.5g carbohydrate; 11 g protein

You’ll find this recipe is amenable to a lot of variation.  You could try adding other spices such as cinnamon; topping with whipped cream; adding a splash of bourbon or rum for an evening cocktail if you're drinking alcohol; or serving with keto-friendly cookies.

Feel free to experiment, observing your own chosen keto limits.

Bonus: It’s a delicious mocha even for people not doing keto. Nothing about it tastes fake or unnecessary. It only takes a few minutes to put together and none of the ingredients are likely to be hard to find except possibly the monkfruit sugar, which can be ordered online if necessary, or replaced with sugar if you're not avoiding it.

Give it a try and let us know what you think!  Don't forget to check out these other wonderful Choctoberfest posts bloggers are sharing today, and enter the Giveaway for a huge collection of chocolate goodies!

An InLinkz Link-up

Traveling Stuttgart: Pigs, Cars & History

The best way to travel, for me, is to give only passing attention to an area’s tourist attractions. They’re almost always disappointing after the build-up they get.

I will certainly go to see them , but the best times I have are spent with locals. Drive down the neighborhood streets. Notice schools and churches, eat at the local diner or pub. See those things that are the daily lives of the people who live where you are only passing by.

Our recent trip to Germany took us to half a dozen towns, villages and cities, where we accomplished just that. Lynda and I stayed with family on a US Army facility in Stuttgart, and used that as home base for traveling out to other towns within a few hours' drive.

This trip was a first for me—I’ve been to Canada and Mexico a couple of time each, but never to Europe. (Lynda has lived in Germany twice. Since our return, she’s remarked several times on how much fun it was for her to see it through my eyes.)

 While we left the city a few times to see other locations—Heidelberg, Rothenberg and Trier, along with Lynda’s high school hometown Zweibrucken—Stuttgart itself has a lot to offer. These were a few of the highlights I enjoyed:

The Schweinemuseum (Pig Museum): This was our very first stop as tourists in Germany, selected nearly at random after a quick Google search, and without doubt it was the most bizarre. The Pig Museum features statues, figurines, paintings and other paraphernalia all about pigs. It even has a small exhibition of pig-based erotica (no joke.) I was expecting something much more on the agricultural side rather than the bizarre, and ended up enjoying it more than I had expected to.

I sent a few of the odder pictures to an American friend whose husband is German, asking her to ask him why Germany would devote an entire museum to the subject. His response: “We like pigs.” What more can you say, I guess?

This continues to be one of the more memorable stops we made and should you find yourself in Stuttgart with a couple hours to kill, I recommend it!  The attached restaurant is a great place to stop for lunch - they specialize in, you guessed it, pork.

Porsche Museum: Stuttgart is the world headquarters of Porsche, and the exhibits in this museum track the company’s history from the late 19th Century forward. The cars on display here cover the company’s presence in motorsports, military applications and consumer sports cars. It includes a piece of the world’s first electric car, developed by Ferdinand Porsche in 1898. Even our granddaughters, who are not into cars at all, were entertained walking through the museum.

The Pink Pig - they really do like pigs.

Birkenkopf (Rubble Mountain): According to Wikipedia, most major cities in Germany have at least one of these hills made from World War II debris. At 130 feet above surface level, Birkenkopf is a mid-sized one.

My son-in-law Danny and I climbed it (“climbed” is a bit of an exaggeration, really—it’s a paved and easy walking path at about a 45-degree angle that spirals up the hill.) Most of the rubble is buried under soil, but at the top there are piles of stone with recognizable features as pieces of buildings that were destroyed by Allied bombs.

The weight of history is heavy up there if you pause to let it be.

Fernsehturm: Fernsehturm Stuttgart claims to be the world’s oldest TV tower, and truly is a Stuttgart landmark (you can read about Jackie's visits to it here). It rises 217 meters above Stuttgart, and features an observation deck and a café with spectacular views of the surrounding area. It was rainy the first time we tried to visit, but the second try found perfect viewing weather and the whole family took the elevator up.

From the observation deck, you can see the entire city, and the land for miles around. The deck is encircled with a rail marking compass points and degrees, so you can know which direction you’re looking with some precision. Other than the city itself, I didn’t really know what I was looking at, but it was breathtaking all the same.

We ended the visit with a pleasant dinner at the restaurant just as the sun was setting, bathing the room in rosy late-day light.

Individual points of interest aside, I felt a curious mix of discovery and familiarity in Stuttgart.

Aspects of it were foreign to me, reminding me I was on a different continent, in a different country than home. And yet, other than language, in many ways it didn’t feel that much different. American culture has some of its deepest roots in Europe, and over the centuries, as cultures diverged, America has returned to influence Europe. Subway sandwiches and Domino’s pizza are common in Stuttgart, competing with local restaurants serving traditional fare—which no doubt seems exotic to the locals.

My biggest takeaway is that I definitely plan to see to it that we visit again as soon as we can, armed with a little more knowledge about how to get around and enjoy the sites while taking life easy.  Coming soon, I'll share some of what I learned on this trip, provide some practical tips for the first-time European visitor, and give one serious warning I wish I'd known. Watch for it!

Diner Steak and Eggs #foodnflix

Planes, Trains and Automobiles, the FoodnFlix movie for November, is as much a Thanksgiving tradition in my house as the turkey, dressing and cranberry sauce. More than those, to be honest since we rarely celebrate the customary holiday in the customary way anymore.

The movie is one of the few from writer/director John Hughes that doesn't concern teenagers or children. The humor is mostly character-based, and while the situations the character go through are at various levels of comedic exaggeration, the characters are always believable.

Planes, Trains and Automobiles is about a man just trying to get home for Thanksgiving, where his wife and children are eagerly awaiting him. Steve Martin plays the protagonist, advertising executive Neal Page. As the movie opens, he finishes what we can be sure was a long, tedious meeting jn New York just barely in time to catch his flight home to Chicago.

It’s all downhill from there. The troubles start when traveling shower-curtain ring salesman Del Griffith (John Candy) “steals” a taxi while Neal is paying the lawyer who hailed it $75 to relinquish it. Just as the money changes hands, the cab pulls away with Del in the backseat.

For the next two hours, Martin and Candy play two very different people forced to be traveling companions through a series of misadventures including a rerouted flight, a train that breaks down in the middle of nowhere, a rental car that catches fire and the trailer of a refrigerated truck.

As the planes, trains and automobiles slowly bring them closer to Chicago by way of Wichita, they are forced to share motel rooms with tiny beds, they get robbed, they eat the kind of greasy-spoon diner food that makes Neal’s delicate stomach turn, and they irritate each other relentlessly.

The men are each flawed in their own particular ways. Neal is rigid and picky; Del is a slob and blabbermouth. Neal is self-absorbed; Del is manipulative and uses the semblance of empathy to maneuver people. It's Del who navigates the unfolding series of challenges better, relying on street smarts and an ability to adjust; Neal is constantly frustrated when nothing goes as expected. And while Del declares indignantly at one point that "I'm a lot of things, but I'm not a thief," he's not above using Neal's credit card that ended up in his wallet after an inadvertent switch to rent a car.

Despite all of this, the men forge a weird friendship.  The movie is hilarious in spots, touching in others and I had to see it probably 20 times before I stopped misting up at the ending. (Shut up.)

There were several references to food in the movie, although many of them were of the 'Cheetos and airline liquor' variety. Of course there’s the traditional Thanksgiving dinner Neal is trying to get home to, but I wanted to go a different direction for this challenge.

Because our reluctant buddies have breakfast in a Wichita diner, I decided to go for a typical diner breakfast. As the scene is filmed, you really cannot see much of what they’re actually eating other than country style potatoes, so I chose a diner breakfast staple—steak and eggs with country style potatoes. Here’s what I did:

COUNTRY STYLE POTATOES

serves 2 (with leftovers)

3 Golden Yukon or other similar potatoes

1 medium onion

Salt, pepper and paprika

Wash potatoes and remove any eyes. Do not peel.

Dice potatoes.

Peel and dice onion.

Fry potatoes and onion in butter on medium-high heat until potatoes are crisp on the outside and soft on the inside, about 20-30 minutes. Don't stir too often - if you leave them alone, you'll get good browning on the potatoes.

Add salt, pepper and paprika to taste as cooking begins.

When cooked, scoop onto plate lined with a paper towel to drain excess oil.  

If need be, keep in warm oven until ready to serve.

BREAKFAST STEAK

serves 2

1 New York strip steak

Salt and pepper
Worchestershire sauce, if desired

Cut steak horizonally through the middle to divide it into two thinner steaks.

Rub both sides of steaks with salt and pepper and a dash of Worchestershire Sauce, if using.

Pan-fry in butter on each side over medium heat to desired doneness (2 ½ to 3 minutes per side for medium).

Cut the steak in half longwise so you have two thinner steaks. 

EGGS

I made the eggs over light, with firm whites and runny yolks. For your breakfast, choose your desired style. However, keep in mind that the potatoes make a primo carrier for a runny yolk.

That’s all there is to it! Serve with coffee or juice, and good luck getting out of Wichita!

Thanks to Amy for hosting this month's #FoodnFlix challenge! I can't wait to see what others are doing with my favorite Thanksgiving movie.  Here's the full round up.

Review: Zim's Max Foot Creme

The key thing to know about a daily treatment is, you gotta use it daily.

I don’t always do so well at maintaining a regimen, especially one that requires new habits. When I finished my review of Zim’s Max Crack Creme, I agreed to write a follow-up of Zim’s Max Foot Crème, a similar product that has a couple additional ingredients to help sooth and heal dry, cracked feet.

I made the mistake of waiting for the product to arrive before beginning to use it, rather than just buying a tube to fill the gap.

Even after I had the product in hand, I used it only sporadically for a couple of weeks, because I had not yet made it into a habit.

As a result, my skin dried again and a good deal of the cracking returned.

But then I picked up the pace and started to use it daily, along with a pumice stone on the callouses. My feet are improving again, but I set myself back almost to the beginning.

Zims Max Food Creme is readily available at a grocery store nearby and is quite inexpensive, so I will be using it daily from here on out. I am confident, based on the previous experience, that my feet will again be soft and pink soon, but they are not there yet-- and that is my fault.

As you browse through Zim’s list of products, you’ll see a broad range of products for healing damaged skin, and you might not know which is the best choice for your particular need.

For example, if you have dry and cracked feet, do you want the Crack Crème or the Foot Crème? In my experience, both work and have similar effects.

However, the Foot Crème is made with arnica montana, aloe vera and l-arginine (an amino acide which WebMD lists as being used topically to speed wound healing, and improve circulation when applied to extremities - a concern for those with diabetes) while the Crack Crème is primarily arnica and myrica oil.

But these two products barely scratch the surface of Zims’ product line. There is a third variety specifically designed for diabetics and intended for use on feet and fingertips.

The company also offers various other skin-care products, including a hydrocortisone spray, a cold sore treatment and an aloe vera gel for protecting minor wounds.

And if that were not enough, there is also a line of Max Freeze products for relieving sore muscles.

So how do you sort these out? The company has a lot of information on its website to help the perplexed choose the right products. However, you might also want to do some research on homeopathic treatments, or even consult a homeopathic healer, for expert advice in choosing natural herbal treatments.

Based on my experience, I am confident recommending the company’s skin-care products;  I have not tried the Max Freeze products, but if they are formulated with the same degree of expertise, they are probably equally effective.

 Zim’s does not sell through its own website, but its products are available through many online and brick-and-mortar retailers. Click here for the list.

Review/Giveaway: Zim's Max Crack Creme

If the bottoms of your feet and heels resemble a topographical map of the surface of Mars, you need Zim’s Max Crack Creme.

My feet have looked like that for years. Hard callouses, rigid, thickened skin and ravine-like cracks — especially on my heels — have been with me for years. Along the backs of my ankles lay strips of dried, dead, discolored skin,  dark, rough and seemingly permanent.

Then my wife, Lynda, received some Max Crack Crème to review, and after using it a little while on her hands, suggested I give it a try on my feet.

Warning! Ugly feet pictures ahead!

I warned you!

I didn't have high hopes - like I said, I was sure this was a permanent problem for me. Zim’s, despite my initial skepticism, put an end to all that.

After 1 week - softer surrounding skin, cracks no longer 'raw'.

After less than two months it’s made my feet almost normal again. The dead cells along the backs of my ankles sloughed off with just a little scrubbing after just a week of treatment.

And over the next six weeks or so, the cracks closed up and the skin became softer.

The heels are still thickened, and that might just be a natural result of wearing shoes; but they are much, much better, and I think I can continue to improve them by using a pumice stone and continuing to use Max Crack Crème.

Zim’s products are all-natural, and cover a wide range of skin-care needs: moisturizing, pain relief, diabetic care and wound care, to name a few.

Max Crack Crème is meant for any part of the body where skin is subject to drying and cracking, including hands and fingers as well as feet. (And needless to say, it quickly took care of winter dryness on my wife's hands before she turned it over to me.)

It comes in an oily liquid formula and a creamy gel version. Ideally, you should use the two in tandem — the creamy daytime formula during the day when it can be held close to the skin by socks or gloves, and the liquid formula just before bed.

That’s just how I used it for my feet. I rubbed the cream on my heels and ankles each morning, just before getting dressed, and the liquid just before going to bed. (I could have used multiple applications during the day, but I didn’t want to be taking my socks and shoes off frequently while working.)

After a week of use, I used a washcloth in the shower to scrub off the dead cells behind my ankles, and they washed right off like so much dirt. This after years of my looking at them and sighing in frustration.

I tried not to track progress on the cracks too closely, checking just once a week or so. I noticed visible improvement each week, until just before writing this review, when the latest pictures in this review were taken.

Now, while I have seen much improvement, I'm not done yet. I plan to continue using the product to maintain it.

After 6 weeks, amazing progress!

I will make one minor observation - the all-natural ingredients, including Arnica Oil, that make up these product are not scent-free. There is a noticeable scent that is pretty strong on application - it's not chemical, and in fact I think it smells pretty good. It settles down after a few minutes, but it was a surprise at first and may mean you want to give yourself a few minutes before heading out in public.

Zim's Max Crack Crème is readily available in the nearby grocery store, but you can also buy it online direct from the company or other online retailers, and is very reasonably priced. Zim’s products are all described as either all-natural or “natural-based,” and the company does not test them on animals.

In my opinion, Zim’s is one of those rare products that delivers on its promised results and even exceeds expectations. Zim's has been around for 60 years, and the pharmacist who originally developed their line of products was specifically seeking a solution to the cracked skin issues of local cement workers - it's a hardworking solution to a tough problem.

If your skin is in need of care, give it a try.  Two of our US readers will each be receiving a tube of the Daytime Formula and a bottle of the Original/Nighttime formula, courtesy of Zims! Read on to see how you can enter to win this Giveaway.

http://www.zimsusa.com/

https://www.facebook.com/zimsusa

https://twitter.com/zimsusa

https://www.pinterest.com/zimsusa/

https://www.youtube.com/user/ZimsUsa

To enter the giveaway, please leave a comment in this entry as instructed by the Giveaway Tools Entry Form below. This will open up additional optional entries to increase your odds of winning. (If you don't leave a comment, any additional entries will be void.)

This giveaway is open to US RESIDENTS ONLY and will end just before midnight ET on 4/13. 

The winners will be notified by email within 24 hours after the end of the giveaway. In order to claim the giveaway prize, the winner will need to respond within 24 hours of notification, or an alternate winner will be selected.

Once the winners have responded and confirmed, their first names will be posted on our Giveaways  page.

Good luck!

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Harrison Blake Apparel: December Unboxing

I dressed up nicely for a wicked witch a few days ago. She was green.

The occasion was a performance of the Broadway play Wicked at the Kennedy Center in Washington. The tickets were our Christmas gift to each other, and we picked a show date well in the future from when we bought them, and somehow ended up with front row seats.

I wore the second set of accessories that I had received from Harrison Blake Apparel.

This one, their December set, was based on golds and browns — a brown tie with white polka dots, gold and blue striped socks and a coordinating pocket square. The set also included a tasteful boutonniere, which worked well with the rest, and a bracelet made of wooden beads.

That last item seemed out of place. It’s wrong for any kind of business or formal occasion, and wrong for almost any man who isn’t also wearing Vans and carrying a surfboard.

So, I left the bracelet out of my ensemble, but used all the other items with my charcoal grey pinstripe suit.

Just as with the November box, all the items are well made and coordinate perfectly.

Against a neutral shirt further set off with light grey suspenders, they added splashes of contrast and created visual interest. We attended the play in high style and felt very much a part of the Kennedy Center set.

Having received two sets from Harrison Blake, I can say their items are consistently quality, and appropriate for any business or semi—formal occasion.

Just be prepared to have an occasional oddity that doesn’t really fit.  My wife snagged the bracelet, so it all worked out fine.

The show was spectacular, with surreal sets, effective special effects and marvelous performances from all of the actors and the orchestra.

It was our first experience at the Kennedy Center, but will not be our last.  Wicked has now moved on from DC to tour around the country.  If you have the opportunity to catch it this year, you should.

As noted in my previous review, the Harrison Blake Apparel Subscription Box is available for $25 per month, and each box includes a tie along with a coordinated collection of other items, providing the well dressed man with an easy way to build up an interesting collection of accessories to round out his wardrobe.

Harrison Blake is offering $10 off the first two months of a subscription for RCH readers. Use code RCH when ordering. 

http://www.harrisonblakeapparel.com/
https://www.facebook.com/Harrison-Blake-Apparel-267679153414360/
https://www.instagram.com/wearlapelpins/
https://twitter.com/WearLapelPins
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZsIU2hAUrUIfoY6gzQHHag

Review: Harrison Blake Apparel Subscription

Everybody has heard the saying “clothes make the man.” It’s certainly true — any man looks nicer in a tailored suit than in worn out jeans and a t-shirt — but there’s more to it than that. Clothes make the man, but accessories make the clothes. Take that tailored suit and add a colorful tie, a coordinated pocket square and an eye-catching tie clip to it and the effect increases even more.

For the professional man especially, looking well put together is important every day. But even those of us who have less frequent occasions to dress up have the occasional business meeting, semi-formal dinner or other special occasion that calls for a suit.

However, accessorizing doesn’t come naturally for everyone. Coordinating the necessary of elements takes a certain understanding of complementary colors and the willingness to take some time selecting the items.

Harrison Blake Apparel’s monthly subscription box can help. For $25 a month you get one necktie and four other accessories. The two collections I received (November and December)  each contained a tie, pocket square and socks, along with two other items.

Unlike many subscription services, my Harrison Blake items arrived well packed in padded envelopes, but without a box; the presentation is therefore nothing noteworthy, which detracts a little from the overall experience.

Should you purchase a subscription as a gift, just be aware it does not come in the typical subscription box packaging.

The said, each month's collection is made up of good quality, well-coordinated accessories.

I used the items from the first collection, which Harrison Blake subscribers received in November,  to take my wife out for a Christmas Eve dinner.

I dressed in my navy blue suit and a white button-down shirt. The Harrison Blake items I wore were burgundy-striped socks, a knit tie, a microfiber pocket square and a tie clip shaped like a car.

(I will be reviewing the December collection separately in about a week.)

I haven’t had a knit tie in a long time, and had to retie it a few times to get it to the proper length and to lay flat. It looked nice with the suit, though, once I got it right. (Very tall men might want to think twice, however: for now, Harrison Blake offers only standard length ties.)

The pocket square is reversible, with a similar color palette but a different pattern on each side. It set off the jacket with a splash of color nicely.

The socks fit comfortably on my size 12 feet, which is not always a given.

The tie clip wasn’t one I would have picked (I have no special fondness for or interest in cars), but it held the tie in place securely while providing another eye-drawing bit of flash.

The fifth item in the November collection was a shoe bag for travel. I haven't actually used it yet, but it is sturdy, and I will use it to keep my dress shoes safe when I next travel.

According to the card included with the collection, the 'average retail cost' of the items bought separately would be $84. However, I checked the prices of each item on the Harrison Blake website, and the total cost of the five items if ordered directly from HB would only be $48, or you can currently purchase the November collection for $40. 

This means the $25 subscription price is still a bargain, but not as much of a difference as the prices listed on the card would suggest.  

I liked that each month provides a coordinated look, and would recommend Harrison Blake Apparel as a cost and time effective way to pull together a well groomed appearance, whether you dress up often, or only now and then.

Harrison Blake is offering $10 off the first two months of a subscription for RCH readers. Use code RCH when ordering. 

Also, check out their social media to get lots of other special deals:

http://harrisonblakeapparel.com/

http://www.facebook.com/Harrison-Blake-Apparel-267679153414360/

http://twitter.com/WearLapelPins

https://www.instagram.com/wearlapelpins/