Stuff I’ve Tried in July

Truth be told, blogging has its benefits. Getting up before sunrise almost every day to catch golden hour and capture that perfect shot isn’t necessarily one of them. However, returning home to find a package waiting on your doorstep is definitely one of the perks of the job.

I’m lucky in that every now and then, the package at my doorstep isn’t necessarily one I’ve ordered or even one I was expecting and even luckier when it’s one that turns out to be awesome! These packages are sent with no obligation, and up until now, I decided to steer clear of bombarding the blog with a ton of different product reviews. My view is that nobody cares about product reviews right? Well, I thought so, until I decided I wanted to buy a drone. This resulted in a week of online research to find which drone was best and why. I read tons of different reviews and watched loads of you tube clips to make sure I received enough unbiased views to help me make my decision.

This is when I realized that everybody gets by with a little help from their friends : ) and why shouldn’t I be that friend to all of you? So here it is, the first of the “Stuff I’ve Tried” series of totally unbiased, un solicited and non sponsored reviews of…well, stuff really. That’s right, stuff, anything that I’ve tried that month and loved (or possibly even hated) that I think you might need, not need or not even know that you need.

Johnny’s Chop Shop

Johnnys Chop Shop is an actual barber shop in London with a range of retro styled hair products for the modern man. I’ve received two packages from these guys, but it wasn’t till the last one arrived that I found something I really liked. The branding is great and I love the product names, it’s about time we gents get a little variety in the hair grooming aisle.

The texturizing spray didn’t seem to work for me, and the more I added the less texture I seemed to get. In saying that, my hair is pretty straight and flat so it might work better if you were blessed with a thicker head of hair. The styling creme didn’t work for me either, but again, I think it’s for slicker wet looking hairstyles so it’s pretty difficult to judge.

The latest drop contained a dry shampoo and a pomade – please don’t ask me what a pomade is…I still don’t really know how it really differs from a clay of a wax. I found the dry shampoo pretty useless as I don’t think people with short hair struggle to keep it clean – when it’s dirty they just wash it. The pomade, however, is genius and it’s my current top hair product that does all the things the products above didn’t. It gives a nice firm hold and lots of texture without adding weight or shine so you hair doesn’t flop or look greasy. It’s also clear which means unlike other wax’s and clays it doesn’t leave a residue! Why have I never seen that before?

You can find the full range of Johnny’s Chop Shop products online and locally at Dischem – You can follow them on facebook for updates

VICHY Homme

Men’s skin care and grooming seems to be on the rise, or maybe I’m just more aware of it the older I get. I don’t have a particularly good skin regimen to be honest, though lucky for me I don’t have a particularly troublesome skin. The truth is though with skincare the earlier you start the more likely you are to not look 40 at 30 so best to get going now. Skin products are tricky though and it’s definitely not a one size fits all game. You need to find the product that works best for you and go with that one.

Vichy’s claim to fame is it’s 2000 year old volcanic spa water loaded with 15 beneficial minerals and antioxidants. The company has been around for 80 years and all the ladies I know love the stuff, so there’s gotta be something to it right? I loved all of it to be honest, everything did what it said on the box and that’s kind of what I expect. My favorite product was actually the shaving gel, it felt thick and heavy and didn’t disintegrate the moment it touched your face. I also used the Anti-Fatigue hydrating care every other day or so and it works incredibly, it’s non-greasy, absorbs easily and really left my skin feeling super soft.

I can’t, however, vouch for the energizing hair loss shampoo as I think I’ll need to use it a little longer to confirm any real results. Maybe check back for an update later. In the meantime, you can find out more about the range here.

DJI Spark

Seeing as my search for a drone launched this new review section it seems only fitting that I do a little review of my own on what I picked in the end. Elzaan and I were on the hunt for something we could use while travelling, something portable with a great camera. The DJI Spark had launched just a couple of weeks ago and after all our reviewing decided this was the drone for us.

The main selling point of the DJI Spark is it’s size and price. It’s sold as a ‘selfie drone’ with the main benefits being the ability to launch and land it from the palm of your hand as well as using gesture control to fly it and take selfies. We’ve done none of those in the 3 weeks since we purchased it – Everything other than the palm launch (and land) feels a little gimmicky. The reason for this whole gesture business is to convince you that you don’t need a remote control, which if you’re looking at taking any decent photo or video is just impossible.

There is, however, the option to purchase the ‘Fly More Kit” which includes a remote control, extra battery, charging station and a few other accessories like a carry bag. The carry bag is useless, I still can’t figure out how to fit the drone and everything else in the bag at the same time. However, the remote and spare battery alone are worth the upgrade, trust me, I did the maths. The DJI SPark only has a flying time of 16min in perfect conditions, which makes it more like 12min in the real world. It takes you about 10min to set up your shot leaving you about 2min to shoot it. Okay, that’s a gross over exaggeration, but as a novice dronie (is that a thing?) I found the entire process to be much harder than it looks. On the plus side, it gets easier every time you fly it and the spare battery is perfect to get right back out there and get the shot you possibly missed.

There’s a fair amount of terminology to get used to as you’re learning something entirely new so get ready to be frustrated. I basically took the ultimate guy approach and decided to just launch it and learn on the fly (no pun intended). In the process, i have nearly landed it into the ocean twice. Yep, twice. Needless to say, this won’t be a very long or technical review.

Would I recommend it? Hell’s yeah! As a first drone its perfect, when you eventually get that shot, it’s totally worth it.

And that’s it, folks. I wanted to keep these reviews relatively short – though I’m  not sure I succeeded at that – and rather let you shoot across any questions you may have, I promise to answer them as well as I can.

Okay. Stay Fancy.