Category: Reviews

My Samsung Watch 3!

Image: © Future. This is pretty much exactly what my watch looks like, minus the heart rate and battery icons. 🙂

For my 21st birthday this past October, my family got me a Samsung Watch 3 and now that it has been a little while, I wanted to go ahead and give my review! Honestly, I’ve been pretty impressed with all of the things that my watch can do and I’m so thankful that my parents and sister are the wonderful, generous, amazing people they are because I’m in love with my watch.

I have the 41 mm Samsung Watch 3 in mystic bronze (OoOoOoo). It also comes in a silver color in the size I have and then if you want a larger watch face, there is also a 45 mm size that comes in black and silver. It supposably has at least a 2 day battery and water locking features. It tracks my heart rate, stress levels, oxygen levels, steps, sleep, exercise, and various other health related things. While I have really loved having my fun new accessory for the most part, I’ll share both the ups and downs of the Samsung Watch 3, just so if you’re interested in getting it, you’re getting more of the full picture!

LIKES
I’ve really enjoyed being able to track workouts on my watch. I can see how many calories I’ve burned and what my heart rate has been throughout my workouts. Whenever I set my watch to track a workout, it has a couple of faces I can flip between. One shows the duration of the workout and total calories burnt and another shows where my heart rate is and then it classifies a few different heart rate zones including: low intensity, weight control, aerobic, anaerobic, and maximum. I think it’s helpful to see what exercises and workouts really get my heart rate up there so I find it useful to look at all of that.

There are a couple of cool settings on the watch, one of my favorites being “good night mode”. When I’m ready to go to sleep for the night, I just hit the little moon icon on my watch and it shuts the face off for the night and prevents me from activating anything that would regularly turn on my watch face. It’s super nice because I don’t wake up during the night from the bright light of my watch face or from notifications. Thank you for that!

It’s pretty customizable! I’ve never been a big watch person in the past because I feel like I just get a little bored with the same thing being on my wrist all the time. I say this and yet I wear the same two necklaces every day, haha. Oh well! Anyway, I really like that I have the ability to customize my watch face and widgets to use my watch to its fullest potential and get it to fit the looks I want. I consider myself a pretty organized person and I love having the ability to organize so many different things on my watch, and like I said, truly set the watch so that it fits my lifestyle to the best of its ability. In addition to being able to customize everything I’ve mentioned so far, I think it’s super cool to be able to customize notifications on the Samsung Watch 3. I can choose when and how I receive notifications and what specific apps I do and don’t receive notifications from. I’ve found it very helpful to have text notifications on while I’m away at school and not near my phone, so that if I get something from family, I can see it and respond right away if needed.

DISLIKES
Battery life hasn’t been as amazing as was promised but I’ve honestly still had very few issues with the battery life of my watch. I think the watch’s battery life is advertised being around two-ish day but don’t quote me on that! I often find that if I try and go without charging it for around two days, I usually HAVE to charge it partway through that second day. That’s really not too bad at all and like I said, this isn’t the greatest issue for me but I was still a little bummed to see that it doesn’t fully live up to what I had heard about the battery life of the Samsung Watch 3. I’ve found workarounds by seeing what can optimize the battery and I charge it when I go to shower or really don’t need it on and I’ve found that everything works just fine that way!

I’m not sure if I just have really small wrists and there isn’t always an accurate reading but sometimes I feel like my heart rate isn’t accurately read when I do workout. As mentioned earlier in this post, I love love love being able to track my heart rate and burned calories but it doesn’t exactly help when my watch says that my heart rate is around 150 when I know it definitely isn’t and then it incorrectly determines calories burned from there. If anyone knows a way to ensure that your Samsung Watch 3 more accurately records heart rate more frequently, please let me know! This isn’t a huge issue that I have, again, but it does bug me knowing that my calories burned may be an overestimate. At least I’m aware of that!

In general, I really like the size and look of my watch but sometimes the bezel makes it feel a bit bulky. Again, this really doesn’t bother me too too much but when my watch gets caught on my jackets it kinda does. We got my sister the Samsung Watch Active 2 for Christmas and that doesn’t have the bezel that my watch does and sometimes I wish that I had done more research and asked about that but I’m overall so so happy with my watch and I don’t think I could switch it, even if I really wanted to.

OVERALL CONSENSUS!!
If you’re a Samsung user and you’re looking to dive into the world of smartwatches I HIGHLY recommend the Samsung Watch 3! It has the look of a real watch, it looks classy, and it really isn’t too bulky. Yes, I did say that my watch sometimes gets caught on my jackets but that issue comes up so rarely. If I’m being honest here, putting together the dislikes part of this post was really hard and I feel like I had to be quite nit-picky when determining what it was that I’m not totally happy about regarding my watch.

Overall, I’m so happy I have this fun little gadget to help me keep track of me and I really hope that it continues to be a properly functioning and helpful little watch. It’s a stunning little accessory that works for when I go to workout AND when I need to dress myself up a little. I love it so so so much. 🙂

I hope you all have a great week and I’ll see you next Sunday. Stay safe and stay healthy!!

January 17, 2021
Frozen by Frozen the Musical

Wow, after seeing the Broadway trailer for Frozen the Musical I just realized that I totally forgot to share my experience at Frozen when it debuted in Denver! Wow, okay. On September 10 last year, my family and I got tickets to see Disney’s blockbuster on stage at the Denver Performing Arts Center. It. was. outstanding.

This, by far, was my favorite show to see. When my family and I first entered the Buell Theater, I was mesmerized by the northern lights dancing across the stage. From the beginning, it was evident that the staging and sets were going to be fantastic. We were not disappointed. From the thousands and thousands of crystals used as ice in Elsa’s castle to Anna and Elsa’s bedrooms to Wandering Oaken’s Trading Post (ooh, and Sauna!) the sets were beautifully designed and put together.

Now onto the plot, and I’ll try not to spoil much. The plot remained parallel with that of the movie for the most part. It was different in that the trolls were more like a group of spiritual, part animal, magical, people. They had a very cool dance at the beginning and were a significant part of the musical throughout. Marshmallow is not a part of the show, which is unfortunate, but there are plenty of other additions to make up for his absence. We get to see more of Elsa’s relationship with her parents and her growing fear of being seen as a monster and her struggle to figure out who she is and what to do with herself. Anna remains her old bubbly self but we see more of her relationship with Kristoff and Hans in “Love is an Open Door”. Speaking of music, there were plenty of new songs, some of my favorite being “Monster” sung by Elsa, “Hans of the Southern Isles” sung by Hans, and “Hygge” sung by the people at Wandering Oaken’s Trading Post.

The cast we saw perform is currently the cast on Broadway, which is so exciting, in my opinion. They will also be the cast that puts together the album, which is awesome because I have no problem listening to Caissie Levy (Elsa) and Patti Murin (Anna), time and time again. The leads of the show are extremely talented and Caissie Levy, especially gave me goosebumps with her killer performance of “Let it Go” and other songs. Just thinking about her performance gives me shivers.

Overall, this cast is perfect, the music is perfect, and the show is perfect. If you haven’t seen Frozen the Musical, please do. I think you’ll fall in love with it like I did. Now that I’ve seen Frozen, I need to find some tickets to Hamilton…

March 18, 2018
Reviewing the New Beauty and the Beast

The new Beauty and the Beast came out recently and boy, do I have a lot to say about it! Just a warning, there may be some spoilers in here so if you haven’t seen the movie yet, you may learn some things you may not want to yet. Here we go.

Emma Watson was a beautiful Belle. For many others my age, we grew up with her as Hermoine from Harry Potter. When I first discovered that she would be playing one of my favorite Disney princesses, I worried that I would only see Hermoine, but that wasn’t the case. Emma Watson fit the role of Belle perfectly and had an amazing singing voice. In addition to Watson, the rest of the cast was fantastic. Dan Stevens played the Beast and Luke Evans played Gaston and they absolutely killed it! I actually loved Luke Evans so much that I almost felt bad for Gaston when he died. Stevens and Evans both fit their roles so nicely and also did a great job singing and acting in the movie.

The music was wonderful throughout the movie. I loved that Disney incorporated the music from the original cartoon but I thought it really made the movie different and even better from the cartoon by adding a couple of new songs in. They really fit into the movie.

In addition to adding a few new songs, there were a couple of new additions to the plot to fill plot holes not covered in the cartoon movie. In the cartoon, everyone in the town seemed totally oblivious to the fact that there was a castle and a beast lived in it. I thought that was somewhat confusing. In the live action movie, we learned that when the Beast was cursed, the enchantress that cursed him also cursed the town and erased any memory they had of the prince and his castle. On top of that, from the cartoon, it didn’t make any sense that the Beast had been cursed for many years and characters like Chip didn’t age. In the live action movie, I think the enchantress trapped the town in a time-loop and left them unable to age. That would explain why Mrs. Potts and Mr. Potts where still the same age when they were rejoined in the end and Chip, their son didn’t age as well. If this seems confusing in my writing, there are several other writers who share similar beliefs and ideas with the live action plot. I would suggest reading more about it.

The special effects and CGI for Beauty and the Beast were also executed well. The Beast was extremely realistic and looked very, very real especially when around Belle. The Beast’s castle was also super cool and reminded me a lot of the one in the cartoon movie.

Belle’s dress in the popular dance scene was also gorgeous and I’m really happy that the costume designers didn’t recreate the dress Belle wore in the cartoon movie. This one appealed to the more modern age but was still classical and beautiful on Emma Watson.

And one other thing, I thought that all of the characters were developed much better in the new Beauty and the Beast. We learned much more about Gaston and his sidekick, Le Fou, and also Belle’s father. We learned more about all of the characters in the castle too, and I think learning more about the characters also really helped build the movie’s background and setting overall.

If you haven’t seen the new Beauty and the Beast movie, I’m begging you to see it as soon as possible. I absolutely loved it and I’m so proud of Disney’s latest masterpiece. Bravo!

March 19, 2017
What’s the Craze with Kylie Cosmetics?

The makeup industry noticed a dramatic rise in sales in 2016 and I have a feeling that with all of the up and coming goodies of the makeup world, that’s only going to grow. Kylie Jenner, 19 year old TV personality, designer, and model, joined the makeup industry by starting her own line of cosmetics, Kylie Cosmetics. Immediately after its introduction to the world, people, for the most part, were obsessed with her products. So what’s the big deal?

I was really curious with the whole Kylie Cosmetics thing and so for Christmas I asked for some of her lipsticks and some Kyshadow. Clever play on words, am I right?

As of right now, Kylie Cosmetics are only sold online, and most of the time, my family and I hesitate to buy anything online. Going through kyliecosmetics.com was really simple and right after making the purchases, we were notified via email and the package arrived when predicted. Overall, the website was easy to navigate and the service was great.

Onto the actual products themselves. I got the Maliboo lip kit, King K metallic lipstick, and yellow gold creme eyeshadow. As an added bonus during the holiday season, I got a free fuzzy stocking with the Kylie Cosmetics logo on it. It’s super cute! With the lipsticks, the application is SO smooth and they smell amazing. Kylie recommends only applying one coat, and I could agree that one coat is sufficient. The lipsticks stay on really well and I haven’t had any struggles with them getting on my teeth or on my food or even staining my cups and water bottle. That’s a first for me with lipsticks! The lipsticks work best when you first apply a coat of lip liner to your entire lip. I would also recommend putting a layer of chapstick on before you even put on the lip liner. The lipsticks do a great job of keeping your lips hydrated, but it just feels better for me when I apply chapstick. With the creme eyeshadow, the application is also really easy and the color is very pigmented and absolutely gorgeous! It’s still a very pretty, shimmery gold and it too does a great job of staying on.

After trying out Kylie’s products, I can finally say that I understand why people go crazy for them. They’re really good makeup products! While they might be on the more pricey end of makeup products, I would say that they’re worth the price if you’re wiling to pay. Be careful though, making sure that you don’t purchase fake cosmetics. The prices might be cheaper, but they aren’t the real thing. The best place to purchase them is off of her official website.

Have a good week everyone! 🙂

January 8, 2017