Product Reviews

Merco Box

Stylish Utah

Subscription Box

mercobox.com

Salt Lake City is filled with many hidden gems, and Merco Box helped me discover a few—it’s filled with products and services from local businesses. Every month, a new box featuring different local businesses is created. My box included Q Clothing, Purse Dreams, Figaro Salon, Wild Grape Bistro, Edible Wilds, Sea Grape Bath and Body, Raziehs and Heavenly Hygienics. Q Clothing provided a dreamy infinity scarf from their quirky Downtown boutique. Purse Dreams, a luxury bag store, offers designer handbags to locals. Figaro Salon, located at 9th and 9th, is ready to pamper the hell out of you. Wild Grape Bistro is a wine lover’s paradise with an award-winning wine list. Edible Wasatch provided a gluten- and dairy-free brownie mix that made me feel less bad about eating the whole pan—gluten-free means it’s healthy, right? Sea Grape Bath and Body provided “Relaxed Mama Tea.” I’m no mama, but the combination of chamomile, lavender and cornflowers worked magic on my Issue Week stress levels and summertime cold. Raziehs’ Wrinkle Free Obsession is a creamy serum that reduces the look of wrinkles—I wouldn’t trust anything other than Raziehs’ commitment to natural, organic skin products. Heavenly Hygienics’ product was a Cherub Balm Lotion Bar that had a heavenly lavender lemon scent. They understand—like others in the Merco Box—the importance of natural products, and they do a great job making them delicious. Merco Box is a great way to keep your spending local and to try new products. –Robin Sessions

Wicked Audio

Divvy Splitter

wickedaudio.com

Every Monday, I sit in a room with three of my lovely lady friends and we record a podcast. We have a pretty lazy/sophisticated setup where we sit in a circle, whip open our laptops or tablets, and lean awkwardly to leave some give for our headphone cords. The current splitter we use is too close to the board, and more often than not, one of us has to go without headphones because we don’t want to be that close to each other. Listening to each other’s voices through headphones instead of yelltalking is crucial for the quality of our show. I brought over the Divvy Splitter one night, and shared the jack with one girl who prefers a quieter volume, whereas I like to hear myself as loudly as possible. The Divvy uses dual volume control (which our current splitter doesn’t accommodate), so each person plugged in can adjust the volume as they wish. It also has a longer cord to plug into any electronic device (in our case a soundboard) and allows for more slack, which has been an issue with every splitter I’ve used in the past—I was so happy to see it fixed with the Divvy. The audio never broke or skipped, and I was never affected by the other person who was plugged in. It works with 3.5MM headphone jacks and is a little larger than previous splitters I’ve used, but it makes up for its size with accessibility. Wicked Audio’s Divvy is, by far, the best splitter I’ve used, making sharing less of a burden. –Rebecca Frost