Return of the Pomegranate (Body Butter)

Look, I do not want to get all political in this forum, that is not what this space is for.  This is for TRADER JOE’S, for heaven’s sake, not for politics.  But I feel that I must put it out there, at least acknowledge the fact, that I am not feeling up to snapping funny photos of David and I chowing down on mini pies and the like right now.  It is a somber, confusing time for me. 

And yet – we all must eat.  And in our case, that means we must make a trip to Trader Joe’s. 

And lucky for me, it meant that I found POMEGRANATE BODY BUTTER is back in stock.  Yes, a holiday favorite has returned.  If you follow this blog you might know that I am not a huge fan (at all…) of TJ’s PUMPKIN Body Butter (bleck!), but the Pomegranate is good!! 

Here it is folks!  It is back!

They have changed the packaging this year- funked it up a bit and it looks nice.  They did NOT change the price tag – it is still the low, low price of $5.49.  Sadly, they didn’t take my advice to change the LID to the cool lid they give to the yucky Pumpkin scent, the one where you can snap the lid up off instead of having to twist it off.  Not having the advanced lid is the only reason this product got a 4.75 instead of a 5 star rating last year!  You would THINK they would want to up their game, man!  But if they are not changing the lid, I am not changing the rating.

Packaging THIS year

Packaging LAST year

Anyway, you should for sure grab yourself a tub during this holiday season.  And actually, you might want to grab an extra tub to squirrel away for later, cuz when the first tub runs out, you might miss it and they won’t have it anymore.  And if you have someone on your holiday shopping list who likes lotion, this might be a good gift!  Now don’t say I didn’t help you with your shopping.

Here is the full review from last year (which has more fun photos, cuz it was before the 2016 Presidential American election…): 2015 Pomegranate Body Butter Review

And you know what?  If you are reading this, and want to try this product but don't have a Trader Joe's in your area, check on E-Bay and other sites.  If you can't find anyone selling it for at or near the REAL PRICE ($5.49) comment here and we can work together.  You can send me money and I will get you some at TJ's and mail it to you (sorry, you will have to pay for shipping, but it will be better than getting ripped off by some online retailer!).  Just consider it my early holiday gift to you.

Here is to a winter with no dry skin.

Price: $5.49

Rating: 4.75

Day 335 - Pomegranate Body Butter

YES, YES, YES.

I was very fearful to try this seasonal body butter.  After all, the last time I invested in a tub of season TJ’s body butter things went horribly wrong…  (See the review of Pumpkin Body Butter here...)  

  

Not gonna lie - I was really nervous to try this after my experiment with PUMPKIN BODY BUTTER failed miserably...

But hey, I didn’t want to let one little mishap spoil my love of body cream/lotion/butter…  I wanted to GET BACK ON THE HORSE and try another new product!!!  So I nervously asked at the Trader Joe’s customer service counter if perhaps they had an open tub of this that I could try a bit of…  Turns out they DIDN’T, but the woman I asked had been wanting to try some herself and was more than happy to grab one and open it up for me.

Nervously, I put my finger in and pulled a plop of the white cream out.  I rubbed it on my hands.  And I went in for the SMELL TEST, the area where the Pumpkin Spiced Body Butter had failed oh so miserably…  Would this Pomegranate Cream smell like a Christmas pie of some sort???  A candle?????

Pretty label, but would it have a pretty SMELL????

My nose was pleasantly surprised – IT SMELLED GOOD!!!  So I bought a tub and took it home with me to give it the ultimate test – the all-over after shower body cream test!!!

I am pleased to announce that this body butter PASSED THE TEST!!! 

It’s lovely!  The texture is nice, it is quite thick.  The coverage goes on well – it is not heavy or greasy.  The scent is very delicate and pleasant.  I realized that even though I like to eat pomegranate seeds, I have no metal/olfactory idea of what POMEGRANATES smell like.  If this cream is any indication, they smell clean, fresh, and light!!!  And what I like about it is that it smells good, but it is a light enough scent that I feel perfectly find putting a different scented perfume OVER it and I do not feel like I have competing smells going on.

I really like this product.  I am so happy I grabbed one.  It reminds me of a body butter that I really like from Sephora (Sephora brand) that David sometimes treats me with as a Christmas gift. 

They had quite a few the day I got mine - I hope there are more because I may "need" to pick up another one...  

I would give this TJ’s Pomegranate Body Butter a score of 5, except the ONE THING I liked about the Pumpkin Body Butter, the cool lid that you could pop off the middle of instead of having to unscrew the whole thing, that part is MISSING on the Pomegranate version.  It just has a stupid old fashioned screw on/off lid.  Oh Trader Joe’s – whyyyy did you not use those cool lids on this holiday scent??  They rocked.  I need to take off a bit in the score for that oversight.

Great price - you won't find a tub of nice body butter at this low price in fancy stores like Sephora.

I recommend you pick up a tub or two of this the next time you are at Trader Joe’s.  It is really well priced, too.  Word has it they will sell out quickly, so chop chop!

 Price – $5.49

Rating – 4.75

Day 283 - Dark Chocolate Covered Pomegranate Seeds

Last night I was sitting in front of the tv (watching “Survivor” if you must know…) and a friend sent me a Facebook message with a link to a reviews of ten dark chocolate covered things from Trader Joe’s.  Guess what I was munching on at the same exact moment she sent met the link??  DARK CHOCOLATE COVERED POMEGRANATE SEEDS!

I will review those today, but first here is the link to the cool review and ranking of the 10 dark chocolate products that she shared: Spoon University Ranking of Top 10 Dark Chocolate Covered Trader Joe's products here

Of the products reviewed at that link, I have reviewed:

-          Chocolate coconut almonds:  review here 

      Their review was MIXED, mine (way back on day 7 of this year long project) was full on in support of these babies.

-          Dark chocolate covered espresso beans: review here 

      Our reviews matched – we both think these are great.

-          Dark chocolate almonds: review here

      This one got a coveted 5 stars on my blog and ranked the highest in the other people’s ranking, too!  Obviously this one is a clear cut WINNER and you need some.

-          And now I will review the product that allllmost made it to the top of their list – Dark Chocolate Covered Pomegranate Seeds.

Pretty packaging for a delicious treat

I like these little things!  They are really a good combination of the little seed and a little bit of chocolate.  The chocolate on them is amazing and the seeds just “balances” so well with it.  It sounds very simple – a pomegranate seed and some dark chocolate.  But somehow the blend of those two tastes winds up being COMPLEX.  They are a very unique treat.

I have found them to be a really good dessert.  The last few nights when I have finished dinner I just popped open this little plastic carton and ate a few of them!  The package says a serving size is ¼ cup but to me that is WAY too many for one sitting.  Maybe I just have super willpower J, but a 10 – 12 of these little treats really satisfies me.  I can’t imagine eating a whole box in one sitting – they are just too rich to do that.

Check out the artwork!!!  This DC location has some signs with PRESIDENTS on them.  Super cool.  The ugly price tag STICKERS covering up the real TJ's sign though, not cool...  More about those below.

I think these pomegranate seeds would be really nice in Greek yogurt, too.  And that, of course, would allow you to eat them for breakfast…  When you have them for dessert may I recommend pairing with a nice red wine.  David doesn’t like pomegranate as much as I do so I have not subjected him to this product.  I am keeping them all for myself.

Artwork inside this Trader Joe's - no matter what age you are, you have to admit that FOGGY BOTTOM is a funny name for a part of town.  :)  It is also a metro stop here in DC.

A note about where I bought this snack:  this store, at on 25 St NW in Washington, DC is sadly on the bottom of my list of favorite Trader Joe’s.  We have been to 20 different locations on this adventure and this one just didn’t make the cut. This is a store close to my home yet this was the first time we visited it.  We went on a busy Saturday afternoon. The store was just, oh, how do I say it and not sound cranky, it was not FRIENDLY.  It didn’t seem VIBRANT.  There were no employees to smile at you or ask if you needed help.  When we DID need help we searched someone out, and he was good at finding us what we needed.  But it just didn’t seem like the regular “Trader Joe’s” experience.  The line was super long, which is to be expected on a Saturday afternoon.  They had almost every single register open and the line moved along very efficiently, but none of the employees seemed happy to be there like they usually do at other stores.  I did think it was cool to listen to two employees talk while they stocked some produce – they were talking in a way you would only hear in DC, about the effectiveness of internships they were doing outside of work – it was all very wonky and cool. 

Before we went in...  See - everything was all happy OUTSIDE...

And the SIGNAGE in the store is the worst I have seen in all of the stores we have visited.  There is some local DC regulation I guess that makes the store have to put official stickers on their signs.  At all of the other TJ’s we have been to the signage has been one of the most fun things to explore, but at this store the signs looked much more like a traditional grocery store, a Safeway or Von’s, than a creative TJ’s.  The writing on most signs was not great and those ugly stickers took up lots of space.  I am sure they HAVE to put the stickers, but I wonder if they could make their own signs bigger somehow to showcase the artwork instead of the industrial looking stickers.  They did have some fun DC themes going on in some departments – candy had politician’s faces on the signs and some departments had DC landmarks.  But overall, the signage was sad.  I did see that they are looking to hire a sign maker, so maybe they know they are lacking in that department and are trying to spruce it up. 

They do have a cool "chill out" area outside the store where people can sit and chill
(and eat dark chocolate covered pomegranate seeds and the like...)

On the plus side - I gave a card for my blog to a guy working in Customer Service (after I asked him about the mysterious stickers littering up their signage) and he said he had heard of my blog.  J  That is fun! 

So, though the store is not my favorite, the Dark Chocolate Covered Pomegranate Seeds ARE GREAT and deserve two thumbs up.

Price – $2.99

Rating – 4.5

Day 12 - Pomegranate Seeds

These are one of the pricier things we buy at Trader Joe’s…  They are a splurge, a treat!  And they are YUMMY.

Pomegranates are a fruit I never ate as a kid.  Consequently, as an adult, I have no idea how to eat them!  I like to drink Pom juice once in a while (that is another huge splurge and not sold at Trader Joe’s - Pom Cherry is my favorite), so I figured I would like pomegranates, too.  But man oh man, they seem like nature’s locked bank vault!!  The skin is super hard, and if you managed to break into it, how the HECK would you get those seeds out of there?

So instead of Google, “How do I eat a pomegranate”, I invested $3.99 in this little treat from Trader Joe’s – pomegranate seeds all picked out, packaged, and ready for me to e-a-t!  It’s a bit silly, really, I do not buy pre-sliced apples on the pretense that I should not pay someone to slice my fruit when I am perfectly capable of slicing it myself.  But man – these pomegranate seeds are so good, I keep throwing them in my shopping cart!! 

BRILLIANTLY packaged Trader Joe's Pomegranate Seeds 

I believe Trader Joe’s has improved the packaging over the last couple of months.  I think the first couple of times I bought these they came in a container where once you opened it, all of it was exposed to air and open.  But now they have done something ingenious and divided it into 2 sections!  Now, if you are careful when you peel back the plastic top, you can open only half of the container, keeping the other half fresh and sealed.

I eat these on top of Greek yogurt – yum!  I also eat them by the spoonful for dessert sometimes. 

Price - $3.99 (I know, a splurge)

Rating – 4.5 stars