The re-emergence of Whole Soy is hands down the greatest vegan triumph of 2014.  Yes, the year is less than half over and Earth Balance cheddar crackers blah blah blah, but YOU GUYS.  The Great Vegan Yogurt Drought is over.

If you aren’t a yogurt person you probably don’t get what the big deal is or maybe you didn’t even notice the drought.  In early 2013, we suffered several losses.

1.  Silk changed their yogurt formula from one that was pretty comparable to whole Soy, to two flavors of almond yogurt and two flavors of over-sweet, disgusting soy called ‘fruity and creamy’.  And then they ditched the almond yogurt, which I did like.

2.  Amande almond yogurt went out of production, and their attempt to start back up in another facility was put to a stop due to allergen concerns by the production plant, and not a peep has been heard from them since that announcement.

3.  Whole Soy ran into production issues at the same time that Amande did.

So we were left with So Delicious and their coconut and almond yogurts, which can be kind of pricey depending on where you get them.  I’d also seen Almond Dream in health food stores far away from my house.  Here, I can get Silk and three flavors of So Delicious coconut.  Both are a fair price and the So Delicious tastes okay, but not good enough that I want to eat it every day like I used to.  I would occasionally check the Whole Soy facebook page for updates, or sing Taylor Dane to myself while wistfully staring into my fridge.

When Whole Soy started reappearing last month, a lot of people reported getting some very chalky cups of certain flavors, mostly lime and lemon.  So I was a little wary, until I actually found them in a health food store.  I squeaked and swept the shelves into my basket – I bought something like sixteen cups.  And every time I go near a health food store I buy at least ten to last me until my next run.  So i’ve eaten a few dozen cups in the last month and i’m happy to say that I have yet to get a bad tasting/chalky cup.  I did get one cup of lime that was crazy thick, but it still tasted okay.  And some seem to naturally be more watery, like the strawberry.  I’ve tried all of the flavors except lemon, plain, and raspberry.  Maybe it’s luck, maybe they sorted out their issues by the time the yogurt made it to the midwest, either way it’s worth it to take a chance.

Or, if you cannot find Whole Soy at all where you live, apparently O’Soy (Stonyfield Farms’ soy yogurt) is now certified vegan!  Before, they were growing it on dairy cultures which is not vegan, and gross and weird.  And oddly, I can’t find it here either!  I remember O’Soy being incredibly sweet, so if I had the option I would still pick Whole Soy.  But it’s great to even have OPTIONS again.

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P.S.  I know I haven’t blogged in almost six months.  For the past 3-4 of those months I debated making a very personal post about how I was incredibly depressed for a lot of 2012-early 2013 (and why, and why i’m a lot better now) but I wasn’t sure if I should, so I kept putting off posting anything and then finally I said to myself, “Self, you are ridiculous. You can handle a blog post about yogurt.”  If you actually do enjoy the words that I make with my keyboard, I recommend following me on twitter (as opposed to following someone else, right?) because it’s the only thing I can handle keeping up-to-date.

When I transitioned from vegetarian to vegan, I had no problem with letting go of most of the non-vegan things in my house. Some things I finished, some things I gave away. But the three boxes of Boca sausages in my freezer, I had trouble letting go of. Ever since I ate the last one, i’ve been waiting for an eggless version to hit the market. Homemade seitan sausages are great, but they’re not the same thing.

I saw this box of Amy’s sausages in the cold case of a health food store and squealed. Was this it? The product I had been waiting for? No, not really. They’re good, if you’ve had their Sonoma burger they’re kind of like that because they’re made out of quinoa, but with sausage-y spices. They’re also smaller than I expected, even for breakfast links. When I opened the package I thought they looked pretty sad and health-foody. They cooked up well, but the ones that were touching had separation anxiety and the ‘skins’ had stuck together.

We definitely enjoyed them, but as you can see from the price tag they are pretty pricey. I don’t remember how many sausages there were, but we had them with tofu scramble and had no problems eating the box between the two of us in one meal. If they were a few bucks less i’d be inclined to eat them again, but not at six dollars a box. They might be cheaper in a regular grocery store, but the health food store I bought them from has pretty decent prices so I don’t think they had them exorbitantly marked up.

Sometime in the next week I will have a review/giveaway for Kelly’s new book, Cheers To Vegan Sweets, so check back for that!

Before I do my movie post for the night, I wanted to toss up a quick look at this month’s beauty box. I like getting stuff and talking about stuff so I will probably do this every month.

I know a lot of people had issues, mostly with those who got the Manic Panic eyeshadow duo and it was a big pile of dust.  I’ve ordered the singles from Manic Panic Collection without problems, but never in the compact and seeing all of the photos of destroyed eyeshadows made me think that I won’t in the future!  I bet the pans rattle around in the case easily which makes them prone to breakage, those cassette compacts have been around for a while so I feel like this is probably a complaint that Manic Panic has dealt with a lot.

If you’re wondering about the BWC lipstick, that was my replacement item from missing the lip balm last month.  BWC cosmetics are incredibly expensive for the quality, for the most part, but the lipsticks ($22) are pretty nice.  So it was a great replacement product buttttttttttttttt the color itself (Praline, a pinky nude) is very frosty and it’s not the 80’s anymore so I can’t wear it alone unless I want to blind people.

I immediately cashed in my voucher for a free GladRags pantyliner (shipped free, too!), I use a diva cup and I have a few cloth pads from Erika but I can always use another.

I actually have this Manic Panic eyeliner/eyeshadow duo already, the black eyeshadow isn’t that great, but I really like the eyeliner in it, I just wish there was more.  I can’t draw on eyeliner to save my life with liquid or pencil, the cream eyeshadow and short brush make it easy to not mess up so bad.

I find the MPC makeup to either be great or awful – mascara, lipgloss, the one lipstick i’ve tried, single eyeshadows – great.  Nail polish, that white ‘foundation’, awful.  P.S.  The Manic Panic Collection is all vegan, the regular line of Manic Panic makeup is NOT and I have never seen a list online, nor do they list their ingredients on their website.  A lot of people, understandably, get confused and think that between the MPC being vegan and their hair dye being promoted as vegan, that everything is vegan.

When I get my box, I always go check out the Vegan Cuts facebook page to see if anyone got something different or different scents, and I saw a lot of people complaining about getting four Weleda lotions.  I immediately recognized it as a set that they sell at Target, it’s simply unboxed to fit in the shipping box.  It’s with the Pacifica, Yes To, Alba Botanicals, and other natural beauty items so I always kind of wondered if their products are vegan/cruelty-free.  If you don’t want/need that many travel-sized lotions, hold onto them for stocking stuffers or someone’s birthday.  I hate rose-scented stuff so i’m definitely passing on the rose one.

The BWC shampoo I received was Rosemary, Mint, and Tea Tree which is my favorite ‘flavor’ of BWC conditioner, unlike the cosmetics their body stuff is pretty affordable.  It smells really nice and the tea tree oil helps my itchy scalp.

The samples are for body oil and lube that i’m sure will get used, wink wink, nudge nudge, knowhatinsayin’.  I’m a married lady who has sex, is what i’m sayin’.

The last item was a ‘surprise’ item, it wasn’t on the card and different people got different things.  I got a lavender-scented aromatherapy oil, which I found kind of hilarious because the sample that was in the first box was lavender oil and I said i’d never use it.  Win some, lose some, i’ll give it to my sister-in-law.  She does my hair for free so she gets all of my beauty box extras.

So there were a couple of scents I don’t like in here, but overall I think the value for this month’s box is pretty high – the GladRags pantyliner is $12.95 not including whatever the shipping costs would be, that lotion set is $13.95 at Target, so just those two items are more than the price of the box.  the Manic Panic eyeliner is $10, i’m unsure of the rest (and i’m not counting the lipstick since it was a replacement item), but it looks to be at least $40 worth of stuff this month.

After three months, i’m happy with the variety of products, the fact that they’re not trying to be ‘all natural’ and therefore narrowing the pool of products, and their customer service.  I had to cancel my snack box subscription for money reasons so this month’s will be my last, but I love getting stuff in the mail so i’ll be keeping my beauty box subscription for a long time.

If you want your own beauty box, you can order one here.

Disclaimer:  this post contains an affiliate link to Vegan Cuts, if you buy something via that link i’ll get a few bucks.  The rest are affiliate free, however if you visit Erika’s site and tell her I sent you she might give me a boob honk.  Box bought with my own scrilla.