About Elena Reviews It

Hi, I’m Elena. I’m 42, I live in suburban Tampa Bay, and for as long as I can remember I’ve been the person friends and family text when they want to know what to buy. “Which air fryer?” “Is that vacuum worth it?” “What do I get a 14-year-old who already has everything?” After about the hundredth time my sister asked me to just write it all down somewhere, I did. That’s this site.

The quick backstory

I grew up in Lima, Peru. I met my husband John online — yes, really — back when most people still thought that was a strange way to meet your spouse. We did the long-distance thing, then the fiancé visa thing, and I moved to Tampa in my twenties to marry him. Two teenagers and one opinionated dog later, this is home. My mom is still back in Lima, my kids are growing up half Peruvian and half Floridian, and most evenings my kitchen smells like one of those two places.

From this same kitchen table, I also run my own small content business. That’s the half of my life people don’t usually see in the “honest mom blogger” picture — I’m the one editing the videos, wrangling the PDFs, filing the business taxes, and keeping the back-office software working. So when I talk about tech on this site, I’m not borrowing my husband’s vocabulary. I’m reviewing the tools I actually pay for and use every day.

Why I started this site

I got tired of “review” sites that are really just affiliate rankings dressed up to look like advice. You know the ones — they’ve never touched half the products they’re ranking, and the “best” pick is always whatever pays them the most. That’s not how I shop for my own house, and it’s not how I’d ever steer my family.

So I built somewhere honest. Everything here is something I’ve actually used, in a real home, with a husband who has opinions and two teenagers who break things. If I wouldn’t tell my own sister to buy it, you won’t see me recommending it to you.

How I review

Real life, not a lab. I live with a product for at least two weeks before I’ll write a word about it — longer for the stuff that matters, like anything that has to survive daily use in a busy kitchen, a teenager’s backpack, or my workday. I pay attention to the things the marketing copy never mentions: is it a pain to clean, does it actually fit on the counter, does the app stop working after a month, is it worth the extra forty dollars or is the cheaper one just fine?

I’ll tell you when something’s great and I’ll tell you when to skip it. I have absolutely talked myself into more than one gadget we did not need, and you’ll hear about those too — that’s half the fun of being honest about this.

What I cover

The honest answer: the stuff a real household actually buys, and the software a small home business actually pays for. Kitchen tools and appliances. Cleaning products that hold up in a house with kids and a dog. Beauty and skincare that works in Florida humidity without costing a fortune. Garden and outdoor gear that survives a Tampa summer. And the never-ending list of things you buy when you’re raising two teenagers.

The other half is the back-office software I lean on every day — the video editor I use to make my own content, the PDF tool I bought instead of paying Adobe rent every month, the tax software I file my own business and household returns with, and the privacy basics (password manager, a sensible VPN, the security stuff for the family devices) that keep us out of trouble. I explain it the way I’d explain it to a friend, not the way your IT guy would. You don’t need to be technical to make a smart choice.

The honest part

Some of the links on this site are affiliate links. If you click through and buy something, I may earn a small commission — at no extra cost to you. That’s what keeps the lights on around here. What it doesn’t do is change my opinion: I would genuinely rather lose a commission than send you toward something that doesn’t work. You can read the whole story on my affiliate disclosure page, plain English, no fine-print games.

Who’s behind Elena Reviews It

Elena Reviews It is operated by International Green Team, LLC, a Florida company, doing business as Elena Reviews It Media. The parent company has been publishing independent editorial for a few years now, with sister sites covering things like IT, cybersecurity, and VoIP for businesses. Elena Reviews It is the part written for the rest of us — for households, families, and the people running a small business out of their own homes.

Get in touch

Want me to test something? Disagree with one of my picks? Found a product you wish someone would review honestly? I’d love to hear it. Drop me a line on the contact page — I read everything, even when I can’t reply to all of it. You can also find me posting day-to-day testing notes (and the occasional rant about something that wasted my money) on Instagram at @elenareviewsit.