buyreview

When I first saw the Ethos bottle of water sitting on the gas station shelf, its simplistic packaging caught my eye. It just had a simple logo, with an ergonomic-like shaped bottle. I liked it enough to reach for it.

I like shiny things too…just in case you were wondering.

Then I saw “Helping children get clean water” printed under the logo. I’m all for anything that helps children, even if it costs a couple cents more.

Ethos bottled water (affiliated with Starbucks, by the way) cost about 40 cents more than the other bottled water that was sitting in that cooler.  That’s a little steep to me. And they only donate 5 cents to their cause…you know…those children who don’t have clean water.

Hmmm…that just doesn’t sound right.

But, being a sucker — and having it in my head I was going to review this bottle of water– I coughed up the extra money and bought one.

I don’t like it.

You know how sometimes food or drinks will pick up the faint taste of the plastic? That’s kind of what Ethos water tasted like to me. I thought it just tasted a little…off.

Adding to that, there’s also the fact that I personally do not like buying bottled water. I’m going to refrain from going off on a I-was-raised-on-well-water-and-hose-water tangent, but you get the picture. If I’m going to buy a plastic bottle of water for over a buck, it better be good. I don’t consider Ethos good water.

I personally think you’d be better off taking the extra money you’d be saving by not buying Ethos, and donate it to a charity of your choice.

My rating: 1 - 1/2  out of 5  (just because I like the bottle and the .05 donation.)

About a month ago, I bought the Clean and Clear Blackhead Eraser to try to get rid of small patches of blackheads that had popped up on my face.

I’m 34 years old and I still get occasional pimples and blackheads. I’m not thrilled.

The blackhead eraser is basically a small handheld device that vibrates. You put a clean pre-treated scrubber pad on the Eraser (it adheres like Velcro) and moisten your face and the pad. A quick turn of the base will turn it on and then you rub it gently all over your face.

I liked the way my skin felt after using the Blackhead Eraser. It felt soft and exfoliated. I knew I wasn’t going to see instant results, so I continued to use it for the recommended three to four times a week.

It’s been a month now, and while I have seen some improvement on the blackheads and smoother skin in general, I don’t think I’ve seen enough of an improvement to justify the $20 price tag that goes with the Eraser.

I am actually rather disappointed with the lack of results.  I was hoping for more visible results. Not a miracle, of course. I’ve been around the acne block too many times to believe the miraculous product hype. But I was hoping for something…more.

I don’t think I’ll be buying more replacement pads for the Blackhead Eraser.

My rating: 3 out of 5.

I had originally started this blog with the intent of reviewing things that I have bought so I could tell readers my opinion on those products. That way they could decide if it was something they would be interested in.

Today, I’m making an exception. I can do that…it’s my blog. Hehehe.

I’m still going to review something, but I didn’t have to buy anything to get it. It’s free. Free is always good, in my book.

I was looking for some music to listen to while at work the other day. I would usually use Yahoo music, but I was less than thrilled with it. I ended up not liking, or at best not being overly excited, with about three quarters of the music they played for each genre. Plus, my browser kept shutting down on me whenever it was open…but that may have been IE and not Yahoo.

Anyway, I was on the hunt for another free music program that I could use while at work. I ended up trying Pandora Radio.

I’m sure, since I am not one of those people that is on the ball about the latest whatevers, that Pandora has been around awhile. For all of you that already knew about Pandora, bear with me. I guess this post is more for the trend-challenged people like myself.

I fell in love with Pandora. Maybe it’s just me, but it seems so much better than any other music program I’ve used.

The music that they offer for your listening pleasure is a free service, as long as it is for your own personal use. Pandora is privately funded, so they don’t ask for a membership fee at all.

And it’s legal. That’s kind of a big plus for me.

You have the option to buy the music that your listening to through Pandora. You can either buy the song for your ipod or buy the album from Amazon. The way I understand it, Pandora gets a percentage of each sale that comes from their website.

Because of the way the program is set up, you can’t request songs on demand, which is kind of a bummer. But to be honest, the music that they select for you is so well chosen that it doesn’t really bother me. And it feels like I have more control over what I listen to. I like that.

To start out creating your stations, type in an artist that you feel like listening to. This will be the “seed” that starts your station. They will then create more music for your listening pleasure based on that seed artist. Their selections are top-notch, too.

I have only come across one song that they played that made me go, “eww”, but I skipped it and they very politely promised me they would never play it on that station again.

I was playing around with it this morning (while my boss wasn’t looking) and tried a few different types of music, from Patsy Cline to Hinder. I liked ‘em all. I even, just out of curiosity, threw in Tchaikovsky. They had it. I have a wide range of interests when it comes to music. I’m pretty confident that Pandora can satisfy whatever listening mood I can come up with.

I think what impressed me the most about Pandora was their welcome email when I signed up. It was very personable. It was not one of those emails that said “do not reply”…they actually said if I had a comment to reply directly to that email. That leads me to believe there’s actually a real person behind that email.

Huh…what a novel idea.

In a recent hunt for hand-soap to place in our bathroom, I came across Dial’s ColorClean Blue Fusion hand-soap with timer beads.

Armed with the knowledge that Dial is already well known for hand-wash (and body-wash), the little blue timer beads intrigued me enough to buy it.I was initially hoping the fact that the blue beads would magically change the lather blue would awe my sons enough to make them want to wash their hands.To be honest…I don’t think it had that effect.  Or if it did, the novelty wore off rather quickly.  I still have to hound them to wash up.But my children aside, I myself still enjoy watching the lather turn blue.  Yes, I’m easily amused.  I like that about me.

 After receiving the Schick Intuition Razor free as part of a package deal, I decided to try it out.  It’s not something I would usually buy without some sort of incentive.  I’ve been using regular old disposable razors since I first started shaving, and while I usually love to try new products, razors really weren’t something where I thought to expand my horizons.

Now, I’m glad I tried it.

I don’t know about you, but I dread shaving because of the time it takes to get it done.  I usually don’t have a lot of time to waste in the morning…at least not on shaving my legs.  And when I do shave in the shower, the spray from the shower usually rinses off the shaving cream or soap before I can get to that part of my leg.

With Schick’s Intuition, the razor lathers, shaves and moisturizes all in one easy step.  You’re actually supposed to keep your legs (and the razor) wet.  As you press down slightly on the razor, enough lather comes out for the razor to glide right over your skin.  It leaves your skin feeling smooth and soft.

I fell in love…seriously.

I like a close shave on my legs because, quite honestly, I like to believe that the closer the shave, the less often I have to do it. (Did I mention I’m lazy?) The Intuition gave me that close shave…with no nicks.

It is also very comfortable to hold.

If you haven’t tried Schick’s Intuition razor yet, I strongly encourage you to give it try.  It’s reasonably priced with different options for whatever skin type you have.  Refill kits are also available.

My rating: 5 out of 5