Uncle Tobys Oat Crisp Cereal

This sample was from Pinchme.

My first preference in cereal is a good muesli stuffed full of fruit, so when trialing a new cereal having real fruit pieces in it is important to me. I trialed both the hazelnut strawberry and almond flavors of this cereal.
My thought about the cereal was that it didn't look much different to other products that are on the market. pouring my cereal in the bowl, I was on the look out for the promised strawberry fruit pieces. This lead to disappointment, in my whole bowl I counted two pieces of fruit, which were not much larger than the size of a pin-head. they were also more brown in colour than the juicy looking red pieces of strawberry depicted on the box. In the almond flavor cereal however, I found that there was considerably more almond pieces or clusters than its hazelnut strawberry counterpart. While eating the cereal, he texture is no different to eating a bowl of sultana bran. I found the taste of the Hazelnut cereal to be a bit lacking, and very plain tasting. The flavor of the almond cereal to be quite sweet, and overall have more flavor than then hazelnut strawberry cereal.
After finishing the cereal I found that there were lots of pieces left stuck among my teeth, which is not really something i look for in a cereal. Overall given the lack of fruit and flavor of the hazelnut flavor, I probably wont buy this product. However the almond flavor does make a nice change from my current cereal, but I wouldnt eat it every morning, as the bits getting stuck in among my teeth does get rather annoying.

Verdict: The flavor and amount of fruit pieces in the hazelnut oat crisp was extremely lacking. The Almond had a pleasant sweet flavor, and I will be eating or occasionally but not making a permanent switch.

Billie Goat Soap (Original)

This sample was sent to me by Pinchme.

One of the first things that comes to mind when I think of soap is the smell. The first time I smelt the Billie Goat Soap, I found it to be quite a different smell, almost milky, but very pleasant; definitely something I could use every day. After reading the instructions on the box, I noted that this soap was to be 'stored away from the flow of water,' to which I thought yeah yeah, it doesn't make that much of a difference to the life of the soap if it gets splashes. (Turns out I was very wrong, but we'll get to that later.) Using the soap for the first time, I was quite surprised to find that once in contact with water the soap becomes very 'slimy' not, just slippery like your average soap, but a very gooey constancy. This in its self wasn't so much of a problem, it just takes some getting used to, and after a while, it actually becomes a pleasant sensation. After using the soap for about a week, I found that my skin was softer than normal, and I stopped having any issues with sensitive skin. As an added bonus, I also found that if I used the soap on sensitive areas after shaving, (such as legs) I didn't come out with any razor burn, or lumps on my skin.
Now, back to where you store the soap, because this soap gets so gooey in contact with water, it literally drips goo on the shower floor if it is stored where it can be splashed. and if you keep it with your regular soap where it may get a little bit of spray, your soap will have dissapeared and dripped allover your shower floor in less than 7 days. Which makes the soap bad value for money, considering it costs around $9 per block. The solutions I cam up with was having a shower caddy sit up higher than the shower head, and storing the soap there. (doing this has allowed to soap to last about a month). Overall I absolutely love this soap, and its something I now cant live without, however, it can be hard to find a retailer. I personally buy online, but you may be lucky and be able to buy this product in a store near you.

www.billiegoatsoap.com.au

Verdict: This soap makes your skin feel great, it soothes and reduces the appearance of razor burn and doubles as a moisturiser. Its perfect to use on sensitive skin and has a beautifully unique smell. I would definitely recommend the use of this soap to anybody!

Pantene Aqua Light Shampoo & Conditioner 

This sample of Pantene Shampoo and Conditioner was from Pinchme.

My hair is pretty normal, I use a hair straightener sometimes, but don't really do anything to damage my hair so have no problems; so I was pretty interested to find out what this 'aqua light' shampoo could do for me.
The first time i used the shampoo I was surprised to find that it was clear! Although being clear and looking like water is great, the look of a shampoo itself won't influence me to buy it. I found that this shampoo made a really easy lather with only a small amount of the shampoo needing to be used, which is something that I like. However, when it came to rinsing out the shampoo I found that my hair felt really 'squeaky' and that it was really 'grippy' to run my fingers through, and felt absolutely awful! You know that sound that people cant stand when fingernails are run down a blackboard.... yeah, that's the feeling I got when touching my hair after rinsing the shampoo. Keen to get rid of the horrid feeling I quickly followed by using the conditioner, which I left soaking in my hair for a few minutes, just to make sure I got rid of the gross feeling left by the shampoo. After rinsing out the conditioner, (which seemed to take forever to rinse out ), and drying my hair, I found that it didn't feel any to different to my regular shampoo, (which is just a supermarket brand).

After giving my hair a day to see how it felt, I found that it felt very greasy, more so than normal. So in the spirit of giving the shampoo a proper trial I washed my hair with it again and had the same result, feeling really yuck after washing out the shampoo, and being really greasy at the end of the day. I think its safe to say, I'll be discontinuing use, and not buying this product in the future, it's really not for me.

Verdict: Made hair greasy after only one day. However, even if this shampoo did work better than my regular shampoo, I wouldn't use it simply because I hate how my hair feels after rinsing out the shampoo. 

Neutrogena Norwegian Formula Hand Cream.

I was sent this sample from Pinchme.

The first thing I do when looking at or using a new hand cream its to give it a bit of a sniff. Opening the tube and giving a cautious sniff found that there isn't much of a scent to this product. The smell is slightly bland, and has no more smell than your average face cream.
The next thing I look at is the colour and texture; The Norwegian formula has a cloudy white colour, and the texture feels quite gooey and its quite a thick formula compared to normal hand creams, which was a bit of a surprise.
I rubbed it into my hands, and to be honest, it felt a little odd. It didn't feel like it was rubbing in properly or absorbing into my skin. It also left a bit of a greasy film on everything I touched for the next half hour. and half an hour on, my hands still felt quite gooey. I decided that instead of using this during the day like a would a normal hand cream I would use it at night, where I didn't need to worry about touching things and getting them greasy. (Un-stacking my dishwasher and all my glasses got greasy prints on them, not so nice)

I found that using this product at night was more beneficial and allowed the cream to sink in to my skin. (wasn't rubbing it off touching everything.) It did make a huge different to how my skin felt and made my skin much softer, but just isn't practical for every day use. So going out on a whim, I decided to use the Norwegian formula on my cracked and dry heels. I rubbed a generous amount of it on my heels after showering, and before bed then covered it up with socks. After about 3 days I can say that my heels didn't even look the same. they were smooth and without cracks, and generally nice to touch. So in trialing a hand cream I actually found a solution to dry cracked heels!

Verdict: Not great for general every day use. Works best used at night, (so you dont leave greasy fingerprints everywhere). Works especially well on severely dry cracked skin such as the heels of the feet.

Fairy Platinum Dishwasher Tablet Sample Review

I tested these dishwasher tablets with the Brand Power Home Tester Club.

At first I was a little bit skeptic, figuring they would be exactly the same at the tablets I was currently using. (Finish Quantum, which are recommended by the dishwasher manufacturer). So to really put these to the test I loaded up the dishwasher with grimy fatty dishes left over from a delicious meal of pork roast (fat and grease galore). I generally find that my Finish tablet don't clean this very well, and I end up doing most things by hand first. But to my surprise my dishes came out clean! No build up, no grease, no fatty stains or oily marks. just clean.

There were only 3 tablets in the sample pack, but that was enough to show me that Finish just wasn't cutting it for me. After looking into it I do find that Fairy tablets can be a little bit more expensive than Finish, and other brand dish-washing tablets, but the clean is far more superior.

Verdict: Better than 'Finish' Dishwasher Tablets. Definitely worth the extra few dollars at the checkout!