Product Reviews and Free Samples

I've always been a fan of free stuff, (hey who doesn't love something for free) and I'm a member of several sites that provide free product samples for you to try at home. It was recently suggested that I start a new blog talking about the different products, (and sample sites) that I've tried.
It's also come to my attention that many people give positive reviews of products they have received from sample sites, just because they want to have a good reputation, and get more free samples; when reality is half the people claim things just because they're free, and not because they'll be used.

This Blog is going to be different though. If i don't like a product, then I'm going to say it.
So here I am ready to share my experiences, and here you are looking for answers about new products.

Got any questions about products that I've tried, feel free to ask.

To get you all started at to give you all the opportunity to try some of the items that I have reviewed try these websites. Underneath each link there is a little bit of information about the 'catch' with each site.

Pinchme
pinchme.com.au   (Australia)
www.facebook.com/PinchmeAustralia
The Site:
Pinchme offers people samples to try in exchange for reveiws. And if you dont review your sample within the set amount of time, then you cant claim anymore. Samples vary from face wash and handcream, to babys nappys and dishwasher tablets.
The Catch:
1.To register with Pinchme you need to provide your mobile number to verify your account - you cant order samples until you do this.
2. Pinchme operates on a reward system, so until you have a high enough number of points you can only claim one sample per week, and samples are often out of stock within minutes of being released.

BrandPower Home Tester Club
www.brandpower.com (Choose from 16 country's including Australia)
The Site:
Brandpower and the Home tester club sends out samples for you to share with your friends and family. Then sends a link o your email address for you and your friends to complete surverys and share your thoughts about particular products. In Australia BrandPower makes TV ad's based on reviews of products.
The Catch:
1. You cant just choose a sample and trial it. To test a sample you put in an 'expression of interest' and answer a few questions about yourself, then THEY choose who they send samples to. So there is no guarantee that you will get the sample you asked for. (or any sample at all)
2. Its often weeks or months between different samples.

Mouths Of Mums
mouthsofmums.com.au (Australia)
The Site:
Mouths Of Mums is a site especially for all you Mothers out there. The website has an interactive community of mothers who offer help, advice and opinions on different topics. (Amber teething beads has been a huge topic for discussion) Mouths of Mums also do product reviews on items that are relevant to mums. samples include books, kids tablets and learning games, health and fitness items etc.
The Catch:
1.There are often a limited number of items available, you are required to answer a survey about the items you would like to review, and more often that not, you dont get chosen.

The Soup
www.thesoup.com.au
The Site:
Soup has a huge range of products to sample from books, to face wash, to pet food. Soup also sends samples for you to share with your friends.
The Catch:
1. You cant just select a sample you would like to try. You fill out a questionnaire, then you are sent invitations to different sample trials, which you must then go through another questionnaire saying why you would be a good person to try the product. There is no guarantee that you will get chosen though.
2. Soup often sends requests for people to arrange parties or get togethers with friends where they can discuss the product theyre trialing, so unless your a social butterfly, this may not be the site for you.

Contagious Network 

http://www.contagiousnetwork.com.au/
The Site:

Contagious network has a website that a lot of the time malfunctions, so that you cant actually sign up, but its worth persevering, because the sample campaigns are awesome.
The Catch:
1. With contagious network you cant sign up for all the trials, in fact due to the website not working most of the time, you cant even see samples. However, if you fill out your profile, contagious network will send you emails with trials they think you might enjoy. From there you fill out a short survey and they let you know whether or not you have been selected, then they send out our sample in the mail.
2. As part of contagious network you are required to share all your samples with friends, not just use them all yourself. You're also required to take photos of you, your children, or the parties you have and include them in your review to be considered for future samples.

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.

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. 

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!