Garnier Fructis Hydra Recharge BzzCampaign :)

My hair has never really been in great condition. I usually leave it pretty long and it tends to have a lot of flyaways and frizz or a statically charged appearance. I am told it is too dry, it probably does not help that I tend to wear it up a lot; I throw it up into a ponytail or bun almost every evening. And I do color it nowadays. I guess one of the main problems as told to me by the last hairdresser to cut my hair, the quality of my hair is deteriorated because I do not get it trimmed about every other month. I am sorry, but in this economy I cannot afford the now $13 (plus tip) they charge for a hair cut every 2 months when it literally takes them 10 minutes or less to cut my hair! Could it be that she as a hairdresser is just trying to get me to come spend more money there, especially since she also tried to sell me numerous expensive products to help “fix” my hair? UGH. I am sick of trying all these high priced shampoos, conditioners, and treatments that claim they will magically transform my hair into the beautiful, lush, shiny, soft hair they show in their commercials only to find these expensive hair products leave my hair in basically the same condition as the cheap few dollar per bottle stuff!

Garnier Olia haircolor BzzCampaign

I have always had fairly fine hair. I usually keep it pretty long (or at least I did when I was younger…not quite as long now that I am getting older haha). When dyeing my hair, I also usually stayed in my natural blonde color (which nowadays as I am getting older is much darker too…*sigh*). About 6 months ago I was ready for a more dramatic change and I decided to go with a light auburn, but was not very happy with the results. Then in February I was given the opportunity by BzzAgent to try new Garnier Olia oil powered permanent haircolor and I was so excited to be able to give my new look another try! A couple of days after I found out my BzzKit was with my coupon to redeem for the dye for free, I got a good 4 or so inches of my hair cut off so I was right below shoulder length and had nice fresh ends.

There are 24 colors to choose from, but only a few of them were reds. I was looking at the more violet one (sorry, I don’t remember the actual name of the color) but my husband convinced me to go with 4.60 Deep Intense Auburn. I was very pleased with the smell, they use a 60% oil blend with natural flower oils and it contains no ammonia, so it smelled much better than normal hair dye. It was also very easy to apply to my hair, which I loved. The bottle they give you to mix it up in was very cute, but not very user friendly since the shape made it somewhat hard to hold when you have some dye on your glove and it gets slippery. Then it came to rinsing my hair...and rinsing my hair…and rinsing my hair! It felt like 20 minutes went by and it looked like I had murdered someone in my tub, but the water was STILL not rinsing clear! But it was close enough for me, I had no more time. I would come to find out it would rinse out visibly like that for at least my next couple weeks worth of showers. I did like that it didn’t leave my hair feeling all dried out either like some hair dyes do.

I LOVED the color, as did everyone who saw me the first week or two, but then after is when it was very visibly washing out, at least at the bottom anyway. The top part of my hair seemed to maintain more of the color, maybe because it was newer hair, but I didn’t think it should fade like that regardless. And it wasn’t anything I did since my best friend was also given the opportunity to try this (I did mine before hers though) and she seemed to have similar experiences at least with the way it was visibly washing out in the shower and leaving her towels looking like mine did. Apparently I also did not have quite enough dye since I missed some spots towards the top of my head in the back. My husband had checked for me and thought I had it all covered, but I guess I did not.

I try to take good care of my hair so I know I shouldn’t dye my hair again since it hasn’t been quite 8 weeks, so I am left with somewhat strange looking hair unfortunately. I don’t mind, I am married already haha. And I still love a lot of Garnier products, like my Fructis sleek and shine 5-in-1 serum spray for maintaining my flyaways. And I have also been using the new Hydra Recharge shampoo, conditioner, and treatment that I received to try from BzzAgent…but that is for yet another blog *wink*.

The day after coloring:

Just over 5 weeks later:

Mmmmm Nescafe Memento!

Yes this is yet another blog dedicated to a free product that I received to try from BzzAgent. This one is for frothy deliciousness known as Nescafe Memento. I was so excited to get this one since I had just received a Keurig coffee brewer for Christmas, and although these are not K-cups, the Keurig brews perfect hot water that can be used to make these in very little time. Here was my review of them for BzzAgent:

There are many great things about Nescafe Memento. I love how the servings are individually portioned out already, which makes it so quick and easy to make. Also each one is so foamy, just like an expensive coffee house coffee. Plus they are made with real coffee, sugar, and milk. It was the perfect way to warm up on winter days, but I like to have this type of drink just about everyday after work to help unwind too. I enjoyed all 3 and will definitely be purchasing more. Each box contains 8 packets, and each packet is 100 calories. This is my thoughts on the individual flavors:

Cappuccino- The first time I tried this I didn’t like it very much; it isn’t very sweet, it’s more like regular coffee. But as I drank it more it grew on me, it just has a deeper flavor than I am used to I guess. This is my least favorite flavor of the 3, but still good overall.

Mocha- a great chocolatey flavor.

Carmel Latte- delicious, by far my favorite one! I love the flavor; such a light, creamy carmel.

So if you are like me and enjoy specialty coffees on a daily basis, do yourself the favor of saving some time and money, and buy some Nescafe Memento to make for yourself at home!

My first product review blog for Eden Fantasys :)

*Although this blog does not talk much about adult stuff, it does contain links to a site that sells some very adult things! So please be over 18 to read this posting.*

One of my main focuses for about the last year of my life is getting things for FREE! I love customer reward and loyalty points programs.  So when my friend introduced me to the Eden Fantasys site, I was so excited that I could earn points to use like money for candles, bath and body stuff, and of course some sexy lingerie ;). But I later learned that they also have a great blogger program, so of course I wanted to sign up! I received a product to review for my blog for free, but I was not paid otherwise, and these are my true opinions, just like in all my other blogs.

I was sent the SHUNGA exotic fruits massage candle. I love candles, but one of my biggest complaints is not being able to smell the candle enough when it is burning. This definitely was NOT the case with this candle! Not only did it smell great, the smell filled the room and could even be detected in neighboring rooms. It is 7oz. which isn’t too small, but I do wish it was bigger, especially since I enjoyed it so much! It claims to have 45 hours of burn time, but there is no way it would ever last that long in my opinion. I have burned mine for maybe 15 hours and it is more than 75% gone.

Personally I would not use it for the massage oil, but I did rub some of the oil on my skin and it felt very nice and absorbed almost completely when rubbed in. It also left my skin smelling very good. It says to burn for 20 minutes before blowing it out and using the oil, but the first few times you burn it 20 minutes will not be long enough to collect a good amount of oil to use. They give you a little plastic spoon like you would get at the store for a sample to get the oil out too.

Kroger Simple Truth and Simple Truth Organic BzzCampaign

As you may know from reading previous blogs, I am trying to lose weight by exercising more and having a better diet. Still, normally I am not the type of person to spend extra money to go organic. Don’t get me wrong, I would love to be able to afford it since I believe that organic and all natural foods are better for you, even if just a little bit. It is so frustrating to me that healthy food is usually more expensive than unhealthy food. That is why I was so glad to find out I was a part of the Kroger Simple Truth and Simple Truth Organic foods BzzCampaign. Again if you are a previous reader of my blog, you would know that I am what is known as a BzzAgent which basically means I fill out surveys to qualify to receive products or coupons for free or discount products to try and share my opinion about.

For this BzzCampaign I received several items for free. They sent me the blackberry pomegranate flavored Simple Truth sparkling beverage, which is caffeine free and contained 12% juice, but was the only thing I didn’t really care for. They also sent me peanut butter chocolate chip flavored Simple Truth energy bar, which was so yummy! And the rest were coupons I had to redeem which included a coupon for both chocolate and regular almond milk. I used the regular almond milk on cereal and was pleasantly surprised to find that I liked it, and my nieces and nephew really liked the chocolate almond milk. They also sent a coupon for free Simple Truth Organic frozen fruit, I picked whole strawberries which were very good, but not a very big bag. And finally a coupon for Kroger Simple Truth “chips” and we chose the natural vegetable straws to try, which tasted very much like regular chips, they were very good too.

All of the foods are free from 101 artificial preservatives and ingredients. Although some of the ingredient lists were still pretty long, they weren’t filled with a bunch of unpronounceable and unidentifiable things. I love that Kroger has made eating cleaner and healthier so much easier. Also that is just a very small sampling of all the products that are offered in the Kroger Simple Truth and Simple Truth Organic foods! There is produce, snacks, dairy, pastas…on and on. Even better is that new products are being added all the time. Just about the only problem I had with all of the foods that I priced was to me they are still too expensive to justify even though I liked them.

Healthy yogurts available at Kroger

I remember when yogurts were just regular and ordinary, and nowadays there is such a wide variety of types and flavors of yogurts available. Being a person who loves yogurt, I have tried many brands and varieties of yogurts. So I was so excited when I was given the opportunity by BzzAgent to try some Kroger Greek and Greek lite yogurts, and Kroger CARBmaster yogurts for FREE. I was especially excited since these are healthy yogurts that will help me remain on track with my diet. Can you believe the CARBmaster yogurts that I tried only had 60 calories, 1.5 grams of fat and 4 carbs!?! And I am not talking about some little dinky cup of yogurt; these are regular 6oz. cups. Both types are high in protein also; the Greek has twice the protein of regular yogurt.

Such a wide variety of flavors is also available! In the CARBmaster variety I tried cinnamon roll and spiced pear and they were so delicious! The spiced pear was my favorite; there were even a few bits of juicy pear in there. I also want to try carrot cake. They make a great snack, so rich and creamy.
I love vanilla yogurt, so for the Greek ones I tried vanilla. I actually think I liked the Greek lite vanilla yogurt better. Both were so thick and creamy too. I also picked some of the Greek yogurts up in plain and used them in place of sour cream.

I was amazed at the quality of store brand yogurts, especially since they were specialty and not just regular yogurts. And since they are healthy yogurts, I was afraid that taste would be sacrificed (or that there would be a funny aftertaste), but that clearly was not the case. I have definitely recommended these yogurts to many friends and family, and I will certainly continue to enjoy them myself!

*Thanks to BzzAgent and Kroger for giving me the opportunity to try these Kroger brand yogurts for FREE!* If you ever want to know more about being a BzzAgent, don't hesitate to ask me...I love being a BzzAgent!

Schick Hydro Silk razor BzzCampaign

The next totally free awesome product that I received to try from BzzAgent to share with you was the Schick Hydro Silk razor. All I can say is wow! This razor is awesome, the only small flaw in my opinion is the price of the refills, but we will get to that later. I was excited because my husband has really liked his Schick Hydro men’s razor for a long time now, so we just recently upgraded him to the Schick Hydro power men’s razor. I was so happy with the results.

This 5 blade razor delivered an incredibly close shave. The blades move independently of each other and sense your curves, so there is no issue with missed patches of hair. It has a water-activated moisturizing serum strip that leaves your legs feeling so hydrated and smooth for hours after shaving.

Even the way the handle is worth a mention. Not only does it fit comfortably in your hand, it is designed to keep the razor elevated when it is resting on the counter. I have always had problems with razors that I leave laying on the edge of the tub that later get rusted from laying there in a puddle that forms.

Now as I said the refills can be somewhat pricey. In our area the 4 pack of refills with no sale retails for around$15.99!! The actual razors themselves (one razor handle and cartridge) can be found for as little as around $6, so my friends and family were especially happy that I had also received $5 coupons to pass along! Anyway, I have known of some good sales and coupons out there, like $4.00 off the refills. When you figure that each refill will last a good amount of shaves, it becomes worth it if you buy them wisely.

So in my opinion, if you are not already using one of these razors, you should make the switch for sure. I know the cost may seem a bit, but find yourself some great coupons and realize that once in awhile it is simply worth it for you to splurge on yourself! If you think about the amount of irritation you will save in not dealing with the way most razors leave your skin feeling, you will see that the benefits outweigh the costs. *Just wanted to remind you, I did get this razor for free to try…but I really do love it as much as I say. Have I mentioned lately that I also love being a BzzAgent!*