Battle Between Crest and Colgate

Want to have a whiter smile? This week, me and my bestie did the official test of toothpaste!

Bestie & Myself, Showing Off Our Pearly Whites!

Top: Product 1 Bottom: Product 2

Product 1: Colgate Whitening Toothpaste

Product 2:  Crest 3D White Toothpaste

Whether we have a date coming up or grad pictures, we all want whiter teeth (thats a fact). As women we take pride in our smile, as it is one of the key components to success. I was so sick and tired of trying different toothpaste out to see which would whiten my smile most effectively, so that’s why I decided to test two options out, with the help of my bestie.

The Process: Submerging Eggs In Coffee & Brushing

The Process: 

I took two eggs, boiled them each for three minutes.

Then, I made a pot of coffee, one of our many weaknesses.

I let the eggs soak in the coffee for 45 minutes.

I took the eggs out and started to brush each one with the different pastes and brushes both for 30 seconds each.

The Results:

Colgate Egg After Brushing Coffee Stains

Crest Egg After Brushing Coffee Stains

The results were obvious, I was amazed at how well Crest 3D worked after the 30 seconds of brushing.  As the Crest egg reveals, a whiter outcome than the Colgate toothpaste in the same time period of brushing. There were specs of what i'd like to call "fighting power" in the Crest paste that I feel contributed to the success of the brushing. The Colgate egg did remove the coffee stains, however at a much slower rate than the Crest brand.

I rate Crest 5 shopping bags out of 5 and Colgate 3 shopping bags out of 5. If you want that perfect white smile to feel confident at that first impression, i'd suggest you switch to Crest and start brushing immediately!

Until next post,

-BriBri

Pain Relief

Spending my entire reading week home sick, I decided to write this weeks post on pain relief medicine.

Specifically, I had a head cold that entailed sore throat, cough, congestion, stuffed nose, headache and ear aches. Yes, it was a very fun reading week..

Focusing on medicine for my throat and cough only, I tested the two most generic sore throat pain relievers on the market.  Halls vs. Cepacol

Product 1:  Halls 

Price: $3.17 + Tax

Halls come 9 in a pack with a soothing syrup centre. Halls are packed with vapor action in order to sooth sore throats when under the weather. Claimed to relief pain temporarily for short periods of time wheather your at the office with a minor cough and stuffy nose or at home on the couch out of commission (like I was).

Click Here  to go to the Halls webpage to sign up for coupons and special offers.

Product 2:  Cepacol 

Price: $3.49 + Tax (I personally bought a pack of 3 boxes of Cepacol at Costco on sale for only $7 + Tax)

The honey lemon is my favourite flavour of Cepacol. They are sucrose free oral lozenges with 16 in each box. Cepacol lozenges are fast and effective temporary relief for sore throats.

Cepacol has done an excellent job at branding to become the "go to" product for people in pain while sick. I can personally say I am brand loyal to Cepacol in my sore throat emergencies. 

Product claims: Cepacol claims to be Pharmacists #1 reccommended brand for sore throats

 Click Here to go to the Cepacol website for a $1 off coupon!

The results:

After testing both Halls and Cepacol, it was an easy win for Cepacol. The Halls didn't have a strong impact to my throat. It felt more like a cherry candy making empty promises. It tasted quite good (love cherry) although for a more serious throat infection or soreness it didn't have enough strength to make an impact. Cepacol on the other hand, instantly numbed my mouth and throat to maximize the strength and make my throat feel relief almost instantly. The only downfall, is that is is only a temporarily relief and you have to continuously be taking more lozenges throughout each day for the duration of your sickness.

I rate Halls 2 shopping bags out of 5 and I rate Cepacol 4 shopping bags out of 5. Halls didn't have a dramatic effect where as Cepacol instantly numbed my throat and minimizes pain much quicker. Bang for your buck, Cepacol is the way to go.

Cepacol

Halls

Until next post, 

-BriBri

Have you been sick and used a different product to relieve throat pain? Tell me what it was and how it worked! Leave a comment below.

Pictures Speak For Themselves

For this weeks blog post, I decided to test a product that I would actually use and would come in handy for all busy female professionals. Whilst working multiple part time jobs, consulting as a entrepreneur and balancing a full school load, time is something that we all seem to be running out of (certainly myself). I seldomly hit snooze on the alarm in my sleep and there's always those mornings that I have run out of time for a full-fleshed shower. I have the hair type that needs to be washed each and every day. In this case, I turn to my good friend dry shampoo.

Product: Pantene Pro-V Dry Shampoo

Pantene Pro-V Dry Shampoo

Price: $5.39 + Tax   140 g (Standard Size)

Promotion: I was immediately blown away by this product for the fact that I got this sample completely FREE when purchasing Pantene conditioner. It was attached as an "on the go" product sample which was perfect for busy people like myself and is a small size to fit in my purse. 

How does it work?

It instantly revives freshness between washes to give hair a clean and refreshed feeling.

This product is allergy tested with a formula of natural taploca that absorbs oil and leaves hair refreshed.

Step 1: Shake

Step 2: Spray

Step 3: Rub In

Step 4: Brush

The results: Absolutely amazing. Unlike other brands I have used in the past, Pantene did not leave any sort of residue behind. Other brands use a formula of baby-powder that leave a white residue on your scalp. Having dark brown, almost black hair that just isn't suitable for me. Pantene Dry Shampoo was excellent. No residue and my hair had a much healthier and cleaner feel to it after the application. It is very quick following the above four steps. The picture below speaks a thousand words of how successful this product was.

Left: Before / Right: After

And of course, a selfie to follow:

I rate Pantene Dry Shampoo 5 shopping bags out of 5!! It was easy to use for on the go, left no white baby-powder residue like other brands tend to do and worked amazingly. I reccomend any ladies that woke up too late, and don't have the time to shower to use this product to stay fresh and look professional. 

Until next post,

-BriBri

To Switch Or Not To Switch?

This weeks product is in relation to a task that every person on this earth is faced with when living on their own, or if you had good parents, when you lived at home too.

Product: Finish All in 1 Powerball 

Price: $13.97 + Tax

Promotion: 

Finish has quite a large in-store advertisement claiming to be the leading dishwashing detergent. They are promoting the Finish brand itself, not necessarily a specific product due to the fact that the "Powerball" is not displayed anywhere on this large in store ad.

Promise: 

Finish is encouraging people to switch to the Finish brand when running their dishwashers to use a variety of their products. The newest product being the Finish Powerball. They are promising that within 10 washes or more you will be able to see the difference between Finish and a similar competing brand.

To view more about this product, visit the Finish website : Finish Powerball Product

Test Results:

I tested Finish in my dishwasher for the 10 washes as it states it needs, and compared to a competitor brand "pac" as their claim states on the above advertisement. It is a bit crazy to me that it takes 10 or more washes to prove its ability to clean better. If a produt is substantially better, in any persons train of thought it would be able to prove itself within the fist few times at least if not the first.

After the 10 washes, I compared both a plate, wine glass, and a baking sheet to test the real quality and to see if it is just as effective on all types of items that would normally be loaded into my dishwasher.

There was no giant change in how clean the dishes were coming out of the dishwasher. Yes, they were clean. Its a pain when you have to put something in the dishwasher for a second cycle, but hey, its also a giant pain when you have to wash the dishes by hand.

For the fact that the Powerball did clean my dishes, I didn't have to wash them by hand, and it actually kept the surfaces in the dishwasher clean, i'm rating the Finish Powerball 3 shopping bags out of 5.

Until next post,

-BriBri

Trash It

As I spent my evening working on snowmobiles and hanging out in my boyfriends auto shop I noticed some dirt and garbage lying around when I then realized what product I was going to test this week…

Garbage Bags. I know its not the most exciting topic, but this is something we all buy and there is always that battle in consumers minds when at the store, thinking is the more expensive brand really worth buying? If it is always a need and if i'm just going to throw something out in the trash, why should I pay more? Right?

Wrong.

For those thoughts exactly, I decided to not only test a garbage bag, but to test a no name brand of garbage bags agains the similar size and style expensive brands. See the products below:

Product 1 : Glad Regular Garbage Bags (same size as Great Value)

Quantity: 48

Price: $6.00 + Tax

Product 2 : Great Value Large Garbage Bags

Quantity: 80

Price: $5.97  + Tax

Glad VS. Great Value

Luckily, my boyfriend had just purchased 2 new brake rotors for his truck which are quite heavy. I put the no name value up against Glad garbage bags with a weight test to see how strong they were compared to each other.

Step 2

Step 1

Step 1: Place heavy brake rotors in each bag

Step 2: Hold bag up off the ground and lightly bounce  5 times

The results….

Glad Bag

The Glad Garbage bag held up, and remained in normal condition with the pressure and weight of the heavy object inside. The bags smelled nice and you could notice a nicer quality and thicker bag. There were 4 little flaps at the top of the bag to make life easier to tie the bag together when full.

Great Value Bag

The Great Value bag also kept the heavy object inside the bag and did not let it fall through. However, the bag ripped from the top where I was holding it from the pressure. Each little bounce the wholes stretched bigger and resulted in the photo beside after the 5 bounces. There are only 2 little flaps on the top of these bags to tie together and by the test I can conclude a thinner and cheaper quality bag.

As these bags may be a 'great value' for being cheaper than the leading brands, when quality comes to quantity I would prefer to pay the extra few cents to have a garbage bag that won't break on me while walking down the driveway to bring the trash to the street on garbage day. Since there is less quanitiy, you would have to buy them more frequently, but for sanity's sake, I would be kicking myself in the behind for having to pick all that garbage up if it broke. Luckily being the only girl in a house filled with men I normally don't have to worry about this issue, but hey, i'm looking out for my boo.

I rate the Glad garbage bag 5 shopping bags out of 5 and I rate the Great Value garbage bags 2 shopping bags out of 5.

Until next post,

-BriBri (Credits to Ashley Veenstra for the creation of BriBri)

Kissproof xo

Product: Rimmel London Provovalips 16 HR Kissproff Lipstick

Price: $7.98 + Tax
Placement: Multiple display wracks with product testers available

Promotion:

Product Claims:

Colour Testing Some Shades

1. 16 Hour lasting
2. Easy removal
3. Kiss proof
4. Transfer proof
5. No tight feeling
6. No dry lips

Available in 8 Shades including:

• Dare to Pink
• I'll Call You
• Little Minx
• Kiss Me You Fool
• Kiss Fatal
• Play With Fire
• Make Your Move
• Skinny Dipping

Part 1 & Part 2 Applicators

(As shown in video)

Step 1: Apply colour and keep lips apart for 60 seconds until the product sets.

Step 2: Apply topcoat to lock the colour, moisture and add shine.

I tested the -110 Dare to Pink- shade of this product for the 16 hours as claimed, and the results were not quite what i had anticipated. After only a few hours my lips felt very dry but the gloss was still shinny and vibrant. After a few more hours my lips felt very rough, hard and heavy. I tested the lipstick against food and drink and all normal day-to-day activities, including the kiss test xo.

My Lips After 10 Hours

This brand did not transfer when kissing, drinking, slurping or eating all day, as promised. Although it fell short on almost every other 'claim'. The removal process was easy with a tissue and water.

1. 16 Hour lasting
2. Easy removal
3. Kiss proof
4. Transfer proof
5. No tight feeling
6. No dry lips

The Transfer Test

For the fact that brand claimed to do so many things and failed on half of them, i rate this product only 2 shopping bags out of 5. It was a great colour and i personally liked all colour shade choices.  It was evident that it lasted all day, although it needed more applications throughtout the day to surpass the tests of what it claimed to be. 

-BriBri

To learn more about this product, visit Rimmel London.

Welcome to Tried, Tested & True!

MY FIRST POST

In honor of Superbowl Sunday this upcoming weekend, I have dedicated my first post to a Superbowl must have snack theme. Although im not a crazy Football fan myself, my review for this week is on 2 genuine products that accompany almost every male specie while watching the Superbowl (or any sport).

Product #1 -> Pintys NFL Authentic Game Day Chicken Wings

Price: $9.97 + Tax

Description: Inside the box included 12 wings in a bag and 2 small bags of their own bbq wing sauce. Being so close to the Superbowl, this is the time for all those busy-bee mothers to be out grocery shopping and pick up that quick and easy snack for the men on Sunday. The wings were located at the end of an isle on display next to a NFL advertisement (smart choice).

Product #2  -> Franks Red Hot Buffalo Wing Sauce

Price: $3.47 (Reg $4.27) + Tax

Description: Buffalo flavour wing sauce, luckily on sale for almost a dollar less than regular (smart timing with Superbowl weekend) as this item is a hot choice for men that like to feel the heat. Accompanied by many other flavours by Franks.

Naturally, I took the 12 wings, cooked as directed on box, and sauced 6 with the Pintys package of bbq sauce and 6 with the franks buffalo wing sauce. Compared to a no-name brand of boxed wings, the price was only cents difference. Living in a house with 3 men and being the only female, I put the men up to the test as well. We all concluded that the wings were a good decent size for the price. 

 

Left: Franks Buffalo Sauce, Right:Pintys BBQ Sauce

Is it worth it to make wings at home??








In consideration of price, it is nor here or there. By the time I bought the wings and sauce, its just about the same price as getting a 1lb serving of wings from a bar. Although at least they are cooked by someone else and served to you for convenience with blue cheese and celery. Cooking wings at home will make them less crispy of course by the oven bake over the deep fryer at a bar or restaurant.  Pintys did an excellent job in keeping the crisp aspect to the wings with a crispy breaded outer skin. As a group, the consensus was the Franks Buffalo Wing Sauce was muuuuuuch better than the bbq sauce included with the wings. All in all, the snack was quite tasty. The franks really made the wings enjoyable.

For the fact that i put that sh!# on everything, I give these two products the combination rating of 4 shopping bags out of 5.

I leave this post with happiness due to all this Superbowl talk, its getting me excited for the new Superbowl ads to come out! Keep in touch and let me know if you've used these products, what you thought, and what was YOUR favourite Superbowl snack & ad?!

>Comment below, or visit the contact me tab for more information. Please fill out the poll on the right hand side of this page to vote for which product I should review next.

Until next post, 

-BriBri