wonderwhatif
Member Since: January 26, 2015Reviews
Tazo Zen Green Tea
I know it's called Zen, but I found this tea really zesty and refreshing. The mix of lemon and what I think are traces of mint, is a really interesting twist on green tea. I was lucky enough to score some Tazo samples once upon a time and this was... +
I know it's called Zen, but I found this tea really zesty and refreshing. The mix of lemon and what I think are traces of mint, is a really interesting twist on green tea. I was lucky enough to score some Tazo samples once upon a time and this was easily my favourite of the ones I tried in my sample box. I also received some for christmas and since then I've continued to purchase the Zen flavour occasionally, it's really tasty. -
Mott's Fruitsations +Fibre Unsweetened Mango Peach
While this is a great snack for kids, there's plenty of adults out there (many of them in our household) who love more kid-style snacks. Right away, I loved that this is unsweetened. It can be tough to eat a lot of fruit because of the high levels... +
While this is a great snack for kids, there's plenty of adults out there (many of them in our household) who love more kid-style snacks. Right away, I loved that this is unsweetened. It can be tough to eat a lot of fruit because of the high levels of natural sugar, but that's easily offset by the great nutritional value! The fact that no sugar gets added means this is very much worth it. Throw in the extra fibre and it's even better.
Taste-wise, this is yummy mango peach flavour. If you like apple sauce or other fruit purees and like mango or peach, you'll undoubtedly love this as well. It's a great snack for on the go, but we definitely prefer it cold so pack some cool packs with it for a light refreshing snack!
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MOTRIN Super Strength Liquid Gels
I previously had trouble swallowing pills and so have been using smaller pills based on how easy they were to swallow. I recently trained myself out of that issue and can now swallow pills easily, but since then I haven’t had a chance to try... +
I previously had trouble swallowing pills and so have been using smaller pills based on how easy they were to swallow. I recently trained myself out of that issue and can now swallow pills easily, but since then I haven’t had a chance to try anything new (creature of habit).
I’m absolutely thrilled with Motrin Liquid Gels. They are reasonably big, but mainly because it’s a concentrated dose (like taking two of my usual brand). Because of the slippery exterior, they go down really easily and I start to feel relief within 15 minutes.
They’re great for cramps, especially if you have irregular and painful periods, but they work great for any type of pain. They are brilliant for headaches and seem to work better at reducing my migraines than other brands I’ve tried too.
The only thing to be aware of is to make sure to follow the dosage to the letter, since they are concentrated. If you’re looking for a strong painkiller to help when you have cramps or headaches, I definitely recommend these!
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Premier Protein Caramel Shake
If, like me, you have disordered eating or a special diet, you'll find you're always looking for other ways to get nutrients. I try a lot of protein shakes and bars and am always looking for ways to change it up. The Caramel flavoured Premier... +
If, like me, you have disordered eating or a special diet, you'll find you're always looking for other ways to get nutrients. I try a lot of protein shakes and bars and am always looking for ways to change it up.
The Caramel flavoured Premier Protein Shake is ideal for someone with a sweet tooth. Unlike the maltier chocolate flavour, the sweet taste covers the protein taste really well without being overly sweet. There wasn't any aftertaste. I prefer to drink it alone, like a milkshake as a treat. If you dislike sweets, the other flavours might suit you better, but this is ideal for caramel lovers and people who like sweet things.
The shake is nice and thick, which makes it pretty filling if you're feeling peckish. The nutrition is really good compared to other drinks like this! Overall, I loved it and would buy this in the future!
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Fisher-Price Bounce and Spin Puppy
I’m not gonna deny that kids find it fun (they do), but putting this side by side with a more traditional style rocker, they preferred the rocker and I did too. I think if you already have a rocker or bounce style toy, this isn’t such a great... +
I’m not gonna deny that kids find it fun (they do), but putting this side by side with a more traditional style rocker, they preferred the rocker and I did too. I think if you already have a rocker or bounce style toy, this isn’t such a great buy. My other issue with it is that I’m not a fan of bilingual toys. Unless you are actively raising a bilingual child (which is a great choice!) it’s a bit useless. I prefer toys that have a three way switch to allow it to go between french, english or both, rather than toys like this that put the french on the end and have to go through two long phrases.
For kids who aren’t bilingual, the french part becomes just noise and takes away from the learning experience. Similarly, french households would probably want the french first? I feel this also limits its appeal. Learning a second language is never a bad thing, but given the price I feel that they could definitely have a switch that moves between. This also allows you to pick the language your child doesn’t know well. For example, an anglo household who wants to focus more on french learning would prefer to set the toy to simply french.
I’ve made this complaint about bilingual toys before and I stand by it, I’ve seen those toys with switches and for a toy in this price range, I feel it should have one.
Other than that and a few other minor issues that I’ll talk about later, this is an ok toy. The bouncing is fun and kids enjoy it. There’s a button for ABC and 123, two modes and two volume settings. The volume settings are actually great, with a decent amount of difference between them, but it lacks an ‘off’ setting here for folks who need some quiet. It also offers a learning style mode or a ‘dance’ mode.
One of the coolest features is when the child has to ‘bounce’ to activate the next phase of the song. This gives access to a bunch of stuff that’s triggered by using the toy as opposed to hitting a button! While playing the buttons also produce funny noises.
I was a little disappointed in the roller toy. The rattling sound is good and makes kids laugh, but there’s so little multicoloured balls in there that they’re barely visible. Another big problem I had was the base. The toy is designed for carpet and slides around really badly and dangerously on wood floors. Maybe it’s just where I live, but nobody here has carpet and I really feel some non-slip pads on the bottom could make it perfectly safe for both wood floors and carpet; so why didn’t they do that?
The design is super cute, brightly coloured and we really loved that the puppy has soft, pettable ears. Assembly is ok, about 15 minutes, mostly snap together and a couple of screws. It can't be un-assembled for storage and I recommend having a second person to help hold the toy during assembly.
Overall, it’s a good toy, but lacking a few features that I’d expect at this price point. For that reason, I personally prefer a ‘rocking’ style toy, but if you have carpets, a bilingual household and need to run down a kid’s energy; this wouldn’t be a bad purchase.
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Maybelline New York Dream Urban Cover Foundation
I just wasn’t super impressed with the Urban Cover foundation. As someone with shockingly pale skin, I was excited for a foundation with high SPF, but it didn’t work well for me. I have an ongoing problem where foundation doesn’t seem to sit... +
I just wasn’t super impressed with the Urban Cover foundation. As someone with shockingly pale skin, I was excited for a foundation with high SPF, but it didn’t work well for me. I have an ongoing problem where foundation doesn’t seem to sit well on my skin, but this was far worse than others I have tried. Though the texture was quite runny (as others have said, like a BB cream) it felt cakey and heavy on my face. This is part of the reason I’m not a massive fan of full coverage foundations.
On a similar point, though, this barely covered any flaws and felt like a medium coverage foundation, or lighter. It clung to my flaws and made them show up worse. Within an hour, the makeup was melting off of my face. I have combination skin (with an oily nose) so perhaps this would work better for those with dry skin.
I will praise it for having no noticeable terrible smell (a lot of foundations do) and not smelling of sunscreen. In terms of the colour, I will say that I was impressed at how pale the foundation was. Usually they are not pale enough for me, however, it is too yellow tinged. I feel like almost nothing is designed for those of us with cool undertones and so many of the products I use are yellow-tinged, so I was disappointed that this was too. I’d say cool-tones should try the ‘porcelain’ rather than ‘fair porcelain’ which I was sent.
The colour is also darker looking in person than online here. You can see a more accurate colour in my pictures here, where I choose to do a wild makeup for fun!
Overall, I liked that they offered a paler option, but hated how it felt, didn’t feel it did a good job and it also melted off my face very quickly.
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Hair Food Coconut & Chai Spice Sulfate Free Shampoo
Note: I used this with the matching conditioner. I’m actually surprised at how much I loved this shampoo! Coconut isn’t usually my favourite scent, but I have to say that this barely smells like Coconut. So if you love Coconut and are looking... +
Note: I used this with the matching conditioner.
I’m actually surprised at how much I loved this shampoo! Coconut isn’t usually my favourite scent, but I have to say that this barely smells like Coconut. So if you love Coconut and are looking for a super Coconutty shampoo, sadly this doesn’t deliver on that. I do love the smell though. It has a sweet, generic smell that isn’t too strong and smells good to me.
After using this a couple of times, my hair has responded brilliantly to it. It’s super soft, smooth and less frizzy, without being limp or lifeless. Generally speaking, it leaves my hair soft and manageable, without losing my natural curls.
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Giantsville Jumbo Wooden Blocks Floor Game
This game is actually super fun, for adults and kids alike. One of my biggest concerns, with indoor play was the falling blocks. Being made of (admittedly light) wood, I was worried they would hit someone or something when they fall. Well, it’s... +
This game is actually super fun, for adults and kids alike. One of my biggest concerns, with indoor play was the falling blocks. Being made of (admittedly light) wood, I was worried they would hit someone or something when they fall. Well, it’s true that they do make a really loud bang and you’ll want to make sure they can’t hit any important stuff, like your TV, but the blocks don’t really hurt much if they hit you. Still, it’s a bit nerve-wracking, so I prefer outdoor play for that reason.
These blocks are great quality, made of pine with that pleasant pine smell. They come with a storage bag, a reusable score sheet and marker with an eraser. One really cool feature is that the blocks have numbers on them, which match up to custom rules that you can write on the sheet. To avoid ‘cheating’ I recommend fully building the tower and then writing the rules, it’ll be a surprise to everyone.
The custom rules gives the game a lot of pizzaz and means it has a lot of different uses. For example, for young kids, you can have the rules be things like ‘Do a dance.’ or ‘hug your friend’. So they draw the number, they do the action. You can have more game based rules like ‘take a second turn’ or ‘draw a block while touching your nose with the other hand’. It even allows for a more adult version of the game. Draw this block, take a shot! It’s a pretty genius addition.
One thing that can be confusing is it seems like you’re a block short when it’s fully built. That’s actually because the lowest tier of the tower is intended to have a gap in the middle. In other words, the bottom tier only has the two outside blocks and lacks the centre. Building it like this, you’ll have the right amount.
Overall, this is a really fun ‘large’ sized, off-brand version of the popular wooden block building game (Jenga). The blocks are great quality and the custom rules bring a whole new set of fun to the proceedings, highly recommend for parties of all ages!
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COVERGIRL Easy Breezy Micro-Fine Fill + Define Eyebrow Pencil
I recently tried a different eyebrow pencil from the Covergirl brand and was not impressed, so I was wary of this one. I’m thrilled to say, though, that this is a great eyebrow pencil. It actually reminds me of a very expensive brand’s eyebrow... +
I recently tried a different eyebrow pencil from the Covergirl brand and was not impressed, so I was wary of this one. I’m thrilled to say, though, that this is a great eyebrow pencil. It actually reminds me of a very expensive brand’s eyebrow pencil I tried recently. The downside of not being a traditional style pencil, is that you can’t just sharpen it up. Once you’ve used what’s there, that’s it.
However, this goes on smoothly like a dream. The line is quite fine (as it gets more blunt, it gets a little thicker) and it blends really easy. The pencil includes a spoolie so you can brush it out for a more subtle look. Since I have mixed blonde/brunette eyebrows, this soft brown seemed to be the right choice for me, although I have thicker brows and feel they look overdone easily, so I don't tend to do a heavy pencilling.
A must-have for those with sparse brows! It’s on-par with the high-end, raved about product I tried, at a much lower cost.
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COVERGIRL Exhibitionist Mascara Primer
It was ok. There was a notable difference between wearing this, versus wearing mascara alone, but not a huge one. However, it’s important to note that I already have thick, long eyelashes so it’s possible the difference could be more extreme on... +
It was ok. There was a notable difference between wearing this, versus wearing mascara alone, but not a huge one. However, it’s important to note that I already have thick, long eyelashes so it’s possible the difference could be more extreme on someone with smaller, thinner eyelashes.
The reality is, I preferred the Covergirl Lash Blast Amplify Primer to this and felt it worked better, overall, with my lash type.
One thing that really turned me away from this primer is I found the formula to be soooo thick. It almost looked dried out in the bottle, due to the thick, gloopy consistency. As a result I found it harder to ‘cover up’ the primer with mascara and less comfortable to wear. It also had an unpleasant smell, though nowhere near as strong as the Lash Blast Amplify (it’s biggest flaw is a strong, bad smell).
Overall, it made a difference, but I didn’t like the texture of it and found the difference wasn’t extreme enough for me.
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