Sample share: Zep cleaners

When i first joined the Zep cleaners crew on crowdtap, I had never heard of Zep! I joined the brand looking to learn more. As a mom of four boys, I can use all the cleaning help we can get! We're always trying out new products in an effort to keep up with our kids. I jumped on the chance to sample Zep when they announced the sample share. They sent samples for me to try out, and some to share with friends.

samples of all-around oxy cleaner & degreaser and Quick clean disinfectant

J wanted in on the photo action!

 I use a degreaser at work, and it does amazing things. So, naturally, i grabbed the All-around oxy first. We have laminate floors that you have to constantly mop, or they get really gross pretty quickly. We had a spot that hadn't been touched in a while, and I wanted to see if this cleaner was as magical as it claimed (spoiler alert: it is!). My next project will be seeing if it can help save my carpets, as it's good on all surfaces and includes carpeting instructions on the bottle.

I don't even want to know what needed to be cleaned off that floor!

with zep, it's as good as new!

I have been using the quick clean disinfectant on my counters and stove top, and it is effective and I love that it kills cold and flu viruses (rhinovirus and staph are spelled out on the label) in five seconds. I will be on a hunt in my local stores to find these once my samples run out. They beat the pants off of any cleaner I have stocked on my bathroom shelves!

My new GM loves to clean-what better person to share my samples with?1? And she's so photogenic!! <3

Vaseline intensive care advanced repair

I love trying new products. There's something really cool about trying new things, and getting to spread the word on things you love. My friend Melissa has been a part of influenster for quite some time. I always see her photos of her Vox Boxes and her reviews. I finally decided last month to jump on board. I was pleasantly surprised to get an invite to fill out a survey for my first vox box shortly after joining--and to be selected to receive it. It came in my mail box yesterday.

To be honest, I'm not a huge lotion person. My hands/legs need to be really dry for me to use it (the exception: one of my work girls tells me her lotion smells amazing and I absolutely must try it!). I hate the way most lotion feels-greasy, and seems like it will take forever for my hands to dry with out wiping everything off of them. I was intrigued that the bottom of the label read "non-greasy formula." I was eager to test that aspect out. If I could have nice, smooth hands without the gross greasy feeling, I'm all in! First things first: my vox box came with a "does your dry skin need to be healed" test (pictured above). It was a card with two peelies with black circles on them. You press the circle against your skin for 3 seconds, and it indicates how dry your skin is. I had taken a shower a few hours before testing it out, so I have no clue if that effected how dry my skin was. My results (posted below) were just a tad on the dry side. Somewhere between normal and dry. I then lotioned up. I was very pleased with how soft my hands were immediately. They were not gross, nor greasy. My seven year old walked over while I was trying it out and once he heard me say how soft my hands were, he wanted to try. He kept rubbing his hands together because of how nice they felt! I then took the "after" test circle. It's amazing how different the circles are. Vaseline works! I'm very glad to have tried this product out-it now has a place in my cabinet (now I need to get a fun sized one for my purse!).

before test circle

trying it out

comparing before and after!

"mom, it's so soft!"

October sampling: Fast-acting Advil film-coated

It's time for my newest Crowdtap review! Up next: Fact-acting Advil. Except when I'm pregnant (admittedly most of my married adult life-I've got four little ones!), i'm an ibuprofen girl when it comes to managing head aches. My husband is a little less picky, he'll use whatever I buy. When I have coupons, I love to stock up on advil (and hubby swears it works better than the generic brands, I don't see much of a difference). I jumped at the chance to try out the new film-coated advil. It's being advertised as fast-acting, and that's a pretty cool thing when you are dealing with pain.

that coupon will get some use! :)

 I put mine aside and rounded up some volunteers to try it out. My husband was the first to step up to the plate. He works crazy shifts (inventory control in a warehouse overnights) and wakes up in the morning to do the school routine with our brood while I head to work. He used his fairly quickly, as daily life can cause him headache. He said it's definitely better than any generic he's used, and he thinks it's faster than normal advil as well. After a particularly long work shift and a night of fighting boys, I was able to try my sample late last week. I got heart burn right after taking it, which I googled and read it's a pretty common reaction to ibuprofen if you are sensitive to it. It's never happened to me before, and I use it fairly regularly. Heart burn aside, I did find that it alleviated my head ache faster than normal. I'll chalk the heart burn up to a random fluke and give it another go before switching back to my advil liquid-gels.

I'm so excited to try this!

My husband being silly :)

ah, teen angst

October sampling: Skintimate Raspberry Rain shave gel

The wonderful month of October continues! As a couponer (and one of four basically adult female children and quite a few close friends who've been part of my family for years) I love finding the best bang for my buck. I've tried just about every brand of shaving cream/gel you could imagine. One of my favorites is Skintimate. Last month, I got the opportunity to sample the mandarin burst scent for myself. This month, I was blessed with another opportunity to try a different scent--and to share some with my favorite ladies! This scent? Signature scents Raspberry rain. Step one: take lots of photos of my loot and share them to get the word out that I need some samplers! ;) I wanted to get a few people in this one that don't usually participate with my sampling. And who doesn't love free stuff??

I opened the box...

And couldn't believe all the cool stuff I had to give away! :)

Step two: try it out myself! I love to spread the word on products I love. To give honest feedback, you need the experience. So I got ready to lather up and try it out!

It looks so pretty on my bath ledge! :)

Neat fact i never thought about: exfoliating BEFORE you shave helps remove dead skin that can clog up your razor! This is especially true for the winter months when shaving takes a back seat due to cold weather and long pants (especially up here in New England! brr!) or when life is just too crazy! My sampling kit came with some Himalayan salt scrub from the San Francisco bath salt company to do just that. it felt really cool (and smelled amazing!). The Raspberry Rain shaving gel lathered perfectly (I LOVE a good lather when shaving) and smelled so good! I got a nice shave (and no nicks!). So it was time to get my girls together and share!

I had a visit from one sister who couldn't make the party date-she wouldn't take a photo and made baby sister pose instead! ;)

Some of my favorite ladies!

look at all the cute feet!

checking out the bath salt scrub

playing with--errr, smelling--the shaving gel! :)

ready to sample!

Everyone was so excited to be able to take home their own sample shaving gel (and razor!) when they left. I had three ladies not be able to make it  who we brought samples to--can't wait to hear how they enjoyed it!

October Crowdtap sampling: Ragu pasta sauce

I was so excited when the Ragu brand joined with Crowdtap. It is my favorite sauce brand, ever since I was young. My dad always bought it, and I continued when I moved out on my own. I'm a huge mushroom fan, so i love the chunky mushroom variety. My kids are big veggie eaters, so any of the garden variety always go over well (though my kids practically drink pasta sauce! They will eat it in practically any variety. My seven year old was particularly excited to try the meat kind on our last shopping trip). This crowd tap challenge was to make a dish featuring Ragu. We did a pretty basic American chop suey. I browned the hamburger, added the sauce (chunky mushroom, of course!) til it was heated, then mixed it into a pan of cooked elbow pasta. All of my kids loved it, and the sauce really makes the dish, particularly in a dish like this. The sauce is not too thin (I HATE thin sauce-the very reason I can't buy the generic sauce at the grocery store!) and has plenty of nice mushroom pieces. It has a nice flavorful taste, not too bland like many generic/cheaper brands. At walmart, the price point is $1.69 for the small jars, which makes it very affordable, even for my family's tight budget. I definitely recommend Ragu sauce for all your pasta (or other suacey!) needs (side note: I made a pizza once with the mushroom sauce. Very good. It was amazing pizza!).

Time to go shopping! ;)

Topher showing off our sauce jar

simple ingredients

Logan wanted to help pour the sauce in!

cooking up some yummy dinner!

mixing it all together

finished product!

Kid approved! ;)

My Monopoly

It's time for me to discuss another site I love! I'm fairly new to it--I've only done one campaign so far, but it's been love at first sight! BzzAgent has you fill out surveys and chooses a campaign for you to apply for based on your answers. The campaign I got was My Monopoly. Anyone who knows me will tell you that's the perfect pick for me! I've collected Monopoly games for quite a few years. The idea of making my own Monopoly game thrilled me. I actually attempted to make my own once when I was a teen with a few of my friends on a camping trip. We called it "hansonopoly" and based it off the the band Hanson, who we all adored. (side note: the band ended up releasing their own monopoly game with the same name years later!) While I waited for the game to ship, I thought of all the different games I could make. it took me longer to think of an idea than to actually make the game. I finally settled on a traveling game of sorts. Half the board is fun places I've been to, and the other half is fun events (based on bands/actors) I've traveled to see. The game came with everything you needed, from the cards, tokens, sticker sheets, ect. You have to make an account on the my Monopoly website to upload your photos and caption them. You can personalize properties, chance/community chest cards, and tokens. It was super easy to use and print. The only issue I ended up having with my game was when the stickers printed, some of them didn't line up correctly and it cut part of the photo off. For some, it didn't matter, but for others it cut heads off! It was an easy fix-I just carefully peeled off the sticker scrap and lined it up (photo below). My oldest helped me put stickers on and set up the game board. Over all, it was a fun experience, and at a price point of around $15 (walmart) it is well worth the price.

the game has arrived!

making my own pieces was super easy!

my sticker sheet!

these are the pieces I had to add the "scraps" to

personalizing tokens :)

In addition to properties, you can personalize cards, too!

completed game board!

Team sweet n low!

I recently got the chance to sample sweet n low. They sent me a neat package with a box of sweet n low for me, samples for my friends, and a neat pitcher (and cups with sweet n low pink logo napkins!). The plan was to have a ladies cocktail night, I ended up splitting it up into two nights, showcasing two drinks with sweet n low. The first night was alcohol-free. I invited my brother and his girlfriend (and let my boys steal a few sips). We did game night (we're big munkin zombie fans!) and shared some strawberry granita freezes. These were so good my brother and I each had two cups! My next plan is to make a wild berry smoothie based off of this recipe.

ingredients!

ready to blend!

yummy!

selfie with my creation!

gave out some samples to take home!

i told him to "hold it up and show me" ;)

L stealing a sip

C stealing a sip

Later on the week, we planned what started as a ladies cocktail night (and ended up with a few boys present!). The plan was to make skinny-mini mojitos. The actuality was ending up with skinny-mini chocolate mojitos! My friend is a gardener and has her own farm stand. So when I messaged her asking if she still had fresh mint available-she suggested I go with chocolate mint. It smelled amazing and had a unique taste. You have to add less (I'd say maybe a half cup) as fresh mint has a much stronger taste. We also added extra lime juice. It was an interesting drink! 

our ingredients

yum! our calorie cutting with our drinks earned us the pizza in the back ground! ;)

mojito selfie!

mom digs it!

sister showing off her drink!

my baby brother is still a year away from participating--so we sent him home with some pizza and a cool sample to add to his coffee! ;)