Cascade Platinum Pacs Review and Instagram Contest #MyPlatinum

Disclosure: I participated in a campaign on behalf of Mom Central Consulting for Cascade. I received a product sample to facilitate my review and a promotional item as a thank you for participating. 

Some people love to clean.  I am not one of those people.  While I like the results that come from cleaning the house, I find tasks like laundry, dishes and cleaning bathrooms mundane and boring and worst of all...ENDLESS!!  I can clean the whole kitchen, walk away for 3 minutes and come back to a plate, a knife with jelly on it and a half a glass of milk sitting in the sink that I just emptied!  AAUUGGHHH!!   Thank freaking GOSH for dishwashers!

When I moved into this rental house, the dishwasher that was here looked like one of the first models ever made and sounded like a Mack Truck was driving around our kitchen every night.  I would load it with dirty plates and start it up, then cross my fingers that it would actually clean them.  The results were a crap shoot.  Some days I won, some days I lost. 

Then one day that beastly dishwasher died and I rejoiced aloud about the new replacement that arrived a week later!  It was shiny and new and I was sure I would never see a dirty dish come out of that dishwasher after running a clean cycle again. 

I was wrong.  On more than one occasion I have opened my new dishwasher after a two hour cycle to find my plates covered with "washed food particles or my drinking glasses covered with a hazy residue.  So...I concluded it must be a detergent problem and not an appliance problem and started experimenting with dish washing soaps and tabs. 

The Review

As luck would have it, I was asked to review new Cascade Platinum Pacs this month!  I know!  The timing could not have been better.  Now that my kids are taking more responsibility with the dishes, I sometimes find that in their desire to speed through the chore of loading the dishwasher,  the rinsing of dirty dishes doesn't always happen like it should.  Ok, fine.  I never rinse the dishes either.  But at least I knock off the big chunks.  Cascade Platinum Pacs are our new best friend, as they are specially formulated with an increased enzyme power that eats through food particles better than anything I have tried so far.  There was not one speck of food left on anything in that dishwasher when we emptied it after using the Platinum Pacs.  Not. One. Yay!! 

The other thing we noticed immediately after using the Cascade Platinum Pacs is that our dishes come out sparkling and shiny!  Platinum Pacs contain surfectants and chelant/polymer systems that  prevent hard water spots or hazy film on glasses or silverware.   My dishes look almost new again! I love not having to apologize to my guests while I wipe the spots off the drinkware before serving them a beverage!  How unappetizing is that?!

Gail Simmons, Top Chef judge and editor of Food-Wine Magazine, agrees that perfect presentation is an important part of entertaining and she has partnered with Cascade to share her thoughts and ideas on how to beautifully present your culinary creations.

  

I love Gail's comment about impressing with a Platinum Presentation, because it's something I kind of struggle with:

“The easiest recipes pop with unexpected, gourmet presentations. Drizzle bright sauces on sparkling white plates or layer desserts in crystal-clean glassware. Keep your presentation sparkling with Cascade Platinum, which keeps dishes perfect for anytime entertaining and impromptu guests.”

Cascade "My Platinum" Contest

With the advent of social media, everyone can post great photos of their best kitchen efforts these days.  Food photography is everywhere! To celebrate the launch of their newest product, Cascade is holding a 4 week Instagram contest encouraging fans to upload photos related to the weekly contest themes listed below for a chance to win a $10,000 Kitchenaid Kitchen Makeover! I know, right?  $10,000 could do a lot for my poor little kitchen! 

Week 1: (Week 1 is over) My Platinum Plate (Entry Period: 6/3-6/9) - Show us your best dish styled from the sparkling plate up!
Week 2: My Platinum Bite (Entry Period: 6/10-6/16) – Show us your best bite and most creative use of sparkling silverware!
Week 3: My Platinum Clink (Entry: 6/17-6/23) – Show us how you serve up creative concoctions in sparkling glasses. Cheers!
Week 4: My Platinum Table (Entry Period: 6/24-6/30) – Show us your sparkling tablescape for your most special celebrations!

You do need to register before you enter, but it just takes a few minutes to that.  And you will need to upload the photos to Instgram and use the hashtag #MyPlatinum” as well as tag @MyCascade.  More information about the contest can be found on the contest’s official page.

FUNundrum Circus Ticket Giveaway!!

This is the last giveaway celebrating my 2 year blogoversary!  Woot woot!  How much fun have I had over the last 2 years with my blog?  More fun than a person should be allowed to have.  It has really been a life changing experience.  I have met so many cool people and I have come to know myself and my family on a much deeper level.  AND...I have had the privelege of working with some great companies to offer some really great stuff to my readers!  I feel very blessed to work with such great sponsors.  

On that note, let's give away the last prize of the month - Ringling Brothers Barnum Bailey FUNundrum Tickets!!!!  This is gonna be a quick giveaway because the tickets ore for the evening of June 23rd, so we need to give everyone time to coordinate.  Also, this giveaway is LOCAL, for Phoenix residents only.  Sorry to all my non-local readers!  

WANNA WIN IT?!  Win 4 tickets to FUNundrum on June 23rd!  Check out the Ringling Brothers Barnum Bailey website, click on Meet the Stars and leave a comment telling me which performer (s) you think will be most interesting.  Contest will end at 12 midnight PST on June 1st!!.  LOCAL PHOENIX residents only.  

If you want extra entries, help me advertise the contest!  You can:

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  Tweet this contest
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  Post it on your Facebook Page
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  Put it on a Mr. Linky somewhere on the internet
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  Email your friends and family!  

And don't forget,  if you don't win you can still get a family 4-pack of 4 tickets for only $44 through ticketmaster.com- good to all performances (excludes Circus Celebrity, Front Row and VIP seats). I KNOW! Sweet deal, right? You can purchase additional tickets for $11 each.  Just use code MOM online or over the phone to get your discount.

LikeWear Review and Giveaway

Look what we received in the mail last week from LikeWear!!

Lisa Gold, the founder of LikeWear, has designed a line of high quality, casual boutique children's clothing that sport designs which incorporate super well-known brands like Tootsie Roll and Honda and other kid friendly pop culture images.

I chose these 2 shirts for my boys and was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the material used to make the t-shirts. It is not cheap and flimsy and the clothing is already pre-shrunk! No more action figure size t-shirts after a spin in the dryer! My boys really like the cool designs.

Another thing I like about LikeWear is that Lisa and her husband Ken have set up the business so that entreprenurial minded moms can get involved in the business and earn some extra money.  Here's a tag from their marketing material that explains more about their programs:

LikeWear®, the first and only company to focus on selling licensed apparel and accessories via the Direct Selling channel, is a modern day fusion of a fun, boutique children’s clothing line and more traditional party plan direct sales companies (like Mary Kay or The Pampered Chef). We provide a flexible and financially rewarding way to earn money or have a career selling a unique line of children’s clothing and accessories that feature products, brands and other stuff moms and their kids really like. Hence the name LikeWear!

From modern day and vintage package art, to exclusive designs and unique twists on popular culture, we’ve created more than 100 images featuring family friendly brands like Wheaties, Trix, Tootsie Roll, Dots, Honda PowerSports and many others. To make things really interesting, we use a just-in-time manufacturing process and encourage our representatives to help their customers mix and match our images with different body types and color ways. By doing so, we hope to truly fulfill the promise of our tagline, “wear what you like”.

I am impressed with LikeWear as a company for a few different reasons:

• As a mom with a limited clothing budget for my family, I like the fact that LikeWear puts so much time and attention into their products to create things that kids like to wear.  I hate buying something for one of them and hearing "I hate that!"
• As a former SAHM who has just had to re-enter the workforce, I look for these kinds of opportunities that will allow me to earn a living without taking so much time from my family.  

You can find out more about LikeWear and their income earning opportunities here.

You can also try out the clothing by entering to WIN A $50 gift certificate for LikeWear merchandise! To enter, check out the LikeWear website and leave a comment telling me what you would get with the gift certificate.  Contest is open to US residents only and ends on April 30th, 2010 at 12 Midnight PST.

Don't want to wait that long to try out their stuff?  Likewear is offering a special discount to I Am Boymom readers!!  I know!  They are so generous!!  Just enter the code IAMBOYMOM (in all caps) at checkout and you will receive 25% off everything in the store, EXCEPT for sale items. (FYI – they’ve got a big Earth Day Sale going on now too!  Make sure that you hit “Apply” after entering your code. It will stay live until the middle of May.

**Disclosure:  I received a $50 gift cert from LikeWear in order to purchase some clothing so that I could write this review.  The fact that I received products from the vendor does not sway my opinion regarding the quality and value of the product.  My opinions are my own. 

Soft Scrub Total Bath and Bowl Giveaway and Review

My first duty as a Soft Scrub Club Captain is to share information with you about how new Soft Scrub products work.  I received my first product last week and actually made a video showing how well it works, but am having a hard time getting it posted.  So as soon as I work out the bugs with that, I'll get the video on here. 

In the meantime, let me tell you a bit about Soft Scrub's new Total Bath and Bowl.  It's made to clean the entire bathroom, whcih means I don't have to lug around nine bottles of product to clean one room.  Me likee!!  It can clean tough tub rings and soap residue along with sinks, counters and toilets.

The bottle has some unique design features that allow you to use the product a few different ways.  First of all, you have the option of foam or spray.  I found that on tough, small jobs, like the toilet and my shower stall, the foam was great because it clings to the areas that I need it to work much longer than the spray would, giving Total Bath and Bowl more time to loosen the tough dirt and soap scum. 

There is a little tab that you flip over and snap into place to change from foam to spray.  Very easy and user friendly!   I used the spray on the jobs that had large areas to cover, like my countertops and bathroom sinks, as well as my big garden tub.  Both the foam and the spray do their job and my bathrooms were the cleanest they have been in awhile, without me having to spend hours really scrubbing! 

The other feature I loved about Soft Scrub Total Bath and Bowl is that the bottle is shaped so that you can flip it upside down and spray under the toilet rim.  I know...how many years did it take for someone to finally figure that out?  Yay for Soft Scrub! And it actually works!

I used it on all of my bathrooms, which were really in need of some serious cleaning.  It worked really well on the tubs, sinks, showers and countertops, it even removed some of the hard water deposits from my glass shower door!  It tackled everything but the hard water deposits (we have extremely hard water here!) at the water line of my toilet bowls.  Unfortunately, it didn't make much of a dent in those, but nothing but a jack hammer or hours of pumice stone can really handle those bad boys!  But the rest of the bowl looks sparkling clean, which is saying a lot given the fact that I live in a house full of males with poor aim!

Soft Scrub Total Bath and Bowl really is an all in one bathroom cleaner that saved me A LOT of time and made cleaning my bathrooms very, very easy and I can honestly say I will purchase the product again when this bottle is gone.  I am looking forward to trying out the other Soft Scrub "Total" products as they hit the market.

Win a bottle of Soft Scrub Total Bath and Bowl for yourself! Leave a comment telling me what part of the bathroom you hate cleaning the most! Winner will be chosen using Random.org and I will send the winner a coupon for free Soft Scrub Total Bath and Bowl. If you want extra entries you know the drill: Twitter the contest or post it on Facebook and leave me a separate comment! Contest ends on February 5th, at 12 midnight Arizona Time.

**Disclosure: I did not receive monetary compensation for this review.  I did recieve free product from the company in order to facilitate my review.

Mother's Day in December?

No, I'm not crazy. Okay, maybe I am crazy right now, but it has nothing to do with this post and everything to do with hormones, kids and employment issues.

So what's the deal with the Mother's Day title thing? Aquafresh is sponsoring a contest whereby 50 (or "fitty" for all you hip, urban rap moms out there) Phoenix moms will win a Spa day and a goodie bag from the Hyatt Regency Spa Avania on December 5th. Consider it an early Christmas gift from a company that realizes moms need to be recognized for their efforts.

So here's the deal-ee-o. The contest is for folks ages 6 and older, with different age categories. So I guess you could enter the 18 and older category, but then you have to write about why YOUR mom is amazing. Otherwise you have to get your kids involved and they have to write a short essay on why they think YOU are amazing. So you know that you can't write it and sign their name...right? Or that you can't sit next to them and tell them what to say. Of COURSE you know that! Otherwise your kids would not be writing an essay about what an amazing mom you are in the first place, because they would not have the skills or the confidence to do so if you had not been amazing and taught them so well! So let your teaching do the talking and let the little people scribble from the heart. Or you could help some other kids, like the kids of your best friend or the kids of your favorite blogger (hint, hint) to write a quick note about why THEIR mom, whom you truly adore and want to emulate, is so amazing.

The whole point is that there are so many moms in Phoenix who could use and who have earned a day of relaxation at the Hyatt Regency Spa Avania. I know many of you personally and I know the sacrifices you make on a daily basis to bring health, happiness and stability to your families. Seriously...would this be such a great way to get ready for the holiday season? All relaxed and feelin' good!?!

Here's the link to the Aquafresh Amazing Mom Celebration contest, along with rules and information and details about the fabulous prizes! You could leave it in your child's "Favorites" folder, next to the Star Wars link if you want to be subtle. Or you could print out the form and give it to your husband so he can encourage the kids. Or, like I said...you could alert the neighbor kids and let them know about it so they could do something really cool for their mom. No matter what you do, pat yourself on the back for doing the best job you can to raise your kids. Motherhood is not NOT easy, regardless of how you approach it and it's nice to know there are companies out there like GlaxoSmithKline that recognize our contributions to our families and society in general.

If you want to find out more about Aquafresh toothpaste and have the kids drop off their entries in person, you can stop by Arrowhead Mall on October 17th and 24th. While you're there, check out the various Aquafresh products and pick up a free sample! The Aquafresh Amazing Mom Celebration contest ends November 2nd, 2009, so kids need to get their essays in soon!

**Disclosure: I did not receive compensation for this post from Aquafresh, Hyatt or GlaxoSmithKline. I am doing it out of the goodness of my heart because I think moms need and deserve recognition and I hope some deserving moms win a fantastic Spa Day!!!**

We Have Our Winners!!

These are the winners of the Book Drawing. Big Brother wanted to help.



Congratulations to 4FunBoys, Rachael (who posted on another thread), Heather Pride and Micaela!! I can't wait to do another giveaway!!

(I realize the first draw looked kind of planned. Big Brother drew 4FunBoys then my camera batteries died. I put new batteries in, but lost the video. But we had already drawn 4FunBoys and I didn't think it was fair to disqualify her because of MY camera malfunction. So he just set that name on top and pulled it out of the bowl again for the video. But she really was the first one drawn in a fair draw just 2 seconds prior to the video starting. Did I really need to explain this? I just don't want anyone thinking I'm running some kind of racket here. I don't need no Uncle Guido comin' after me over a Precious Girl's Club book! Ya know what I'm sayin'? )