let's talk laundry & enter the $100 Visa gift card contest *contest closed*

This is a compensated review by BlogHer and OxiClean.

I don't know about you guys, but for me when it comes to laundry, I'm kind of a fix-it-and-forget-it kind of girl.

I set up my washer by setting the temperature and load size appropriately, I put in the required soap, and I go--and I assume my laundry detergent of choice will do it's job. After all, that is it's ONE JOB right? To take out dirt and stains and clean my clothes?

I rarely check my loads before hand for specific stains. I never pretreat. Honestly, I hardly ever even bleach because it's always an afterthought way too late. (Am I supposed to put it in while the washer is loading, or only after it is full and in it's agitation cycle? By then, I have moved on to other things, sister.)

And I have to admit, I'm kind of a laundry snob, and I'll tell you why this is. Because I want my clothes to come out clean with the least amount of effort for crying out loud. It makes me crazy when a product doesn't do what it is designed to do. So I've become a big fan of the orange bottle. You know the one I'm talking about. It's a name-brand, it's usually a little bit more pricey, but for my money, it just works and I can pretty much depend on it to do it's job.

Now on a side note, since I do have a child with extreme eczema, I have had to be a bit lenient, and sway from my tried-and-true brand. I now use a brand free and clear of all dyes, and my opinion is, it's OK. It doesn't knock my socks off, it doesn't clean as well, but it helps kiddo's skin, and I am way too lazy to wash his things separate from the rest of ours.

All of this to say that I've always wanted to try the Oxiclean detergents. The idea of one product making my whites so much whiter, cleaner, purer is awesome. However my thrifty self could not justify the extra cost, since Oxiclean is used in addition to your regular detergent, not in place of it.


So this week, I was able to use the Oxiclean Max Force Power Packs for this review for the first time! I was pretty excited about it--as excited as one can be about such a mundane task as laundry--and tried the tablets on several loads. (On a side note, the name Max Force Power Packs reminds me of Homer Simpson's super hero name...remember the episode when he was looking at the hair dryer when trying to come up with some moniker and settled on Max Power? *giggle*) The Oxiclean Max Force products are made with four types of stain-fighters to fill your laundry needs.

These laundry pouches come in biodegradable packets that disintegrate in the wash. They release active oxygen that find the stains and work with your favorite detergent to overall benefit your whites and brights. They can be used for all your colors and at any temperature.

I used the power pack in my whites, colors, and a load of towels. Everything came out looking pretty ship-shape. I like the subtle smell that accompanies the fresh loads, and there was no extra filminess or residue left on my clothes.

Also in my sample kit was the Oxiclean Max Force Gel Stick. Here we go with the extra work! The pretreating! As you know, I have 3 boys, and since I haven't been using my orange bottle, sure, some pretreating has been needed. My middle child is an artist and comes home invariably covered from head to toe in art supplies, glitter, markers, glue, not to mention lunch and or snack dribbled down his shirt. It's a miracle he has any clean clothes at all really.

So I definitely had articles of clothing on which to test out the gel stick. It has this kind of funky applicator that helps get the cleaning agent really deep down into the fibers of your clothes, where it sticks to the stain and breaks it apart, supposedly much more effectively than your regular detergent alone. You push down on the tube, and rub the gel into the stain--easy application and no muss, no fuss.

To test, I tried the gel stick on shirts with the following stains: maple syrup, hot cocoa, grease, and cream of chicken soup mingled with mashed potatoes. The gel stick ended up getting all the stains out except for the hot cocoa. I may try this repeatedly over the next week to continue trying to get out the stain. I ended up really liking this product; definitely something I'll continue to look for at the ol' market.

Are you an Oxiclean user and what do you think of it? Comment on this post between 9am on 3/9/10 and 5pm 3/31/10 to enter into a drawing for a $100 Visa Gift Card! Please leave a name and/or email so if you win, I can contact you.

To read other stories, see other pictures, and enter other sweepstakes (each for $100 folks!!) go look at the BlogHer.com special offers page. There are now 7 other chances to win, plus a grand prize $300 sweepstakes!

Check out the BlogHer.com rules page if you have any questions about how this contest will work.

• No duplicate comments.
• You may receive an additional entry by linking on twitter and leaving a link in the comments.
• You may receive an additional entry by blogging about this contest and leaving a link in the comments.
• This giveaway is open to US Residents, aged 18 and older
• Winners will be selected via random draw, and will notified by e-mail.
• You have 48 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected.

And don't forget to check out my websites, Life with the Boys and Our P90X Journey.

cute and clean and perty and bright

This is a compensated review from BlogHer and Cheer

Twas the dawn of another busy Monday in my household. The kids were up, dressed, fed, and taken to school. I myself, was presentable, as I am the type that always gets ready and made-up – I’m just weird that way; plus I look 12 years old without mascara on and that just ain’t pretty – and I was ready to take on my house.

For Monday is my Cleaning Day. My recover-from-a-weekend-with-four-messy-males-in-it day. My let’s-set-everything-in-order-and-start-the-week-right day. My day to get my house neat and tidy and back to ship-shape.

I love Mondays. The cleanliness brightens up my life.

Well, I hate Mondays for the same reason.

But by about 10:30a.m. when I’ve swept, mopped, vacuumed, and done three loads of laundry, I feel better.

And here I was, beginning another Monday.

Wait. Scratch that. It was Tuesday. Or . . . wait . . . yeah, it was definitely Tuesday because we had gone camping all Labor Day weekend and I had Mount Washmore to tackle in my laundry room. Not only darks, lights, and whites, but towels, sleeping bags, and other camping paraphernalia.

Why is paraphernalia spelled with that ‘R’ there in the middle? Ever wondered that?

Anyway. I digress.

I love digressing.

It brightens up my life too.

So yes, it was indeed a Tuesday, but being that we’d been gone camping for the four preceeding days, I still had all my Monday chores to catch up on. And Mount Washmore was looming. I had a new bottle of Cheer to try out and I was going to put it to the test.

Boy was I ever going to put it to the test.

Because camping? With four boys? In the wild? Where we eat, sleep, play (and yes poop) in the woods? It gets dirty.

Oh so dirty.

This dirt is never more obvious and evident than it is upon our socks. Why is that? It’s not like we walk around camp without shoes on. Shoes go off when entering the tent but back on as soon as one leaves . . . so the whole reason as to why our white socks end up absolutely filthy is beyond me. And that does not brighten up my life.

So I popped open the Cheer, put in the allotted amount, and crossed my fingers. I purposefully did not use bleach because I wanted to see what the Cheer alone would do for my dingy whites.

I am sad to say, my whites came out just as dingy. Boo.

So in rewashing them in the next load, I used my Cheer and some bleach.

And my whites came out just as dingy.

MY GOSH WHAT HAVE WE BEEN CAMPING IN?? TOXIC WASTE?

I then used the Cheer on my colored laundry and towels – and everything came out shipshape. This particular load of white socks may be lost. They may have to be the martyrs of the camping experience, sacrificed to the Cause of Camping Chaos because I’ve tried pretty much everything and those white socks just are not working with me.

WORK WITH ME, SOCKS!

Ok, no worries. We all have more socks. And I can always buy more. (I love the feel of new socks. Don’t you? All snug and comfy, white and pristine. “Cute and clean and perty and bright!” 10 points if you can name that movie/play!) And then I walk outside in them to retrieve the newspaper and all is lost.

*forehead slap*

So now the fun part. I’ve told you some of the simple things that brighten my life – walking around in dingy socks not being one of them -- I’d love to hear what brightens your life and more specifically, how do you brighten the lives of others?

To enter for a bottle of detergent, leave me a comment below and tell me how you brighten the lives of others. Or you may leave a link to your post on your own blog in the comments below. The contest will begin at 9:00 a.m. (PST) October 5, 2009 and will end 5:00 p.m. (PST) November 5, 2009. Make sure that the e-mail address you leave is correct.

Rules:

• No duplicate comments.
• You may receive an additional entry by linking on twitter and leaving a link in the comments.
• You may receive an additional entry by blogging about this contest and leaving a link in the comments.
• This giveaway is open to US Residents, age 18 and older
• Winners of the bottles of detergent will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail.
• You have 48 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected.
• Please see the official rules here.

You have EIGHT chances to win! Go on over to other BlogHer reviewers and check out their giveaway posts as well.

Check out Cheer’s official site for more details on their products or try out their fun instant win game.

Please check out my main blog Life with the Boys.