Butterviews

The Equation:
When I came home from working full time outside the home, I had several interests I wanted to explore with my new-found time (ha.) One of those things was seriously preparing for emergencies. I have a family of four, plus my parents next door make six. The two kids both have special needs, and my parents are elderly and my mom is in very frail health. Between us, we have two homes and their properties to maintain, and 5 running vehicles. In this time of economic crises, both personally (my parents are on a fixed income, and my husband is laid off) and nationally, proven terrorist activity, not to mention natural disasters (we live in wildfire and earthquake country) – I wanted to put together a plan that is more concrete than “3 days of water per person on hand.” That is truly the extent of my emergency preparedness. But if you’ve ever researched preparedness and survival in any depth – you know how daunting and overwhelming it truly is. I’m still stuck, kind of not knowing where to turn first.

When the publishers of Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life
by Neil Strauss contacted me (about several books actually) I jumped at the chance to read this one, and told them to go ahead and send it. When I read up a little bit on the author – I was a little leery. Author of The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists, I wasn’t looking forward to a serious take.

PLUS:
This book is chock full of information from a first person account. It makes you think. It really takes you on the author’s journey to KNOW what to do in emergency – to have the supplies, life skills, and experience to survive when it comes right down to it. It was absolutely fascinating to experience it vicariously.

MINUS:
I was looking forward to more “this is what you do” information. This isn’t exactly what I was looking for in terms of resources.

EQUALS:
A neutral/positive review. One the one hand – it’s a GREAT book. I really enjoyed it, and I couldn’t put it down. Mr. Strauss is a gifted writer who really pulls you into the journey. But it’s touted a bit as a resource guide, and this isn’t it. So really, it drops down to neutral from positive – probably because of marketing reasons. It’s marketed wrong. I highly recommend the book, especially if you have any interest in the survival community. And while it’s NOT a resource book, it certainly got me to thinking and doing a lot of research on my own, which I think is an incredibly positive effect.

Equation:  Skin MD Natural contacted me to try out and review their product.  I was happy to.  I currently work in an industry in which my hands are perpetually dry, as I touch paper all day.  It just sucks the moisture right out.  It’s touted for face, hands, and body, however, I only used it on my hands – leaving it on my desk at work for needed applications over time.

According to their website:

Skin MD Natural™ utilizes the finest effective natural skin care ingredients for dry skin treatment along with the latest advances in dry skin care technology to hydrate and protect the skin.

This is an entirely new concept in skin care requiring a new classification: “Shielding Lotion”. A shielding lotion keeps moisture-robbing irritants away from the skin while the proprietary “super” humectants hydrate the skin throughout the day.

An accumulated effect of Skin MD Natural is fully realized after only a few days of daily use. Depending on how dry your skin is the first few days may require reapplications after only a few hours. Usually, after a few days of continuous use, only one or two daily applications are necessary for complete dry skin care.

Plus:  It definitely worked.  My hands weren’t itchy anymore, and the effect lasted throughout the day.  It did exactly what it was meant to do.

Minus:  Because of the “sheilding” part of the product, the insides of my hands had the shield as well.  That felt weird, and a little like my hands were dirty.  That was a definite turnoff for me.

Equals:  I’ve decided to give this one a neutral review.   On the one hand (ha!  a pun!) it worked great for the dry tops of my hands.  On the other…  I couldn’t stand that feeling on the inside of my hands.  Then again – the bottle is still on my desk at work, so I can’t say “negative review.”  This ones going into the neutral pile.  Because it was only the inside of my hands I had issue with (the part that touches stuff) I wonder if there would be any problems anywhere else.  I’m guessing not since you’re not going to be picking stuff up with your legs or face.  At least I hope not.

I was shipped one full Cascade Complete and one full Electrasol Advanced liquid dishwasher detergent, and asked to complete a comparison test.

Because this is a comparison, I won’t do my usual equation form of review.

Basically, this gave me an opportunity. You see, my dishes have been coming out of the dishwasher scuzzy with soap residue. That white stuff, that I’m never sure is soap or hardwater stains? So – since my usual dishwasher soap is called, “whatever’s on sale that I have a coupon for,” I thought this would be a great chance to pay attention. Is it the soap? Or is it my dishwasher?

I needed to clean up the kitchen. While I did so, rinsing dishes, wiping counters, etc, I separated the dishes into two loads, fairly similar in size. I put the first load through with the Cascade, and the second through with the Electrasol.

So. The verdict? I hate to be so blah about the whole thing… but I did NOT notice a difference between the two. Seriously. AND I had the same soap scummy stuff on it – which tells me it’s my dishwasher.

Since I cannot give you a definitive “Buy This One!”, I checked out the prices, thinking I could give you a better price! Because I’m nice that way! But I CANNOT. The prices (at vons.com for today anyway) were exactly the same, same size, and price per ounce.

What this comes down to, I think, is personal preference.

On this review, I was shipped the full contents free of charge, however, no monetary compensation was received.