The Lady Vanishes – Vanish Oxi Action, in Action…

 

I’ve been doing some more bzzagenting. This time the product on trial is Vanish Oxi action. I have used Vanish before, normally in bar form, this is the first time I have tried the powder. A couple of weeks ago I found a shirt in the bin, being thrown away due to a curry stain. It had been through the wash once but the stain was still there, but knowing the Vanish was on its way I retrieved it.  The day came to try it out, admittedly not an entirely fair test as the item had been washed so I guess the stain may have ‘set’. The Vanish came with an instruction manual, for curry the advice was to make a paste with the powder and rub it in with the back of the scoop. this is left for a while and then the shirt is washed adding more powder and your normal detergent to the wash.

I may have misinterpreted the add to the wash instruction. I put Vanish and then some of my regular Ecover liquid in the same dispenser. Perhaps I should have added the Vanish to the drum. after the initial soak with the powder paste, things had been looking good. However, once the shirt came out of the wash there was still a stain evident. I didn’t fully appreciate why until I went to do my next wash, the Vanish + Ecover mix had formed a solid lump in the dispenser.

I dried and ironed the shirt, sorry that the lighting conditions were not the same in the final picture. However, the shirt has been declared fit to wear again and I will give it a second go with the Vanish, this time adding the powder to the prewash or to the drum.

I would use the product again. Later in the week I used it to clean cloths that I had used for dyeing the leather sofa and they have come up well, still muddy looking but certainly not mahogany brown.

Stinky Pits? – Vaseline Compressed – Bzz Report

 

I am a Bzz agent... sounds exciting (maybe), well it is quite nice; I get sent free samples of stuff to try and the condition is that I let people know what I think of the products. The current gig is Vaseline’s new compact deodorant. So here’s the Bzz from Unilever ….

• Lasts just as long with less packaging
• Delivers even better protection than your old Vaseline can
• Perfect size for your handbag
• More environmentally friendly – it’s easy being green!

My view:

– well yes you can see from the pic above it’s smaller than your average deodorant aerosol – that green thing is a standard coffee coaster, made from an old circuit board.  I can only assume that it does use less packaging and propellant gas – smart move on their part as well as being less environmentally damaging I assume the lower price of materials will cover the development costs over time.

– I don’t normally use Vaseline, or Sure or any other aerosol. I’m normally a roll-on person and my preference is actually for PitROK or a similar neutral product.  So I can’t qualify if it offers better protection than other cans. I do know it smells more.  I’m not used to smelling of deodorant and the fact the smell is there hours later when you get hot again is unusual.

– Yes I agree it’s small, not as small as a roll-on. The Bzz guide suggests you leave it out for people to notice when you are at the gym etc. I tried – can’t say anyone was bothered to be honest and I will keep doing so while the product lasts (I have two free samples). However, my general thought is that aerosols are antisocial beasts, the whole changing room does not want to share your spray. Whilst it is fairly ‘targeted’ in action it still spreads a smell a lot further than a roll-on would.

– More environmentally friendly? Discuss. I had an interesting twitter chat with someone when I mentioned the product. They said they would never use a Vaseline product. I assumed it was a Unilever/big corporate issue. But no, they assumed it had petroleum jelly in it. So I took a look at the product list for it and PitROK – Here is my compare and contrast….

 

 

Vaseline	PitROK
	Water
Butane
Isobutane
Propane
Cyclopentasiloxane
Aluminium chlorate	Ammonium Alum
Parfum	Parfum
Disteardimonium Hectorite
BHT
Propylene Carbonate
Cholesterol
Tocopherol
Helianthus Annus Seed Oil	Citrus grandis (grapefruit) seed extract
Lecithin Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice	Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice
	Hydroxyethylcellulose
Citric Acid
Maltodextrin
Potassium Sorbate	Potassium Sorbate
Sodium Benzoate	Sodium Benzoate
Alpha-Isomethyl Ionone	Polysorbate 20
Amyl Cinnamal	3-diol
Benzyl Benzoate	2-bromo-2-nitropropane-1
Benzyl Sallicylate	Phenoxyethanol
Citronellol	Citronellol
Geraniol
Limonene	Limonene
Linalool	Linalool
	Hydroxymethylpentylcyclohexene carboxaldehyde

 

I’ve done my best to line up similar ingredients but it’s not easy. I checked both products’ websites, both a bit vague – Vaseline refer to “Pro derma” – Hmm, what is that and what the heck are the rest for?  I can see that some are propellants and I get that ‘The Law’ says that the perfumes even natural oils have to have their chemical names but it would be great if the websites said something like “Limonene – extracted from lemons, used for fragrance ——- if that’s the case; or Butane – propellant” etc. I would love the companies to add their ‘What the chemicals do’ comments.

Will I use Vaseline compact after the trial samples are used up?  Unlikely, unless I think I’m going somewhere where I’ll get very hot and don’t care if people can smell my perfume over the smell of the deodorant; plus I’m unconvinced by the ecology argument – better than a big spray possibly but not better than a roll-on.

Unilever are now advertising several compact deodorants on the TV – what do you think?