Happy Holidays from TIB!

Good News – We at The Impulsive Buy would like to wish all our readers either a Merry Christmas, belated Happy Hanukkah, or early Kwanzaa. We hope your holidays are spent with good friends, good food, and good fun.

Bad News – We at The Impulsive Buy will be taking a break until January 2nd, but when January 2nd rolls around, you will be greeted with the opportunity to vote for something that will possibly cause me great pain.

No, it does not involve me standing in a bucket water with alligator clips attached to my nipples on the front end and connected to a car battery on the other end.

But until then, enjoy your holidays and if you need a product review fix, check out the right hand column and take a look at the many other product review blogs I enjoy reading.

Happy Holidays!

Marvo

REVIEW: Oscar Mayer Deli Creations Steakhouse Cheddar

Is the holiday season getting you down? Are you shopping for people based on how much you can stand them instead of considering their interests? Did you find your date for that Christmas party by posting an ad on Craigslist? Did you slip her a $50 so that she would pretend that she met you when you were volunteering at a children’s hospital?

Well, join the club.

It has indeed been a hectic season for me. Money earned at regular jobs has gone into the pockets of corporate America. Money earned working odd jobs has gone into the hands of the dealer on the street corner. I can’t even walk by a Spencer Gifts without lamenting that I can’t afford gag presents. When you can’t afford fake things, it’s probably time to start over.

Instead of feeling down, I decided to treat myself by trying something new at the supermarket. You can say that I am merely eating my emotions, but this isn’t the season for judging. I saw this box of Oscar Mayer Deli Creations tempting me with its promise of being “hot and melty.” It was rather expensive for being less than half a pound, $3.50, but I figured that I was already broke so I might as well hit rock bottom before clawing my way back up.

When I got home, it really did feel like opening a Christmas package. It had all types of goodies, coming with “steakhouse roast beef,” a long slice of real cheese, sauce, mayonnaise, and a roll. Most of this stuff is dirt cheap by itself, but it seems rather impressive when it’s bunched up like this. I’m not sure why I would need two condiments, but I appreciate the choice. I assembled the sandwich and put it on its special microwavable tray. Less than a minute later, it was indeed hot and melty.

It sure looked good enough, if not a little thin, but I was not very impressed with the taste. This roast beef is as close to real roast beef as Arby’s is, which should disturb you if you’ve ever eaten at Arby’s and wondered how they managed to get ham from a cow. It’s not quite that salty, but it’s still not close to resembling whatever I’ve eaten at a real steakhouse or barbecue joint. The “steakhouse” sauce is even eerily reminiscent of Arby’s sauce, a tangy, yet smokey mix of tomato and vinegar. I also found out that I prefer fake pasteurized cheese to real cheese, as the flavor of the sharp cheddar is a bit overwhelming. I think I can blame that on my corrupted sense of taste, though.

Individually, each ingredient isn’t worth very much. The meat could be found in packages for about 80 cents, the bread is worth about a quarter, the cheese is about 10 cents, and the mayonnaise and sauce are free at most fast food places. $3.50 is way too much to pay for this, even if it were an awesome sandwich. My advice is: buy each ingredient individually or just go to the local sub shop for a sandwich. Also, steal as many condiment packages as you can. You may feel bad, but it’s the only way to save some money so you can buy some fake gifts for the people you tolerate.

(Nutritional Facts – 1 package – 460 calories, 16 grams of fat, 6 grams of saturated fat, 0.5 grams of trans fat, 60 mg of cholesterol, 1410mg sodium, 51 grams of carbs, 3 grams of dietary fiber, 13 grams of sugar, 29 grams of protein, 6% Vitamin A, 2% Vitamin C, 20% Calcium, and 25% Iron)

(Editor’s Note: Abi at HER (aka Heat Eat Review) reviewed the Honey Ham and Swiss version of the Oscar Mayer Deli Creations.)

Item: Oscar Meyer Deli Creations Steakhouse Cheddar
Price: $3.50
Purchased at: Albertsons
Rating: 4 out of 10
Pros: Comes packaged in a fancy box with each item individually sealed. Comes out hot and melty from the microwave. Choice of two condiments.
Cons: Tastes like it came from Arby’s. Not very big or filling. Pretty pricey for what you get. Not being able to afford fake gifts.

Every Man Jack Citrus Scrub Body Wash

I’d like to think I’m an every man. Just your typical Y chromosome.

HIGH FIVE!

Like most guys, I love watching sports. Whenever my favorite sport, figure skating, is on, I get all crazy over that shit. Whenever my boyz come over to watch a competition, we all represent by putting on tight sequin jumpsuits with a sock in the crotch. Some of our suits have tassels, while others have lace. We each have a different favorite professional skater, so the color of the sequins on our suits depend on which country the athlete is from.

Things can get pretty rowdy when we’re watching them compete, like whenever my boy Stephane Lambiel pulls out a triple triple-double, I start to talk trash and do my bad ass victory dance, which consists of jazz hands, pirouettes, and an “In yo’ face!”

NON-SEXUAL PAT ON THE ASS!

I’m a man’s man, man. Even the things I own are items that an every man has.

What man doesn’t enjoy the softness of 1000 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets and an 800 thread count down feather comforter with images of bamboo stalks on them? I love the way it feels on my skin when I sleep every night in just my birthday suit and a gel sleep mask, like all manly men do.

Also, I have what every every man has, an array of candles. I’ve got candles for each of the seasons, candles for different moods, and candles that really help me get in touch with my masculine side. Sometimes when I’m feeling really manly, I’ll make my own candles. I’ve been experimenting with scents and I’ve come up with some manly scents, like rose lemon zest and ivory green tea potpourri.

FIST PUMP!

Since I’m an every man, I knew I had to try the Every Man Jack Citrus Scrub Body Wash. As you can see in the picture above, it comes in an unusually shaped bottle, which reminded me of something manly, but I couldn’t quite figure it out at first. However, when I took it into the shower with me and turned it sideways, I quickly figured out what manly thing it was, which you can see below.

The body wash inside the cock and ballsack-shaped bottle pleasantly tickled my olfactory sense. The really nice citrus scent was sweet and orangey, which I felt was a nice unisex fragrance that both men and women could use, much like the mid-1990s over-hyped scent, cK one. It lathered up nicely and washed away cleanly.

According to the bottle, the Every Man Jack Citrus Scrub Body Wash consists of coconut-derived surfactants to cleanse, polyethylene beads to scrub away dry and dead skin, and citrus oils of mandarin orange and lemon to refresh. What this body wash doesn’t contain is sodium lauryl sulfate, dyes, and paraben, which I think is good for those of you with really sensitive skin, but if you were a man’s man, you might want to see a dermatologist for that.

CHEST BUMP!

Item: Every Man Jack Citrus Scrub Body Wash
Price: $4.99 (12 ounces)
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: Great citrus smell. Unisex scent. Scrubby. Never tested on animals. Sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS) free. Dye free. Paraben free. Candles. Figure skating. 1000 thread count Egyptian sheets. HIGH FIVE!
Cons: Not available at many retailers. The bottle turned sideways looks like cock and balls. Being a dude and wearing the same fragrance as your female college chemistry lab partner.

Tooth Tunes Hilary Duff Toothbrush

Those moments when I use the Hilary Duff Tooth Tunes toothbrush to clean my choppers are the only times you will ever hear Hilary Duff lyrics come out of my mouth, unless you get me drunk enough at a karaoke bar, but if you get me that drunk, I would pretty much do anything.

Technically, I am not singing the lyrics. The music is coming out of the brush’s head, which plays a two minute clip to encourage the target audience tweens to brush. The particular Hilary Duff song I got the pleasure of listening to every morning and night until the non-replaceable battery dies or until I go batshit insane from bad music and break it in half is called “Wake Up,” which is appropriate in the mornings, but not so much at night, unless you work the graveyard shift somewhere or you’re a prostitute with good oral hygiene.

I had choices when deciding which Tooth Tunes I wanted, but trying to come up with the right song was like trying to choose which type of burning sensation I wanted on my genitals. Actually, I didn’t really know any of the other “artists,” like Corbin Bleu, Jesse McCartney, and Ashley Tisdale. There was a limited selection at the Target I went to and the only names I recognized were Hilary Duff and Vanessa Hudgens, and I only knew Hudgens because there’s a nude picture of her floating around the internet.

After you press the button on the handle to start up the music that little girls love and record executives hope never gets old because it brings in a lot of money, the music plays only when pressure is applied to the bristles. When there isn’t any pressure, the music stops. So in order to hear the full two minutes of the song clip, which for this brush, turned out to be about two minutes twenty seconds, the young users need to be brushing their teeth…or if they’re smart, pull the brush head back with their fingers.

The sound was tinny, just as I expected. After all, it is a disposable toothbrush (Listen to me brush with Tooth Tunes). It was like I was listening to a really bad AM radio station in my mouth.

Because the speaker is in the brush’s head, one way to amplify the music is by opening your mouth while you brush, but if you have saliva glands as active as mine, that is not an option. The best way I found to improve the brush head’s sound is to bite on it, which obviously makes it really hard to brush.

To stick the speaker in the brush’s head, they had to make it fatter, but doing so made it hard for me to reach the outside of my back molars. I have the mouth of an adult, but the mind of a child, so I think the Tooth Tunes’ fat head would probably cause difficulty with those who have both the mouth and mind of a child.

On the packaging, a Dr. Ed McLaren, D.D.S. from the UCLA School of Dentistry says, “I personally use Tooth Tunes because it’s the only toothbrush I’ve seen that makes you really want to brush for 2 minutes. Plus, it encourages better brushing: If you brush well, you get great sound! Tooth Tunes is the best new product in oral care that I have seen in years.”

I call bullshit.

If you’re a dentist, I don’t think shitty pop music should be motivation for you to brush for two minutes. If you’re a dentist, I think the embarrassment of being a dentist with cavities should make you really want to brush for two minutes.

Overall, I think Tooth Tunes is a good concept to trick motivate children to brush for longer than they do, unless your child has good taste in music. Although paying ten dollars every three months for a new one isn’t so attractive. Also, if children listen to the song twice a day (or three times a day for you anal parents), they might get bored of it pretty quickly.

I have no children, but if I did, I personally would ridicule them into brushing by calling them “stinky mouth” and telling all their friends, relatives, and teachers to also call them “stinky mouth” until they start brushing properly.

I can’t wait to be a parent.

Item: Tooth Tunes Hilary Duff Toothbrush
Price: $9.89
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: Good concept to trick motivate children to brush. Gets my teeth mostly clean. My future parenting skillz.
Cons: Hilary Duff. Can’t swap songs. Hard to brush the back teeth with its fat head. Sound was tinny. Non-replaceable batteries. Non-replaceable brush head. My overactive saliva glands. Dentists who openly admit that they use Tooth Tunes. Not ever getting back the two minutes spent listening to me brush my teeth.

Cherry Cassis Kombucha Wonder Drink

I believe I have found something worse than coal that Santa can give out to the naughty kids for Christmas this year.

If jolly St. Nick wants to be pissed off St. Dick and punish all the little shits around the world, he should stick the Cherry Cassis Kombucha Wonder Drink in their stockings because it is probably one of the most vile beverages I have ever put between my lips and down my gullet.

It’s like they took the essence of the 2 Girls 1 Cup video, strained it into liquid form, added a little carbonation, and sealed it in an aluminum can, because much like the 2 Girls 1 Cup video, this beverage made me cry, grimace, and shout out loud, “DAMN, THAT’S FUCKING NASTY!”

(Editor’s Note: If you don’t know what 2 Girls 1 Cup is, it is VERY NSFW (Insert Fark bill here). It is so horribly disgusting that I am not even going to provide a link for it. It is one of the most repulsive things I have ever seen…a couple dozen times.)

The best way I can describe the taste of the Cherry Cassis Kombucha Wonder Drink is to say that its tart chemical flavor was like drinking a photo darkroom. Its ingredients consisted of water, organic kombucha concentrate, organic green tea, organic cane juice, black currant (cassis) juice concentrate, cherry juice concentrate, and carbonation. The cherry and the cassis give it a tartness, the green tea gives it antioxidants, while the kombucha gives it a shitiness.

In the context of the ingredients list, kombucha seems like it is a fruit with a funny name, like a jaboticaba, but it is actually a symbiosis of bacteria and yeast. Doesn’t that just roll down your tongue, then down your throat, and then back up your throat? Yummy!

According to the can, kombucha is supposed to detoxify, energize, help strengthen the immune system, aid digestion, and regulate appetite. The only effect I could notice was my lack of appetite, thanks to it making me a little nauseous. Even reading the Wikipedia page about kombucha made me slightly queasy.

With its unusual name and natural origins, it is something I expect hippies and Madonna to be into, but I could not get into it, despite forcing myself to drink half of the can. “I’m sure it is an acquire taste,” I said to myself, but every sip I took felt like what I imagine it is like being Lucifer’s urinal.

Sure, the Cherry Cassis Kombucha Wonder Drink contains all-natural ingredients and is good for you, but I’m pretty certain that someone who drinks their own urine would find this particular Wonder Drink disgusting.

If the Cherry Cassis Kombucha Wonder Drink can make me cry and wince, imagine all the pain and suffering it could cause with all the rotten children out there, perhaps setting them straight. It could help decrease teen pregnancy, lower drug use, increase test scores, and open their eyes to how lame Heelys are.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 can – 80 calories, 0 grams of fat, 0 milligrams of sodium, 18 grams of carbohydrates, 17 grams of sugar, 0 grams of protein, and 100 grams of holy-shit-what-the-fuck-is-this!)

Item: Cherry Cassis Kombucha Wonder Drink
Price: $1.99 (12 ounces)
Purchased at: Uwajimaya
Rating: 1 out of 5
Pros: 100% natural. Partially organic. Contains green tea and antioxidants. Kombucha is a funny word to say. Those on the nice list.
Cons: Being Lucifer’s urinal. 2 Girls 1 Cup. Not a source of vitamins and minerals. 2 Girls 1 Cup. It tastes like a photo darkroom. 2 Girls 1 Cup. I am not man enough to drink an entire can. 2 Girls 1 Cup. Heelys. 2 Girls 1 Cup. Those on the naughty list.