A Product Review

I have never done an actual product review on here. I  have gushed over things, like Dutch Letters. I have lamented over having to use certain products, like hair dyes. I don't think I've ever done an actual product review.

This is one one instance that I will. I feel very strongly about it, not in a good way though.

I read a story online from CNN that
a little toddler ate one of these because
they look like candy. He died. My guess is
they do not add Bitrix to these the way they do
other harmful substances. Bitrix makes things taste very
bitter so a child or animal that tries to eat them
will spit them out.

I had run out of laundry detergent and asked Willie to pick some up at work. Instead of the normal liquid Tide that we usually use, he brought home the new Tide Pods. We read the instructions. You just through one or two, depending on the size of your load, in the washer tub and turn it on. Easy, I thought to myself. Why I need an easier way to use Tide, I couldn't really figure out, but as long as it isn't harder, I'm down with it.

The first load came out fine. Great actually. They seemed bright and clean and smelled great. I was very happy with the product.

Then I washed a load of Dad's clothes. He has special socks he wears over his stump for his prosthetic leg. One of them came out of the drier with a sticky purple goo on it. The sock had stuck to itself. I pulled it apart and showed it to Willie.

We read the instructions again.  We thought maybe I had done something wrong. It said the pod dissolves in any water temperature. It said to make sure to handle the pods with dry hands. I was pretty sure I had, but I quite often do dishes while loading the clothes washer, so maybe that was what I did.

I threw the sock in with another load of Dad's clothes. I was very careful to use dry hands to handle the pod. Everything came out fine, and the sock came out clean. Well, ok then, I thought to myself. I must not have had dry hands.

The next day I was doing another load of Dad's laundry. (I have to do his laundry every day.) I folded it up and put it away.

Dad went to put on a ted hose sock on his good foot. It was all glued together. This time I couldn't pull it apart. It was hard and stuck but good. I soaked it in hot water, it still stayed stuck I soaked it longer.

That was also the day of the great box elder bug hunt. At one point I had run out of dish soap and started throwing these pods in the water I was boiling with borax. I had read that laundry detergent worked as well as dish soap. I wasn't done killing box elder bugs.

Even in the boiling water, part of the outer shell of the pods still did not dissolve. Hmmm, my culprit! At that point I was much more concerned about killing box elder bugs, than worrying about the laundry. Though, I did note, that none of the four or five pods I used dissolved completely. Not even when the water was so hot that it boiled over, all over the kitchen.

While I was killing the evil nemesis, I had another load of laundry going. I pulled the laundry out and looked for the glued sock, so I wouldn't put it in the drier. It still had the purple goo on it. It was softer, but sticky and soaking it did not remove it. I had to scrape it off the sock, not easy to do either. Once I got the visible goo off, I soaked it in dish soap and hot water. Then washed it again. Somehow, these "easy, convenient" little pods had become anything but!

see the purple?

 I checked the laundry as it came out of the drier. It all looked fine. I folded it and put it away. That night I changed the pants on Dad's leg when he went to bed.

The next morning Dad showed me his pant leg. It was glued, to itself. I tried to pull it apart. It was stuck even worse than the socks were. I couldn't even pry it apart a little.

I took the jeans into the bathroom. I ran some hot water on them. It was like super glue had been spilled on them. I thought, super glue.... acetone! I grabbed my fingernail polish remover. I poured it on the jeans. I started trying to pull it apart. Nothing. I poured some more on. I walked away. I was hoping letting it soak in would help.

It did a little. I had to work very hard to pull the crease apart, but I got it. There was a very hard crust still on the pants though. I poured more acetone on it. I got a little more scraped off. I threw them in the washer. This time I used regular liquid detergent that I had gone to get at the store. I pulled the jeans out of the washer. They had re-stuck on themselves. It was gooey though and I was able to pull it back apart. I then scraped as much of the goo off as I could, and washed them AGAIN!

Finally they came out clean. At least they weren't ruined. They sure wasted a lot of my time. And since I won't use them again, my money. I guess the rest of them will become box elder bug killer.