Reports by Consumers

This consumer reports on Amazon's money-saving grocery subscription service.

Amazon.com has a promotion which allows you save 15% off your order and free shipping when you sign up for a subscription ordering service. This is for certain grocery and personal products. The idea is that products that you use very often like laundry detergent, coffee, or baby care will automatically be ordered and shipped to you for your convenience and at a discounted price.

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Read more from this blogger: Amazon.com Grocery Subscription - Save 15% Off Plus Free Shipping

This consumer reports on a little different take on personal products over at Walgreens.

On Walgreens website, when you click the on the category "Personal Products" it gives you a list of sub-categories along with items found there...

Under the Intimacy sub-category we find....
Condoms
Dietary Supplements for Sexual Wellness
Female Contraceptives
Frostings & Whipped Cream...

Read the whole thing.

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Read more from this blogger: Those crazy people at Walgreens...

Consumers who want to avoid specific chemicals or even specific foods like wheat can have a hard time figuring out how to exclude them. Check this report:

A heated discussion amongst the audience and the panelists arose surrounding the replacement for parabens in personal products. If you are not familiar with parabens, they are a synthetic chemical that cosmetic and food companies use to preserve the shelf life of their products. Recently parabens have been linked to breast cancer. New studies are demonstrating that whole parabens can be found intact in breast tissue and are an endocrine disruptor, which is a scary thought. Synthetic chemicals such as parabens like fat and collect in fatty tissue,...

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Read more from this blogger: My Search for the Paraben Replacement

This consumer reports on how the government regulates (or, perhaps, doesn't regulate) skin care:

There are many personal care products that carry the organic label and claim they are “all natural and organic” but they are not chemical free. How can a product make this claim and contain synthetic chemicals? The government does not require the cosmetic industry to test the chemicals they put in their products for safety. Additionally the cosmetic companies are not monitored by the government thus allowing questionable synthetic chemicals to find their way into personal products.

Yet the question remains, does the government take into consideration repetitive, long term, exposure to these chemicals on a recurring daily basis? Scientists are now finding that the human body stores many of these synthetic chemicals for life and can not eliminate them. The skin is the largest organ of the human body and what you put on it is absorbed into the human blood stream. Just as you carefully pick organic fruits and vegetables, one should carefully consider the personal products you put on your skin and in your hair.

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Read more from this blogger: My Skin Care Quest for Pure, Organic Skin Care

This consumer reports on the structural problems in U.S. health care that need to be fixed.

Unfortunately I don't have a "quick" fix for our health care situation. However there are in my view, two main structural problems with health care today, setting aside all issues of medial ethics for the nonce. The first is that the incentives of the current system are all structured wrong. Cost incentives are insulated away the consumer. For the insurance company it is only in the short term interest for them to keep costs down. Long term, for them the higer the costs, the better.

The second problem structural problem is rooted in our limited resources. We have far more capability in our medical technology than we can provide for each patient. Therefore we must ration our care. How? By lot? Or by ability to pay? But how we ration that care is studiously ignored by our politicians and most of our pundits.

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Read more from this blogger: Pseudo-Polymath: One Reason Why Health Care Ain't Getting Fixed Soon

This consumer reports on how much a trip to the dentist's office has changed with new technology.

The words "See your dentist" have traditionally struck terror into many hearts. But it's not so bad anymore.

Modern technology has redefined the dentist's office from the ground up, Shapira said. "Everyone's trying to re-invent the wheel."

For example, you can now use a new electric toothbrush that incorporates a toothpaste receptacle. Touch a button to squirt your dollop of toothpaste onto the brush.

You can relax - really - in the dentist's chair now. It's been ...

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Read more from this blogger: adventures in obscurity: Computer dentist

If you attend the Oscars, you get a whole pile of goodies. Nothing any of our consumer reporters has rated, but things that will make you instantly trendy and star-like.

girlhacker has tossed together her yearly list of all the stuff celebs are going to be scooping up at the Academy Awards, and as usual, the people who can best afford to pay full price for stuff are getting a bunch of freebies. Here are all the slick new gadgets they’re getting:

* A year free year of VoIP phone service from Vonage.
* The black version of Motorola’s RAZR V3.
* An iXi collapsible bike.
* A Dyson DC11 vacuum.
* Sprint is offering some unreleased “multimedia” phone from Samsung, maybe the SCH-5600?
* A Krups kitchen set that includes a toaster and an electric kettle.

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Read more from this blogger: All the free gadgets celebs are going to score at this year’s Oscars - Engadget - www.engadget.com

Many people have to take prescription drugs throughout the day. This article talks about a simple SMS application that would send a reminder to your cell phone every time you needed a Paxil or a Vioxx (are you still taking that?). You can set that up yourself if you know how to program a computer by sending email reminders to your phone. Maybe the service will be available online someday soon.

The Growth of SMS Text Messages Capacity for Learning: Outside of the U.S., SMS is a highly and widely used feature of mobile phones. People can use their phones as network devices to be notified of restaurant reservations, pharmaceutical reminders, just in time content notifications and other elements. Watch for SMS to extend to a wider set of self-service transactions for workers and consumers. Hopefully, the U.S. will catch up.

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Read more from this blogger: Hans on Experience: Report from CES – Smaller, Faster, Cheaper, Brighter & Mobile

A consumer writes about a condom company that Consumer Reports missed in its review of condoms and contraceptives.

Hey, quick, where can you find condoms in 55 different sizes? No, not at John Wayne Bobbit's house. The Condom Mania prophylactic company has a unique concern with getting the "perfect fit". They provide a Condom Wizard to walk you through various preferences like Sensitivity, Texture, Non-Lubricated, Extra Strength, Size, Flavor, Non-Latex, With Applicator, and Desensitizing. What? No Menthol? Anyway, the best/worst part of this is that they actually have a Fit-Kit that you download, print, then use to ...

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Read more from this blogger: BLACKFIVE: Not Consumer Reports (or Blackfive) Verified