About six weeks back, I sat in the E.R. waiting room trying with limited success to read through my emails. I was waiting to see a second doctor about the concussion I had managed to give myself a handful of days previous. I had no kids on hand, free wifi and a tablet, but I was having a heck of a time focusing. So mainly I scrolled through my email, rereading the same stuff with a complete lack of focus, deleting some spam, hoping to God that what I had just deleted really was spam. I scrolled down and noticed an email inviting me to an event in Toronto. I get invites to press events in Toronto pretty regularly and turn down each one as its never worth trying to arrange daycare and travel. But this was different. This was a full day event with Procter & Gamble… And was I interested in being a brand ambassador, a P&G Mom? I immediately handed the tablet over to my husband and showed him the email. What did he think? I was already planning to leave town for ShesConnected. Was I crazy to be considering going to this?
Two days later I was still not quite myself yet, but I carefully composed my response and had my hubby read it over. Despite the fact that I was taking some time away from online while my brain healed up, I knew this was one email I had to reply to immediately. Did I want to be a P&G mom ambassador? Heck yes. Why was I so eager to take part? Well, it wasn’t because of the fancy hotel stay, because that wasn’t in the works yet. It was the words Tide and Pampers. These are brands that I use every day and have for years. I was excited at the chance to work with and represent brands that I already have brand loyalty for. You have to understand that I get pitched all the time by companies big and small and I turn more then half of them down. For me, I chose to only help promote products I actually believe in.
I am, I think, a pretty average mom. I make some green choices and some not so green ones. I am big on recycling, and I give my friends heck when I catch them trying to throw out something that should instead be in a red or blue bin. I use mainly natural cleaners, and I’m a big believer of the magical power of vinegar. But you know what gets the crayon off my walls? Mr. Clean Magic Erasers. And while I’m a huge breast feeding advocate and I loved wearing my babes in a sling when they were younger, I don’t do cloth diapering, which has garnered me a fair amount of flack from the natural parenting set, but it is what it is. I use disposable diapers, in specific I use Pampers.
When writing a blog it’s easy to choose what to present to the world. I could only write about the good, clean, perfect parts of my life. The days when I feel like I’ve got this mom thing down pat. When my kids and I are playing with home-made playdough, and colouring the ABC pages I found online and printed out. And the house is clean. And I just made an awesome dinner from scratch. (All true things, but never on the same day, ha!) But I always try and be honest with you guys. I could chose to only write about the amazing green choices I make, or I could be honest and tell you about what I really use on a day to day basis. I could only write about the new interesting products I just tried out, or I could tell you about the products in my home that I’ve been using everyday for twenty years. (And if that makes it sound like I think using P&G products is an act against the environment, then you’re reading it wrong. P&G is big on sustainability, which is a big part of why I use their products and one of the reasons I’m proud to represent them.)
Procter & Gamble make over forty different big brand name products. Some of which I didn’t even realize were made by them. Check out this list:
Aussie
Gillette
L’Image
Old Spice
Venus
Braun
Head & Shoulders
Natural Instincts
Pantene
Clairol
Herbal Essences
Nice ‘n Easy
Perfect 10
Cover Girl
Ivory
Olay
Secret
Always
Clearblue
Metamucil
Tampax
Oral-B
Vicks
Crest
Pepto Bismal
Fixodent
Scope
Bounce
Bounty
Cascade
Charmin
Cheer
Dawn
Downy
Duracell
Febreze
Gain
Mr. Clean
Pampers
Puffs
Swiffer
Tide
Iams
Eukanuba
and more.
I absolutely love Gillette, Old Spice, Braun, Head & Shoulders, Secret, Always, Vicks, Cascade, Duracell, Pampers, Swiffer, Tide and Iams. These are brands that my family uses every day, that I go out of my way to purchase just that one brand, have an incredible brand loyalty for, and am proud to help represent. There are many other brands on that list that I also like and use, but those are my favourites.
And they are giving us P&G Moms a lot of leeway as to which ones we want to represent. As a P&G Mom we’re being encouraged to write about whichever products and promotions we feel fit our lifestyles and our blogs. For example I used Bounce for years, and if my husband had his dithers we’d still be using it, but a while back I swapped over to dryer balls instead of fabric softener so you’re unlikely to find me talking about how awesome Bounce sheets are (though I will admit, I sort of miss the smell, which is something I grew up with). And I wear make-up approximately never, so if you ever find me blogging about Cover Girl you will know I’ve been carted off and replaced by the pod people.
So am I a P&G Mom? Absolutely! And I bet many of you are P&G moms too. Like MANY other moms, my own included, I’ve always been a P&G Mom. And now, I’m honoured to be working with them over the next year and sharing some of their information and some of my experiences with using their products with you.
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