Code Creations Eco Apparel Website Review

Code Creations is an online fashion website. Sounds simple enough. But when it asked for a paid review of its website it turns out it’s much more.

Firstly, it offers 100% organic cotton t-shirts for adults, kids, babies and, believe it or not, dogs. There’s some other stuff made out of hemp and bamboo too. What makes it different is that its funky designs and funny slogans aren’t its own creations, but rather an online community. Artists from all over the world come up with designs and then vote on their favourites which are them made into t-shirts for sale.

What they sell is limited edition designs which means you’re very unlikely to bump into someone wearing the same thing. Their aim is to make this process fun and exclusive and get people who wouldn’t normally wear eco apparel interested in it through design.

The website makes all this quite clear but it took me a while to work it all out in my head, especially as you can sign up to be in the Code Club which means you get a new t-shirt every month plus three free ones thrown in or you can just treat the site as a regular shop. As a way of appealing to trendy people who update their look all the time, the club is a great idea. For someone like me it’s good to have the option to buy a new t-shirt when I feel like it, which is normally twice a year or something.

You could spend days on this website, even without going on the shop. There’s information on there not only about Code Creations but also about if you’re going shopping for apparel and what to look out for. There are links to videos, information about fundraising, the red team and even tea parties. It’s a bit like a social network, but just for design fans and you can become involved as much as you like. If you want to get out and try and find one of the 50 limited edition t-shirts they’ve hidden in a treasure hunt style around America then you can. Or you can just buy a night shirt.

Registration is free and simple although your application does have to go through a moderator but that literally took a minute. It seems you can actually vote on designs without registering but where’s the fun in that? Submitting a design is a little more complication, with the focus on ‘little’ as the team have made it pretty easy for you to do. You can download templates and do whatever you like. Even for those like me who can’t draw to save their life you can use some of the site’s codes like the t-shirt pictured on the left. Each bird corresponds to a letter which you need to decode through the site (it says “ONCE UPON A MIDNIGHT DREARY” by the way). Or if you have a funny slogan in your head you could just do that.

The Code Creations team approve the designs and put them up onto the site for others to vote on, which is where the fun begins. If the design is popular enough and then sold by the site you’ll receive US$1 per t-shirt sold. But you can also win prizes and other fun stuff too to get people involved.

There seems to be lots and lots of t-shirts on there for around $25 but there’s also stuff for your baby or dog. Which reminds me that 25% of the company’s profits goes to animal rescue organizations.

Reviewing the website is also a bit like reviewing the company itself although I don’t know anything about the quality, delivery times etc etc. Writing this review has left me feeling very impressed and surprised as I didn’t know anything like this was out there. Take a look for yourself at www.code-creations.com. And until 31 December 2008 if you enter AMBER at the checkout you’ll get 15% off your bill.

Green Rewards Website Review

There are lots of sites out there offering cash back or points when you do online shopping – like ipoints, Pigsback and Quidco. As far as I’m aware however, there hasn’t been one that’s specifically focused on being green and rewarding you for your ethical shopping until Green Rewards contacted us for a paid review of its site.

Green Rewards does just that – rewards you for your eco shopping. As the home page tells us: enjoy, shop, earn and redeem. The first thing to note is that while it encourages ethical shopping, it actually has a wide range of partners, not just environmentally friendly or ethical ones. So it’s up to you how to spend your money and earn your points. Partners are displayed in categories like Books, Music & Film or Home & Garden and clicking through will display all the stores in that category and then you go through to that website. If you’re logged in then Green Rewards will track your purchase and reward you with the appropriate amount of points.

Points for purchases vary from store to store and are displayed with the store’s logo before you click through. There’s actually a very good FAQ section that explains everything in much more detail than I can. Basically you spend money and then are rewarded with points in the next 30 days as the purchase gets verified. So far, so much the same as other reward sites, but where Green Rewards differs is that you can only spend the points to do eco shopping in its own Green Shop.

This may seem a limitation but I like the idea. There are things you’ll want to buy that just don’t fit in the green category, why not make those purchases and use the money back (or points in this case) to pay for your green products? The Green Shop has a huge range of products to spend your points on, from eco-friendly table mats to books and games. Each product will cost a different amount of points or offer a split between points and cash. This latter option seems more advisable as it will take a while to earn enough points to get ‘free’ products. For example a CD will earn you 60 points if it’s £10. To buy a £37 Eco Kettle, you need 8,720 points – which is 145 CDs! But for 73 CDs and £21.80 you can buy it as well. That doesn’t really seem much better but it’s not too bad in comparison with other sites I’ve used, the points system just seems to earn you less than if you were getting it in cash.

The idea is that you wouldn’t buy hundreds of CDs but use the site as a portal to do all your online shopping. You’ll soon find yourself building up points and putting it towards purchases, just don’t expect it to happen overnight. There’s no expiry date (as far as I could see) on points so there’s no rush to spend them, just quietly build them up until there’s something you want from the green shop. You can also donate points to charity.

From a usability point of view, the site is clean and nicely laid out, although I found a few of the categories packed full with lots of pages so used the search facility to navigate around to products I wanted.

Signing up is easy, it took less than a minute and you get 500 points for registering. My points balance was prominently displayed on the site and it’s easy to look at your account history.

Overall the site is easy to use and a good idea as a way of getting people to spend their points/cash back in a green way. It just needs to start getting the attention and users other sites get.

The Natural Beauty Store

While people may save water, switch their TVs off at the plug and buy the odd organic floret of broccoli, an area which can get missed is beauty products. At Life Goggles, we’ve reviewed various products and the Natural Beauty Store got in touch and paid for a sponsored review of its site.

www.naturalbeautystore.com is simply a one-stop shop to get your personal care products from. Here, however, the products are made from mostly natural ingredients and a lot are certified organic.

While you can search by brand, if you’re new to this area it’s probably easier to navigate via types of products such as make-up, skin, hair, even pets and, shock, horror, men. And the range within the categories is huge. For example in the skin care category, there are 11 sub-categories like moisturiser, lip care etc and within them there are even more categories. It makes it incredibly easy to choose what you want and the prices compare well to non-organic products.

While there’s not much more to write about the shop itself – it’s like other online shops you’ve been to before, there’s even product of the day and jar of the month – but there’s much more to the site. The store also sells raw ingredients – mainly essential oils but also things like herbs and the bottles and jars to keep your mixture in – to make your creams and toner. Don’t know how? No need to worry, the site includes recipes and ideas for you to help.

What makes the site stand out is the resources on there. The recipes as mentioned above, the news pieces, articles written by experts giving you insight and ideas like how to make a face mask and getting back to basics with your skincare. There’s also a forum on the site, called Message Boards, which is unusual for a shop but fits in with the spirit behind the site really well. While it’s a bit sparse at the moment, I’m sure posts will increase and is a great idea to get like-minded people together.

There’s a host of information on the site and is if you’re thinking of going organic and natural, you could do a lot worse that starting here. Many people may be put off making their own skincare products, but it’s actually really easy and I like how this site mixes selling the raw ingredients with teaching you things. And even if you can’t be bothered making your own, you can but ready-made products that are good for the environment. It’s a win-win situation.

Heroes Episode Guide – Season 2 Chapter 10: Truth & Consequences

WARNING, PLOT SPOILERS!
Another great episode, marred only by Peter being very gullible. Why doesn’t he click that Adam is a bad guy when he unties Victoria? Actually why does she go for the gun as she’s already shot them both and they survived. Maybe she was going for a head shot this time.

Anyway their storyline is quite exciting, unlike Micah, Niki and Monica. No sure what’s been going on there but it’s pretty tedious stuff but maybe it’ll get more exciting now Monica’s been captured – will Niki turn to her bad self to rescue her?

It’s all a bit sad with Claire and the ‘death’ of her dad but is her plan to reveal everything going to get anywhere really? I doubt it. And nice to see Sylar getting some screen time even if he does kill Alejandro. Maya’s a bit like Peter – too trusting.

And Hiro has a bit of a return to form with his time-travelling ways, the flashback to his father (will he be in mooted Heroes: Origins?) was nice and the final confrontation with Peter had me wondering why people don’t just talk a bit more and work out what’s going on?

The next episode is the last for the moment, with the writer’s strike still happening as I write this it may be like a season finale, we shall see…

Heroes Episode Guide – Season 2 Chapter 9: Cautionary Tales

WARNING, PLOT SPOILERS!
After the last episode I thought this was going to be a quieter affair, but nope, more happened than ever. The two stories were on Hiro’s quest to save his father and Mr Bennet’s quest to save his daughter. Hiro’s story is quite nice – who wouldn’t want to save his father? But when he realises his father doesn’t want to be saved, then the journey is all about learning why. And discovering who killed his father – must have been a bit of a shock!

But the main happenings in this episode are all about Claire. Since Adam’s escape, she’s become even more important as we now know her blood can heal others and if she heals enough times she becomes immortal. The discovery of her, her father and West becomes the focal point with Mohinder’s wavering loyalty finally deciding the outcome. Does he not know he’s going to unleash a virus which ravages New York? Peter needs to have a work.

There are some little things which may become important – West and Mr Bennet working together and the seeds of doubt that Mr Bennet plants in Elle – she may be a psycho but she now knows who’s fault it is.

I didn’t actually think Mohinder would shoot Mr Bennet but when he did I knew he wouldn’t be er dead dead. but who saved him – was it the Company with Claire’s blood or maybe it was Peter and Adam starting to save the world? I hope so but it’s probably the Company – but why would they resurrect him? I hope we find out next episode.

Heroes Episode Guide – Season 2 Chapter 8: Four Months Ago…

WARNING, PLOT SPOILERS!
Probably the best episode of the series so far. I always enjoy these sorts of ones – catching up with what’s happening in the intervening months or going into the future. And lots of things are revealed to us through Peter repairing his memory. Firstly the relationship between Peter and Adam isn’t made up. We learn more about the Company, Elle and Bob and what’s been going on since Peter exploded and why Nathan is looking good again. Although Nathan in the present day has been conspicuously absent for some reason.

And then there’s Niki and DL. We find out what happened to DL and why Niki turns to the Company for help. I still don’t know why DL couldn’t have let that bullet go through him but I suppose the death adds poignancy.

And it’s nice to get a bit of background on the twins, while it doesn’t really change things, we learn about their story. And it’s nice to see Sylar again – I’d almost forgotten about him!

While most of the episode is set in the past, Matt Parkman’s story is in the present. He’s still trying to find out what is happening to everyone and uses his developing powers to get his own way. Whether that will lead to further corruption like his father is anyone’s guess. We still don’t know what Angela’s power is but she seems to be able to resist Matt is some small way, not revealing who the woman in the photo is and does she do anything to Heidi? It’s hard to tell.

An enjoyable episode that reveals quite a lot but as usual gives more questions than answers – is Adam actually a good guy who wants to save the world?

Heroes Episode Guide: Season 2 Chapter 7: Out Of Time

WARNING, PLOT SPOILERS!
At last this is what we’ve been waiting for, a more normal episode of Heroes. When I say ‘normal’ I mean one full of intrigue, twists and action. I enjoyed this episode more than any other of the second season.

Maybe it has something to do with Peter going to the future, as I always seem to like those episodes. Or maybe it’s because of Peter. We learn lots about what’s been happening this episode, his storyline starts to tie up with the others. Did the Company make Peter forget and ship him off to Ireland? Why? And then there’s Peter getting back some of his memories – will he try and find his mother in the present or will he try and get back to the future to get Caitlin?

And then there’s the virus. Are Niki and the Company behind the cause of such mass infection and death we see when Peter goes to the future? And is Adam Monroe trying to stop it by killing the other originals? Actually I’ve a hundred questions about Adam which at least shows I’m interested and excited in Heroes again. Okay, so he was Kensei and wronged by Hiro but would he really have carried the grudge for 500 years? How does he know where to find Peter and leave him the note? Has Peter only got some memories back as surely he would remember er not remembering Adam? How come Adam hasn’t aged? If his only power is healing does that mean Claire will never age either? Or has Adam got other powers we don’t know about? Where was Adam locked up and how did he escape? Why does Matt’s dad do as he asks? Which includes making Niki go mad, leading to the release of the virus meaning Adam is the cause of the infection. So many questions, so few episodes left until the writer’s strike leaves us with nothing.

Then there’s Claire, West and her dad which became a little more interesting when West finds out about Mr Bennet, but as The Company seem to know where Claire is and (probably) knew what Mohinder was up to anyway, then does it really matter. And Mohinder seems to be very confused, is he Mr Bennet’s killer as the paintings seem to show or are they unconnected?

And finally as almost an aside to the story in Matt and Molly. Matt saves her and shows he has more powers than he thought. He may have overcome his dad but I’m sure that won’t be for long. Anyway what was nice was the Molly and Matt dynamic and the love between them. After Matt lost/left his pregnant wife he’s looked after Molly and the whole thing kept Heroes rooted to reality and helped the episode greatly.

I haven’t said this in a while, but bring on the next episode.

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