Product Review: Play-Doh - Sweet Shoppe Twirl 'n Twister

The pic above almost says it all, doesn't it? Well, I guess I'm done here...just kidding! Well Riley was lucky enough to get the "Play-Doh - Sweet Shoppe Twirl 'n Twister" this year from her awesome Aunt an Uncle for Christmas and I must admit I was a little leery. We've just had so many bad experiences with products of this nature being a total bomb, so going into it I was ready for meltdowns and frustration galore, but to my surprise it was the opposite!

My only warning is if you are slightly anal/annoyed/or it's your pet peeve to have your Play-Doh colors mix this is soooo not the toy for you. I had to have a little talk with myself before letting my kid do this, reminding that it's all replaceable and this is for kid's fun, not my crazy tendencies. With that said you are free to continue.

This little pack came with the twister, it's self, 2 lollipop holders, and 2 of the small 1 ounce containers of Play-Doh. On the back of the box it gives you a few pictures with a tiny explanation of making your licorice like dough strands. shocking enough it really wasn't hard. The top of the twister pops off with a tiny twist. Just get a little of your choice in color of dough rolled a little round, give a small twist and then insert into the twister. Place the top back on and give the base a twist to lock it in. Crank away and watch the dough make it's way out. Eventually we got so good at it that we twisted the licorice like pieces that were coming out of the twister as cranking some more.

The only problem is that because it's kid friendly they don't make the lock top piece of the twister hard to come off. Let me explain why that's a problem, sometimes while cranking away it's easy to pop off the top. Not a big issue, but sometimes just messes with a kid's flow and I had to step in and help make sure it was on a few more times, so it isn't completely parent hands free. The only other thing is once you use it the clean clear inside of the twister will never look the same. As the dough is twisted some gets stuck and not all can be feed out the bottom, but once again not really a big deal.

As you can see the Play-Doh that comes out of the twister is easily stuck to the lollipop plastic pieces. So easy that once I should my daughter how to work the dough strands into to outer circle I was able to undo it and never had to help with that part again. She had fun and was really proud of it. She even added a donut around continuing with the whole sweets theme.

All and all I give this item a BIG 2 THUMBS UP! Perfect for Preschool age (maybe even younger) and up. I even enjoyed it, once I got over my dough mixing issues that is. So next time you are needing a little something for a gift or just to add to your child's own collection, try getting one of the "Play-Doh - Sweet Shoppe Twirl 'n Twister."

Opinion is my own and we were not given any free items from Play-Doh or affiliates for this review.

Product Review: Moon Dough

After the joy then outrage that came after this item appeared in our home, I felt compelled to share our experience with this "Moon Dough."

Honestly, when this item first appeared I had nothing but good thoughts. It's hypoallergenic and it doesn't dry out! How awesome! It also claimed to be easy to clean. I was all aboard. All I keep imagining was my daughter's dried out play-dough or little bits found in the carpet and figured this was a solution...I was sooooo wrong.

*This was after LOTS of kneading & Playing (right before clean up)*

When you first open it you are instructed to knead the dough. It felt neat, really soft, kind of smooth & silky, but really like powder or floury clumps that really don't seem to want to stick together. So as instructed I keep kneading and kneading, over and over again. As you can imagine by the time I gave up on trying to make it look an stick together like a nice lump of dough my daughter was way beyond waiting. What kid doesn't get upset when they get a new toy and have to just sit there and watch mom, who looks like she's having all the fun. Well I finally gave up at let my 4 year old go for it. Let me remind you, this is for 3 & up so I thought we were safe.

Here's the after math:

I felt awful because even with my grandmother and I sitting by the kid this stuff went everywhere. We were watching an trying to help and it just would not work. My daughter was even frustrated, as were we. It was a huge mess and she was even behaving. We never had this kind of problem with our play-dough. It was literally everywhere! It's all so light weight an flaky that it just refused to stay on our table cloth area. The kit came with a place mat, well I was so glad that we still put a table cover under it and protected our whole table, I don't think any bit of it stayed in place. Lots of little flakes EVERYWHERE & Moon Dough stuck inside the toys. They left the ends of these cool stamping toys open so of course she thought she could stamp out holes, we'll clearly it wasn't meant to be used that way. Also digging it out of the tubes was aggravating. Don't get me wrong, the stuff takes form of their molds, but all the extra bits crumble away and because it isn't dough, but more like a silky sand it comes apart as you try to clean or move bits. We really spent more then 5x the effort cleaning and setting it up then actually playing with it. Clearly the work vs reward ratio was way off on this item.

From now on we will be sticking with the dough we all know and love.