Whats also common knowledge is that the polarizer costs light and therefore requires longer exposure times (mostly between 2 and 3 stops). I often use it to deliberately lose some light in order to get longer exposure times, for example when making photos of water where I want to blur the movement of the water.
But because the polarizer reduces reflections, its also possible to get very long exposure times that dramatically change the appearance of a photo if the bright reflection is a major part of the photo so that it influences the exposure time itself.
Here's a close-up of some reed after a short rainshower. The background is the surface of a lake, the camera was looking downwards in an angle of about 45 degrees to the water surface. The polarizer was already attached to the lens but it was not set to actually do something (so that we can compare the exposure times that are strictly limited to the polarizer effect and not the filter itself):
Reed - not polarized (FinePix S5Pro, 1/55s @ ISO 200; f/5.6, 180 mm DX)
I used the cameras aperture priority mode (like I do most of the time) and let the camera select the appropriate exposure time for me - which was 1/55s for the above photo (well, more like 1/60s, its one of these strange Fuji S5pro phenomenons). Next is the same scene, but now with the polarizer "at full swing":
Reed - polarized (FinePix S5Pro, 1/15s @ ISO 200; f/5.6, 180 mm DX)
I dare say that difference is quite dramatic. The green is much more vivid, but not because of any reduced reflections on the leaves itself (reed leaves have a dull surface that does not reflect much anyway), but because of the longer exposure time (2 stops more!) that was possible by removing the bright reflection of the background.
The white balance was fixed to shadow, there's no difference in color temperature for both photos - yet the polarized version looks much warmer thanks to the more natural background.
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