Edge Brownie Pan from Baker's Edge: Does It Work?

A company named Baker's Edge makes a product called the Edge Brownie Pan (affiliate links used in this post). What is the promise? That it will make brownies even better than brownies already are by creating even more edge. Who doesn't love the chewy edges of the corner brownies that come out of the four corners of a traditional pan? Those corner pieces have two chewy edges. Brownies cut from along one side of a traditional baking dish have one chewy edge. Brownies that are cut from the center have no chewy edges. The Edge Brownie Pan by Baker's Edge solves that "problem" with its three interior walls, guaranteeing that each brownie you cut from this pan has at least two chewy edges.

The video above is an explainer from the Baker's Edge company about why they developed the pan. (They also make a pan that creates those chewier, cripy edges on lasagna, and their lasagna edge pan is featured in the above video, too.)

The company first came to prominence when the founders made a pitch on the television show Shark Tank. You can watch their Shark Tank appearance here:

But does the Edge Brownie Pan work? Does it really create those chewy edges, and do the brownies bake up as well as they do in regular baking pans? The consensus is ... yes. The website Buzzfeed included the Baker's Edge Brownie Pan in its article about "23 as-seen-on-TV" products that actually work. The website WideOpenEats.com also raves:

"This is a game-changing kitchen gadget for those chewy edge lovers. The interior walls will improve the baking performance of your brownie mix by circulating heat to the middle of the aluminum pan. This is easier than baking with a silicone mold! I think you'll have your best brownies yet with a nonstick edge brownie pan!"

What about Amazon users? As of this writing, the Edge Brownie Pan has nearly 4,000 reviews on Amazon, with an average rating of 4.8. A whopping 87-percent of those reviews are 5-star.

We can't wait to give this product a try ourselves. If you'd like to check one out, take a look at the price on Amazon.com.

Putting Blue Diamond Ceramic Non-Stick Pans to the Test

If you watch any amount of television, you've probably seen the commercials for Blue Diamond ceramic non-stick pans. They are the pans that, according to the ads, are "infused with diamonds."

They melt plastic and cheese and caramels in the pan and show us those things sliding right off the non-stick surface. They run egg beaters over the pan surface and show us no resulting scratches.

Here is a 2-minute version of the Blue Diamond pans infomercial:

Well, what about it? Does Blue Diamond cookware live up to the claims? One very reputable source says yes. In a survey of non-stick cookware sets under $100, Consumer Reports gave good marks to the Blue Diamond pan, writing:

"CR's take: Two of the pieces in the 10-piece Blue Diamond Enhanced Ceramic set are plastic utensils, but at this price you’re still getting a nice complement of cookware. The ad for this 'As Seen on TV' set claims the coating is scratch-resistant and shows a cook using a hand mixer in one of the pans without harming the surface. It did hold up well in our durability tests, earning a Very Good rating. In our cooking tests, water quickly came to a near-boil in the 5-quart stockpot and tomato sauce simmered slowly without scorching."

The television program Inside Edition took another look at the Blue Diamond pan, spending time melting some of the stickiest foods and other items to test the Blue Diamond's non-stick claims. Celebrity chef and author Rocco DiSpirito (affiliate links used in this post) helped put the pan through its paces, specifically testing the commercial's claims. The results were mixed:

But Rocco does say at the end that as a piece of cookware — normal use cooking everyday food items as you'd use any other pan — the Blue Diamond non-stick frying pan did well. It just didn't quite live up to some of the advertising claims.

If you want to give them a try yourself, check out the Blue Diamond non-stick frying pan or the Blue Diamond cookware set on Amazon.com. (The pans and other cookware are highly rated by Amazon users.)

Yes, the 'Luminous Butt Bucket' is a Real Product

Have you heard of the "Luminous Butt Bucket"? Sounds like a Victorian-era insult, doesn't it? That's what prompted this tweet from comedian Patton Oswalt:

As you may be able to see from the text in the photo, the Luminous Butt Bucket is an "extinguishing ashtray." That is, an ashtray into which you drop your cigarette butts, and the ashtray putts out your cigarette by cutting off its oxygen supply. Does that really save you anything compared to just crushing out that butt as in a normal ashtray? Well, the Luminous Butt Bucket is also supposed to cut down on cigarette smoke odors by capturing and holding the last smoke from that extinguished butt inside the ashtray.

It seems like if you really cared that much about cutting down on cigarette smoke odors you would ... consider quitting smoking? Quitting is hard, though.

Here's the selling point to smokers for the Luminous Butt Bucket: It is small and shaped like a cup, the kind of cup you might sit down into the cupholders in your vehicle. Maybe you don't want to crush out that ciggy while driving. Drop it into the butt bucket. But it's small. The product description notes that it "holds several cigarettes."

Alas, we were unable to find any reviews of this product. But if you want to try to the Luminous Butt Bucket, check it out on Amazon.com (affiliate links in this post), or view other extinguishing ashtrays.

If you need help quitting smoking, please visit this help page from the American Lung Association.

Turn Vegetables Into Spaghetti? It's the Veggetti

Ever heard of the Veggetti? It's an as-seen-on-TV product made for slicing vegetables. (Fun fact: 73-percent of ASOT products are vegetables slicers. ... OK, I just made that up.)

The twist with the Veggetti is that its purpose is to produce long, thin strands of the vegetable being sliced — veggie strands that look like spaghetti. Veggetti — get it?

The official website is at buyveggetti.com, and at the time of this writing offers the product for $14.99 (plus shipping, postage and "handling," of course). The site includes this image of some of the dishes you can make using the Veggetti:

And here is the Veggetti's infomercial, which demonstrates how to use it and shows many meal suggestions:

"Turn veggies into healthy spaghetti!" is bannered across the top of the site. As of this writing, the Veggetti is not sold in stores, so ordering online is the only way to get one.

But should you get one? Does the Veggetti actually work? Connie Thompson of KOMOnews.com recently tested the item and gave it 3 out of 4 stars. Among her comments was this:

From a user-friendly standpoint this one's pretty difficult to mess up. You can only use veggies that fit the slicer, and all you do is twist the veggies through the slicing funnel. Vegetables must be long enough to keep your hands away from the blades inside the funnel opening. I'm not sure what I expected, but with each twist I got long, continuous strands of fresh zucchini that actually did resemble strands of spaghetti.

Read her review, linked above, for some of her caveats (which included believing the price was too high).

The website Waffles At Noon also reviewed the Veggetti, and their review was also favorable:

Although Veggetti is made of plastic, even the metallic-looking part of the handle, it performed surprisingly well, and the “pasta” it created was simple to make. The blades were sharp, requiring little force to operate. We found the thinner strands to be less intact and formed than the thicker pieces.

If you want to try the Veggetti, check prices on Amazon.

Krazy Kloth: Crazy Genius ... or Just Plain Crazy?

What is the Krazy Kloth (affiliate link)? It is a cleaning cloth that comes pre-loaded with a cleaning solution. The cleaning solution is already contained within the cloth, in other words.

The Krazy Kloth is made by a company called Cadie. According to the Cadie website, it's a New Jersey company that has been a "manufacturer of cleaning aids and specialty products since 1939. Cadie describes the Krazy Kloth thusly:

"A shelf full of cleaners in a 'space age' cloth. Quick, easy & reusable. Hundreds of uses: removes heel & scuff marks from floors; removes stains, heat & alcohol rings, water marks and paint specks from furniture & paneling; cleans and polishes brass, copper & chrome."

The Krazy Kloth is sold as a single for under $10, or three for about $15. The 3-pack comes inside a plastic shell, an egg-shaped container. Here's an example of a fellow using the Krazy Kloth to clean:

So does the Krazy Kloth work? We haven't tested the product yet ourselves, so if you've tried one we'd love to hear your thoughts about it. But Anne Jaeger, a consumer affairs writer whose work appears in the Portland Oregonian, has tested the Krazy Kloth. And her review does not inspire confidence. She starts by describing the Krazy Kloth:

"The 6-inch-by-9-inch blue cloth is soaked in an unspecified “revolutionary new cleaner and stain remover” to clean basement to attic, sans drudgery, rubbing or scrubbing. The reusable cloth works without water. Among its 1001 uses? Remove water stains, heel and burn marks, clean garden tools and polish most metals. Surfaces need to be dry before cleaning, then rubbed with the cloth and wiped down with a soft cloth."

OK, sounds promising. But the Krazy Kloth didn't live up to its promises to Jaeger, starting with the feel and smell of the cloth: "... the mere feel and smell of the cloth were enough. Less than a minute into our cleaning frenzy, Cathy didn't want anything to do with that cloth."

Jaeger's friend Cathy gave up quickly on the Krazy Kloth, but Jaeger herself continued:

"My plastic-coated kitchen cupboards got a real good workout with this kloth. Smudgy black fingerprints disappeared, but a greasy film was left behind. And that was hard to remove. Ditto on hard water stains on the shower door and pitted stainless steel appliances. Perhaps I should be thanking the makers of the Krazy Kloth. I got to clean everything twice: once with the cloth, then to remove the residue."

So we have a cleaning rag whose packaging doesn't tell buyers what chemicals are in the cloth, and whose use is both stinky and (apparently) leaves a residue behind. The Krazy Kloth is not inspiring our confidence. But if you want to give it a try, check out Krazy Kloth on Amazon.

Behold: The Perfect Bacon Bowl (Because Who Doesn't Want an Edible Bowl Made of Bacon?)

What if you could take some bacon strips, arrange them around a mold of a bowl, cook them up crisp so that they formed a bowl, fill that bacon bowl will other good stuff - maybe even more bacon! - and then ... eat it!

That's the American dream, my friends. The American dream.

And perhaps the dream of the bacon bowl is here. For - behold! - it's the Perfect Bacon Bowl:

This is an as-seen-on-TV gadget whose infomercial I haven't actually spotted yet. Aside from on YouTube. But once you stumble across something like the Perfect Bacon Bowl, it's hard to turn away.

It's basically an inverted miniature cake mold. You drape and wrap the raw bacon around it, as in this publicity image:

The photo above, by the way, gives you a sense of how small it is. But then you pop it in the oven. The bacon grease drips down the sides of the mold, away from the bacon (settling into the "grease moat"), allowing the bacon to crisp up.

Then you take it out of the oven, invert the mold, and, voila, you have a bowl made of bacon. You have, the product makers would have us believe, the Perfect Bacon Bowl. One that, once you fill it with other stuff, will look this good:

I haven't tried the Perfect Bacon Bowl, but you can bet I'll be on the lookout for one in my local stores' bargain bins.

But color me very skeptical. I'm skeptical the bacon would stay on the mold rather than sliding off, and cook into that shape and actually hold together. I'm skeptical that even if it did, it wouldn't fall apart completely with the first bite. I'm skeptical that you actually need a separate product to create this, if it even works, rather than using, say, an inverted muffin tin or individual-sized pie tins or mini-cake mold.

Have you tried the Perfect Bacon Bowl? We'd love to hear how well it worked.

See also:
Perfect Bacon Bowl passes TV reporter's test

Does 'Wipe New' Really Restore Your Vehicle's Plastic Surfaces?

You've seen the commercials for Wipe New (affiliate link). It's a product that comes in a small bottle and is used for wiping down your car's worn, faded plastic surfaces. The promise is that Wipe New will bring those surfaces back to life, will restore them to some semblance of what they looked like new.

Does it work? First take a look at the review by Lynda Steele, consumer reporter for CTV British Columbia. Steele tested Wipe New on a headlight and a bumper of a Toyota she found in a junkyard. The results appear impressive - but more impressive than other techniques that are available?

Steele rated Wipe New 3.5 stars out of 5, but her report indicated some of the issues with the product. First, the money-back guarantee includes the cost of the product, but not the shipping and handling. Steele said she paid $19.95 for the little bottle of Wipe New, with an additional $15.95 (!) required for shipping and handling of that little bottle.

Most importantly, there are significant safety warnings with Wipe New: Don't breathe it, don't get it on you, don't get it on your car's paint or glass, wear gloves, wear a mask, wear safety goggles. The stuff is strong, in other words. It's also flammable, including the vapors.

Just how strong are the vapors? Take a look at this video review, in which the person holding the camera (his young daughter) can be heard throughout coughing, gagging and choking:

The mechanic in the video above posted an update a couple months after the original video in which he said the surfaces treated with Wipe New still looked good.

However, we've seen and read many other reviews in which just the opposite was stated: The effect wears off quickly. We can't vouch for either take, since we haven't tried it ourselves. And, frankly, we won't be trying it. Nothing that produces such noxious fumes is something we have an interest in applying to our car (or our hands or nasal passageways or lungs).

If you want to try it out for yourself, check Wipe New prices on Amazon.

Review: InstaBulb

InstaBulb is "the light you can stick anywhere," as the official website puts it. It's a battery-powered bulb with a base that affixes to a wall. Slide the bulb into the base to add light to a dark closet, or lift the bulb out of the base to carry it around. Here is the official commercial:

We bought our InstaBulb package at Walmart, where it cost about $13 for a pack of two. Each bulb runs on four AA batteries, sold separately.

While it looks like a traditional incandescent light bulb in shape, that's not what it is. I'm not sure what the element inside the bulb is, but it doesn't put off nearly as much light as traditional light bulbs. Also, the shatter-resistant bulb is made of some kind of opaque plastic rather than glass.

First, we took one of the bulbs into a dark room and turned it on. It did a poor job of lighting up a room. The effect was about the same as if we had lit a large candle.

However, we then affixed the base to a wall in a small, dark closet (there is a peel-and-stick adhesive on the back of the base). And in that scenario, the InstaBulb performed very well. The amount of light it provided really did make a big difference, and was enough to illuminate the closet to the point where we had no trouble seeing our way around.

For larger closets, you might need to use two InstaBulbs. You should also experiment by holding the InstaBulb at different locations in a closet before affixing the base to the wall, to make sure you choose the spot where the light will be most effective.

We've been using the InstaBulbs we bought for a couple weeks and are quite pleased with their performance in providing light to closets. There are many other stick-up, battery-powered lights out there, and some of those are more traditional lighting that offers much more illumination. So you should shop around and compare prices before buying any of them.

We've also heard that the adhesive on the base can loosen over time, especially if you remove the bulb from the base on a regular basis, or stick an InstaBulb in a hot location. That's an issue.

Overall, we feel the InstaBulb isn't best-suited for lighting rooms, but performs very well in lighting closets or other tighter storage spaces. We give the InstaBulb 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Review: Eggstractor

No, It Doesn't Work Well, but It Can Still Be Fun

Is the Eggstractor (affiliate link) an eggsellent product? Will your peeling be over easy, or will the Eggstractor leave your nerves fried and patience hard-boiled?

More likely the latter than the former. The Eggstractor doesn't live up to its promise ... but it might still be a fun gadget for some people.

The Eggstractor is featured in one of our favorite infomercials. It's a simple product - a plastic base into which a hard-cooked egg is situated; a plastic bellows (a cylinder open at one end with accordian-like sides allowing it to be pressed down) that goes over the top of the egg and rests on the base.

According to the infomercial and the instructions, the power of air pressure forces the egg out of its shell. It's supposed to pop out of its shell, which remains on the base, onto a plate placed below, all in one piece and free of shell.

The first thing a new user needs to know is this: follow the instructions exactly. If the instructions aren't followed exactly, there's no chance the Eggstractor will work properly. The egg might explode, or only the yolk may pop out, or, perhaps, nothing at all will happen. And if that's the case, it's the product with egg on its face, but the yolk's on you.

The instructions are precise: place eggs in a pan, cover with water and add a heaping teaspoon of salt; bring to boil and cook another 6-8 minutes. Pour off the hot water and run cold water over the eggs. Then place the eggs in ice water for at least 10 minutes.

To peel the egg, remove from water and tap the small end on the piercer, a small, pointed nub that is on the base of the Eggstractor. You must pierce not only the eggshell, but also the inner lining of the egg. Crack the large end of the egg on a table or counter, then place the egg, small side up, onto the base.

Place the bellows over the egg and onto the base, criss cross both hands on top of the bellows and press.

The instructional booklet says that it might take you a couple tries to get the hang of it, but that "if you follow the Eggstructions Eggsactly, you will be an Eggspert Eggstractor." Not eggsactly. But it is fun trying.

First, when they say follow the instructions exactly, they mean it. We left out salt the first few times we boiled our eggs, and the result was the same each time: Upon "eggstraction," the large end of the egg separated from the rest of the egg, leaving most of the egg peeled but without a top.

We finally realized we were leaving out a step and started using salt. The results improved. But we were never able to get an egg to pop out completely free of shell. All eggs we tried — and we tried many — had at least a little shell remaining on the large end of the egg.

There are other drawbacks to the Eggstractor. Foremost is that there are some people who, because of physical limitations, won't be able to get it to work at all.

We were surprised at just how much force is required to depress the bellows, popping out the egg. We asked our missus to give it a shot, and it took her three tries before she could make it work. We feel that many women and many elderly folks would have a lot of trouble making the Eggstractor work at any level of efficiency, much less peak efficiency.

So why did we say we'd still recommend it in some cases? Well, because it's fun. It makes loud whooshing and popping noises that kids (and overgrown kids) are likely to think are fun. And who wants to peel an egg? Our missus said she could have completely peeled an egg the old-fashioned way in the time it took her to get the Eggstractor to work. But she's a girl. Girls know what they're doing.

Boys, and men who still behave like boys, will get a kick out of the Eggstractor, whether it works well for them or not.

So if you find it at a cheap price, perhaps in a bargain bin or on clearance, it's worth a few bucks to get a few kicks.

The Eggstractor's instructional booklet contains dozens of egg-based recipes, some of which looked quite tasty. It also comes with an egg slicer as a bonus. And as egg slicers go, it was pretty nice.

Want to try it yourself? Check out the Eggstractor on Amazon.

Review: The Ove Glove

The Ove Glove (affiliate link) is, as its name states, a "hot surface handler." To most people, that means "oven mitt." But the Ove Glove is a true glove, not a mitt or mitten: it has four fingers plus a thumb.

The Ove Glove is touted as being able to "dramatically extend the time you can handle a hot object in your hands." When I purchased my Ove Glove (they come one per box) at a price of $19.95 (prices have since come down), I was under the impression that the Ove Glove infomercial claimed this product was more effective than a typical oven mitt. However, that may have been a mistaken impression on my part, given that the packaging blurbs make no comparisons between the Ove Glove and similar products - only between the wearer's ability to withstand heat with the Ove Glove on, and with bare hands.

The Ove Glove vs. bare hands. Duh! Of course the Ove Glove will "dramatically extend the time you can handle a hot object in your hands." But you can just as well wad up some toilet paper or newspaper or a towel and get the same effect, compared to bare hands.

What's important in deciding whether to spend money on an item is whether it performs better than similar items at similar tasks.

How does the Ove Glove stack up against a plain ol' oven mitt? OK, but not great. The oven mitts in my house are very old and their surface is even worn through in several spots, exposing the lining underneath. Still, those old oven mitts protected my hands from heat just as well - or even better - than the Ove Glove. There was some disagreement in my household about whether the old oven mitts were actually better than the Ove Glove. I thought they were. Another tester felt the Ove Glove held its own, but was just the equal of, not the better of, the oven mitts.

So what the Ove Glove gets right is its 5-finger approach, its flexibility, its comfortable fit and feel. What it gets wrong is its price when products that do that same job in the kitchen, perhaps even better, can be purchased for less.

However, the Ove Glove, because it is a true glove, certainly offers more variety of uses than a typical oven mitt. For that reason, it may be worth considering for folks who typically handle hot materials outside the kitchen as well as inside. Just don't expect wonders.

If you'd like to try it yourself, check out the Ove Glove on Amazon.

Stone Wave Cooker: Microwave Gourmet, or Just Hot Air?

The Stone Wave Microwave Cooker (affiliate link) is a type of small pot designed to cook food in your microwave. It is made from a ceramic material; the inside has a non-stick surface. The lid of the cooker features a "steam release chimney" to allow steam to escape during the cooking time. Here's how the manufacturer describes the Stone Wave cooker:

"Stone Wave will help you prepare delicious, gourmet foods in your microwave that your whole family will love, in just five minutes! Its secret is in the specially designed chimney that allows steam to escape, while the custom dome circulates heat evenly, infusing flavor into every bite! And with Stone Wave's non-stick surface, you can make everything from eggs to baked desserts without butter, fats, or oils, for healthy, mess-free meals!"

Two local television news programs have recently tested the Stone Wave, and both found that the microwave cooker "works," if by works you mean "food put inside the cooker is cooked by the microwave." But does the Stone Wave provide any advantages over other cooking vessels that can be used inside a microwave? Does food microwaved inside the Stone Wave Cooker have better taste, better texture than microwaved food cooked another way?

Seattle TV station KOMO tested the Stone Wave cooker by preparing several recipes from the cooker's accompanying recipe booklet. That included an omelet, a chocolate souffle and an apple crisp. The results were not impressive. The food inside the Stone Wave did cook, but words like "dry" and "rubbery" were applied to the resulting foods. The Stone Wave, in other words, offered no improvement over ordinary microwave cooking.

Charleston, W.Va., station WCHS also recently tested the Stone Wave Microwave Cooker and got similar results. (You can watch their video report here.) WCHS also tested the Stone Wave by cooking an omelet and the apple crisp dessert. Its conclusions included these:

"We first made a simple omelet by whisking eggs inside the cooker, adding chopped onions, green peppers and tomatoes. After 90 seconds in the microwave, we were left with fluffy but dry eggs. "Our second dish was baked apple crisp. We cut up an apple, added water, sugar, cinnamon, butter, topped it with Japanese panko breadcrumbs and put it in the microwave for three minutes per the directions. While the dessert smelled like oven-baked apple pie, it tasted and looked nothing like the popular American treat. The apples were soggy and the dessert was runny; nothing was crisp."

The impression we're left with is that food will indeed cook inside the Stone Wave microwave cooker, but it won't cook any better than other microwaving methods. But if you want to give it a try yourself, check out Stone Wave Microwave Cooker on Amazon.

Ming Tsai Endorses Aero Knife

Ming Tsai is a celebrity chef, status he first achieved by becoming known as one of the best chefs in America. He has a longrunning PBS television show, and has made numerous guest star appearances on other cooking shows such as Top Chef and Iron Chef.

So I was a little surprised the first time I saw Chef Tsai doing an infomercial for the Aero Knife:

But should I have been? I haven't been able to try Aero Knife yet, so let's hear your feedback: If you've tried Aero Knife, tell us what you think about it in comments.

Here is a review of the Aero Knife posted on YouTube:

Review: Makin Bacon

Makin Bacon Doesn't Stack Up
Makin Bacon allows you to cook bacon in the microwave, with the bacon cooking above the fat which has dropped away from it, into a collection dish below.

"Cook bacon better," the packaging exclaims, "above the fat, not in it."

The Makin Bacon, according to the packaging, was invented by Abbey, the smiling little girl whose picture graced the original packaging.

"When I was 8," Abbey tells us in the packaging materials, "I invented the best way in the world to cook bacon. Then my Dad and I went to work and made the Makin Bacon dish. My Mom loves it because it's so much easier. My Dad knows the bacon is healthier. My little sister Kelly doesn't care, she just loves the bacon.

"Please buy it, try it, and tell others!"

Hey, buying it, trying it and telling others is what we do here. So here you go: I sincerely hope Abbey has grown up (the copyright on the packaging is 1996) and gone on to bigger and better things.

Because "better things" is not a phrase we'd associate with Makin Bacon.

It's a simple enough construction: A plastic dish to which are attached three stems (they kind of look like the old T-shaped telephone poles). Bacon is draped over the arms of the stems, and the whole thing goes in the microwave. As the bacon cooks, grease falls away from the bacon and into the dish below.

You can definitely cook more bacon with the Makin Bacon than you can with a standard stovetop pan or griddle. And you can certainly cook the bacon much quicker with the Makin Bacon, although just how quick is something you'll have to experiment with: there were no instructions or suggestions on cooking time in the Makin Bacon package that we purchased.

The Makin Bacon parts are all dishwasher safe, according to the packaging.

Does the Makin Bacon work? Well, yes and no. It certainly does cook bacon. The question is, how well, and does it cook it to a texture and flavor most people will enjoy?

We can't speak for most people. So speaking for ourselves, the answer is no. The microwaved bacon was rubbery and bland. And those who like crispier bacon are out of luck.

We had a problem in the actual performance of the product, too. The bacon is draped over the arms of the stems. As the bacon begins to cook, it starts dripping grease. This makes the bacon and the stems a little slippery.

Each time we tried the Makin Bacon, we opened the microwave to discover that half the bacon had fallen off the stems and was sitting in the grease that has collected in the dish. Which kind of defeats the purpose.

Some people might find the Makin Bacon useful. It's not something we'd recommend to our friends, though.

Sorry, Abbey.

(If you still want to give it a try, buy Makin Bacon on Amazon.)

Review: Pocket Hose

The Pocket Hose is a flexible, lightweight, expanding garden hose whose length grows when the hose is under water pressure. These types of hoses are booming right now in he as-seen-on-TV product niche, but if you're not familiar with the idea we'll let you watch the Richard Karn-hosted infomercial (1 minute, 48 seconds):

We picked up our Pocket Hose at Walgreen's, and paid $19.95 for the 50-feet long model. What that means is that the hose, as it comes out of the packaging, is about 25 feet long but that it expands to 50 feet under water pressure. There is another, shorter Pocket Hose that expands to 25 feet under pressure, and it typically sells for around $10.

What are the main selling points that the manufacturer uses to pitch the Pocket Hose? That because it expands, it is much lighter and easier to maneuver than a standard garden hose; and that it never kinks.

Are those claims true? We've been using our Pocket Hose for about a month, and here are some positives and negatives:

Positives of the Pocket Hose

• Yes, it really does expand to around twice its original length once you turn the tap on - so long as you have a spray nozzle attached or have the adaptor screwed on to the end of the hose and in the "closed" position. Basically, you have to "prime the hose" - or trap water inside it, creating pressure - in order for the hose to expand. If you have the adaptor in the "open" position, or if you don't have the adaptor attached and are not using a spray nozzle, the Pocket Hose won't expand. (It will work just fine as a basic hose, only without growing in length.)

• And yes, the Pocket Hose really does contract when you turn the water off, although you have to let any water inside the hose out in order to start the contraction.

• The Pocket Hose is very lightweight, much lighter than a standard garden hose. Anyone can carry it around.

• The Pocket Hose does not kink. We've tried to kink it and can't.

Negatives of the Pocket Hose

• You'll probably get wet using it because of the plastic nozzles on either end of the hose. Most standard garden uses have metal nozzles to attach to the faucet (or to which you can attach a spray nozzle). The Pocket Hose has plastic, whose construction does not inspire confidence. We've had leaks at the point of attachment to the faucet - minor, but leaks nonetheless. And we've had leaks at the spray end of the hose, both when using a spray nozzle or when using the adaptor.

  The adaptor, in particular, leaks around the lever the user moves into the "open" and "closed" positions to stop water (and create pressure to force the expansion) or to let water out. The faucet and spray nozzle leaks were minor and not bothersome, but the adaptor leak was a little spray of water that got us wet before we were able to turn it away from us. The Pocket Hose works much better without the adaptor than with it.

• It doesn't carry as much water as some garden hoses. The flow was plenty for our purposes and, we imagine, for anyone who wants to use it to water the front and back yard. But just as an fyi, the Pocket Hose does carry less volume than some standard garden hoses.

Conclusions

We've heard other people say they experienced leaks in the hose itself, but we haven't. The integrity of the hose is great for us after one month's use.

We like the Pocket Hose. It really is lightweight, it really doesn't kink, and it really does expand. But it also really does have cheaply made nozzles on both ends, which really do leak. Your leaks might be bigger than ours, so buyer beware.

But overall, we've enjoyed using the Pocket Hose.

One thing to note is that you don't have to take advantage of the expansion property of the Pocket Hose to find it useful. We have the shorter version in our front flower bed; unexpanded it is only about 12 feet in length, but that just happens to be the perfect length for our flower bed. We like how lightweight the hose is, and that it doesn't kink so we never have to worry about water flow, and it is great for hand-watering this small area. And the price is right, too.

We've heard and read other commentaries about the Pocket Hose in which users' experiences were more negative - in some cases, very negative - than our own. But we've also seen reviews similar to our own.

We can only report on our own experience with the Pocket Hose, which, to sum up is (mostly) positive.

Review: Egg Wave Microwave Egg Cooker

Egg Wave Fails to Deliver

The Egg Wave is an "as seen on tv" product that doesn't live up to a good idea.

The idea is to offer folks a way to easily and successfully microwave eggs, so they can avoid all the fat that's involved in frying, or the nettlesome aspects to other ways of cooking eggs (boiling, scrambling).

The Egg Wave package includes four Egg Wave cookers (egg-shaped plastic compartments with a screw-on top); an Egg Caddy (which can be used to carry all four Egg Waves into or out of the microwave); four scrambling grates, which are inserted into the Egg Wave cooker when scrambled eggs are desired; four egg removers to get the cooked eggs out of the Egg Wave cookers; an egg separator and an instructional/recipe booklet.

The Egg Wave is advertised as providing "perfectly cooked eggs in seconds." Its makers claim it can produce soft-yolk, hard-yolk, scrambled, sunny-side up, poached and even omelets right in the microwave.

For all varieties, crack an egg into the Egg Wave, with the egg remover already inserted. Put the screw-on top on, be sure to open the steam vent in its top, and pop in the microwave. Upon removal, twist the egg remover handle and pull out the egg.

Does the Egg Wave cook eggs? It sure does! Does it cook good eggs, eggs that are just as good as those cooked in the normal fashion? Well ... We'll say this: Egg Wave eggs can't help but be healthier for you because there is no grease, oil, butter or other such cooking mediums used. All you get is egg (unless you make an omelet).

When our Egg Wave arrived, we immediately set out to try four different types of eggs, using all four Egg Wave cookers in succession (but not simultaneously, because cooking times vary by a few seconds).

First we tried poaching, then we made a hard-yolk (the equivalent of a hard-boiled egg), then we tried an omelet and finally scrambled.

We followed the cooking time for poached and wound up with hard-yolk (the instructions do say that because of different cooking times in different microwaves, a little experimentation will be needed to find the proper cooking time). Of course, our hard-yolk did, in fact, produce a hard-yolk egg.

For our omelet, we cracked an egg into the Egg Wave cooker, added in pieces pulled off a deli-sliced turkey slice, a pinch of shredded cheese and a teaspoon of salsa. We put on the egg scrambler, screwed on the top and gave it a shake. The omelet cooked up fine.

Then we scrambled, using the egg scrambler.

The eggs tasted OK. Our missus felt they were a little chewier than normal eggs, which may well be the case since they are, after all, microwaved. We're not sure we could tell the difference, on taste alone, if we didn't already know which eggs had been cooked in the Egg Wave and which were cooked the old-fashioned way.

The major problem is appearance. When you poach, you get a clump of egg. When you scramble, you get a clump of egg. When you make an omelet, you get a clump of omelet.

When you remove the "scrambled" egg from the Egg Wave, you have to mash it up with a fork to approximate the appearance of real scrambled eggs. The poached eggs do bear some resemblance to real poached eggs, but only in the sense that the yolk is prominent in the center of the egg white.

Because when we say clump, we mean it. The shape of the Egg Wave eggs is sort of a miniature football or a ball of Silly Putty, about the diameter of a U.S. silver dollar. They look much smaller than eggs cooked the normal way (although of course one egg is one egg - it's just their shape that makes them appear smaller).

The Egg Wave, based only on what you've read so far, might, in fact, be worth using for some people. But there's another problem that makes us loathe to recommend the Egg Wave.

Only one of those four eggs we cooked the first day (we cooked many afterward, too) cooked in the microwave without, well, exploding.

"Exploding" may be too strong a word. Many things that cook in a microwave will produce loud pops as steam escapes. And the top of the Egg Wave cooker includes a valve that must be open during cooking, specifically to allow steam out.

But our very first Egg Wave attempt resulted in the top of the cooker (the cover that screws on) blowing off. Our second attempt did not result in the top blowing off, but a very loud pop occurred at one point and the Egg Wave jumped about a quarter-inch off the surface of the microwave. The omelet cooked without problems. But for the scrambled, the Egg Wave top blew off and the cooker toppled over on its side.

This didn't always happen, and we adjusted cooking times with some success. But it happened much too much for us to be comfortable continuing to use the Egg Wave, or recommending it to anyone else.

We also found the Egg Wave cookers a chore to clean.

In the final evaluation, we just don't see much of a reason to cook with the Egg Wave rather than making your eggs the old-fashioned way. They don't taste better, they don't look better, clean up is a mess, and you'll have things exploding in your microwave.

Review: Flowbee Haircutting System

By Charlotte Kuchinsky
for NiftyNiblets.com

By now, virtually everyone has heard of the Flowbee Precision Haircutting System. It has been around for a few decades. At first, many treated the product like a joke, laughing at the idea that any haircutting system hooked up to a vacuum could possibly do a good job. But they are no longer laughing because Flowbee manages to deliver.

My son-in-law wanted this system for Christmas a couple of years ago. I really wasn’t keen on buying it for him. However, I finally broke down and made the purchase. He's been using it to cut his hair ever since.

How Does Flowbee Work?
You hook the Flowbee system up to just about any vacuum cleaner. The suction of the machine pulls the hair up to whatever desired length you choose. Then you cut it. Repeat the action throughout the hair until you complete your haircut. The system uses spacers to make certain that you can’t cut your hair too short. You always get the length - from a half-inch up to six inches - that you want.

The manufacturer claims that “the system is so simple and precise, you can give yourself a perfect haircut every time.” My son-in-law certainly seems to get a good cut each and every time. It even provides the tools that you need to get the perfect cut over and around the ears as well as the neck.

It may sound like the Flowbee Precision Haircutting System would be a lot of trouble to hook up and operate as well as to clean. However, nothing could be further from the truth. The system is simple to hook up to just about any vacuum as long as it has three horsepower or eight amps. Flowbee's easy to follow instruction manual makes certain that you don’t ever make a mistake. Within 10 minutes, your haircut is complete and you are done. There is no mess to clean up because all of the hair goes directly into the vacuum.

How Long Will Flowbee Last?
The manufacturer guarantees that Flowbee will do “hundreds of precision cuts,” as long as the blades are changed regularly. However, let me offer a word of caution here. Flowbee’s blades cannot be sharpened. They must be totally replaced, which adds a bit more expense to the overall cost of the machine. (Editor's note: The thought of trying to cut one's hair with a vacuum system that has dull blades sends shivers up my spine!)

If you lose a spacer or another Flowbee part, don’t panic. The manufacturer carries spare parts for all of its machines; past and present.

Can I Use Flowbee to Groom My Pet?
It is not recommended that you use the original Flowbee on your pet. Flowbee now makes another unit specifically for pets, the Flowbee Pet Groomer. Note that you should never use a vacuum-style haircutting product of any kind on a pet with matted fur.

Where Can I Purchase It?
Flowbee can be purchased in certain specialized retail stores. However, the bulk of these systems are now purchased online. Several websites carry the system, including Flowbee's own site.

Search Amazon for Flowbee products

The Verdict
While I probably wouldn’t purchase this system for myself, I’m glad that I fulfilled my son-in-law’s Christmas wish. He loves it. I also have to appreciate the fact that I have easily saved several hundred dollars in dog grooming expenses since I gave him the machine. It probably paid for itself within two to three months.

I give this product six out of 10 stars. It would have ranked higher if the blades could be sharpened, but having to totally replace them from time to time seems like a manufacturer-concocted expense. I have to deduct one star for that.

Review: Lint Lizard

Before we offer our review of the Lint Lizard (affiliate link), let's review what this product is supposed to do:

Short version of the video: The Lint Lizard is an attachment to your vacuum cleaner that reaches down into your clothes dryer (the lint trap and other hard-to-reach areas) to remove built-up lint. A build-up of lint inside the clothes dryer (and the dryer vent) really is a problem; it can clog, cutting off air flow; it can even catch fire. So it's important to remove as much lint as you can.

Getting to all that lint - beyond what collects on the lint screen - has always been an issue, however. There are even some companies that offer to clean your clothes dryer for a fee, to address the possible fire hazard.

So if the Lint Lizard works, it's a product that certainly meets a needs. Does it work?

Yes, the Lint Lizard really does work - not perfectly, not without some issues, but it works better than some other products we've seen for cleaning out lint built-up in a clothes dryer.

The Lint Lizard comes in a modestly sized box, and comes out of the box in three pieces: one piece attaches to your vacuum cleaner's hose; and a clear plastic tube fits onto the end of the first piece and is what you feed down the lint trap, up the dryer exhaust and around the drum to suck out excess lint. A third piece is a telescoping extender that fits onto the hose attachment.

We'll first tell you what happened when we got the Lint Lizard hooked up to our vacuum and working: it cleaned out quite a bit of lint from our dryer. A surprising amount of lint, really. We were impressed with the performance and happy with the result.

So is there a catch? Well, the clear plastic tube is coiled up inside the packaging, so when you take it out of the box it is very curved and does not want to straighten. And it's quite stiff - not rigid, but semi-rigid, and difficult to work with. The Lint Lizard instructions say that you can use hot air or hot water to soften the tube and make it easier to work with. We tried that, but it really didn't work that well. So maneuvering this semi-rigid plastic tube - a tube that kept wanting to coil up - was a chore.

Now, when we store the Lint Lizard, we store it outside of the box and use heavy books placed around the plastic tube to prevent it from curling up again. Yet, it doesn't seem to get any more flexible over time.

So that's a bit of a pain, and a bit of a drawback. Because of it, the Lint Lizard might not fit all that well into your clothes dryer, or at least into certain areas. But: If you can handle fighting a bit with the tubing, then the Lint Lizard really does remove built-up lint from your dryer. It's inexpensive and worth giving a try.

Check out the Lint Lizard on Amazon.