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Happy New Year everyone! Mona and I hope the year brings you exactly what you want, or at least something close to it. We spent the better part of November and December searching for new gadgets and items to make life in the kitchen more fun and sometimes even more productive. We try and get as many new products as we can personally so we can make an informed decision to either put them on our website or if that isn’t possible, then we can tell you about them. Since a lot of kitchens double as a laundry room, we also included some really bizarre looking devices that span the imagination. Not all of them worked, but some to our amazement, not only worked but actually performed as advertised.
We were able to test a myriad of products to aid in your wash day, or night, blues. I am very picky when it comes to my laundry. I don’t put anything that is worn on the outside, i.e. t-shirts, pants, jackets, etc. in the dryer for longer than 5 minutes, or at least that was my normal practice as I found 5 minutes in the dryer and then air drying saved on ironing and kept my clothes looking fresh and new. The problem was, as you can imagine, that many times I would forget the clothes and my plan was thrawted by a phone call or some other pressing matter that invaded my already crowded mind. There is a reason for this lengthy explanation, this post will introduce those wierd looking laundry gadgets. These handy dandy little guys ranged from sponge balls, spikey balls, wool balls, brushes for lint removal, cups for dispensing detergent, cups for softener, cups for dispensing smells from ocean breezes to forrest trees, various contraptions for catching lint, pet hair, human hair, the list is almost endless along with the marketing promises. I’m not boasting that we tried every single new and odd devices or gadgets, but we certainly made a big dent in our pocket books and the list of new and innovative products; the later being advertisement jargon for new stuff. Some products performed and even exceeded their claims of excellence, while others were a waste of time and money. Balls definately topped the list of design and were made of sponge, wool, plastic, resin, netting, rubber, ceramic, and some sort of material that remains unidentifed as of this writing. Some balls went into the wash itself, while others were to be placed in the dryer to do their magic.
We will be adding a laundry page to our website to include some of these products, along with our recommendations. Since Mona is in another time zone and as she likes to say ‘seven seas and many continents away’, the range of different devices we were able to experience was pretty eclectic. The only thing that is more eclectic are some of the names these little helpful devices have like buddieggs, fair trade winds, snug pads, mighty nest and my favorite friendsheep. Somebody actually spent hours coming up with these names to help sell the product. Can you imagine telling your husband or wife you ran out of your snug pads so the laundry will have to wait. I have my favorite and I will tell you why it ranks higher than others. Then I will attempt to tell you Mona’s favorite and why it ranks higher than other devices she tried.
As I told you previously in this blog I am particular about my laundry, and anything that saves me having to put up the ironing board is worth trying at least once. Those balls you put in the dryer made of prodominately with wool, all seem to work as promised. They range from $9.99 to as much as $19.9 on most websites. The idea is these wool balls have a tennis match with your clothes and believe it or not, your clothes come out wrinkle free, even if you leave them in the dryer and take them out the next day. I was really surprised they actually worked and worked well. Now you would think this would be game, set, and nope not the match for my money. Mona was able to find these little sort of round almost balls made of a layer of foam, not the kind for sponges or memory type, just foam like you would find say for toys. This foam layer surrounds some sort of white felt feeling square middle. Actually the thing looks like a reject from some factory that make toys for the $1.00, whoops correction $1.25 store. Now you can imagine my amazement when this squished looking ball worked just as well as the wool balls at only a fraction of the cost. However, there’s always a but or however right? Okay here’s the but, you will have to wait at least 3 weeks to get my poor man’s dryer ball. You can get the wool balls at almost all the major websites in 2 or 3 days so, since we live in an instant gratification world this may be a selling point for many people. Ergo, for me, who watches her pennies, this squishy ball is game, set and match!
Here’s little tip whether you buy the wool dryer balls or the squishy ones-they work much better when you partner them with two little spiky hard rubber balls that you put in the washing machine. These little guys seems to play tag with your clothes and they come out less wrinkled. I know it sounds bazaar, but it works. I can just imagine some guy sitting on his couch contemplating a device that would keep clothes less wrinkled in a washing machine-next stop Shark Tank.
Now Mona’s favorite is a device that for the life of me I can’t figure out how the damn thing works, but it does. Mona is Arabic and a woman, which means she has long black curly wirey hair that likes to falls out in the shower, in her bed, in her clothes and in her hijab, or head scarf. She is always looking for a way to minimize her curly locks in her laundry especially. Mona searching for laundry aids came accross this really wierd looking thing that is supposed to catch human hair and pet hair. Now she cannot vouche for the pet hair, but she swears this thing works and she cleans out her black curls form this device after every wash. This thing is a round piece of plastic, with a sort of little nylon bag attached to this kind of loose piece of plastic that isn’t attached to anything.=, but looks like a Now, that is my technical discription of this lint/hair removal thingie that works. I’m not sure if it will be readily availale on websites currently, but we know how to find it, so fear not.
We hope you will check out our laundry page for some more suggestions and wierd looking devices.
