Top 10 pointless products to avoid

I have a small photo printer, (I did get it at half price with an extra ink cartridge thrown in). I found it great to take to rural India, to be able to take and print a photo out in the sticks was really appriciated by the locals. The alturnative would be two trips into town and a weeks wait.
So it works if you need portability, and do not have a computer.

I’ve found that whenever a new gadget comes along, it’s worth re-examining old gadgets for functions you may have overlooked. When my kids wanted a smoothie maker, they discovered the blender attachment for my Kenwood, and developed a taste for home made cakes.

We now never buy cakes and biscuits, we make them!

Yum!

I read the article, went out and stopped the tumble dryer, took out the loud and annoying tumble dryer balls and threw one to the dog and put the other in the bin.

Ahh silence at last – I hated the things, thanks for proving they were a waste of money – they noise they make banging around in the drum too!

I have used colour catcher papers for years but despite segregating my washing as best I can, they still go dark with loose dye. I have many dark towels which shed dye even after 20+ washes and I cannot wash each towel separately, so the bright red, orange and dark brown go in together to make a load. My question is what would have happened to that dye if the catcher paper had not been there? Their cost seems a small price to pay to ensure my towels do not merge into a shared muddy hue.

1. never buy a pasta maker. You can buy fresh pasta in most supermarkets these days. Although home made is delicious it needs 2 people to make it -believe me it does! – and will entail your kitchen being full of drying pasta hanging on all manner of sticks and rods that you have to improvise

2.tofu maker. Takes all day to make 200grams of tofu! get real……

3. bread making machine. I know many people who have them and never use them. I know 2 people who use them daily and neither of them go out to work…..

I too have used colour catcher papers in the washing machine for years. They have saved me hundreds of pounds in electricity savings. I live on my own and so to get a full load of washing I have to mix all the colours (do whites separately). Using these sheets I have never had colour run, the sheet picks it all up. I think they are wonderful. I am amazed Which thinks these are a waste of money as I can wash navy towels, scarlet top and grey gym kit all together knowing each item will emerge the same colour that it went in.
An alternative is the Lakeland Dye Grabber which lasts for up to 30 washes.

Whatever makes you think you will save money by not having separate kitchen & bathroom cleaner? We all know they do roughly the same job but you still go through the same number of bottles a year unless you reduce the number of times you actually clean the kitchen or bathroom!. Perhaps that’s what happens when there is only one bottle in the house, as it becomes too much bother to go to the bathroom to get the cleaner when the kitchen needs a quick once over (and vice versa).
I think I’ll stick to my "bottle in each room" principle.

No one has (yet) commented that the washing machine balls and tumble dryer balls shorten the life of your washer or dryer very considerably. The same was true of those barmy plastic balls that you were supposed to put detergent into a few years ago.
Think about it: if you have or remember having an older washing machine which did not have “out of balance” mechanisms to slow down or stop the spin if the load was unevenly balanced the the machine thunders and bounces around the kitchen making a hell of a racket and wrecking the bearings.
Now think about your silly balls – how do you expect a machine to be able to distribute one or two solid balls evenly around a circular drum? It can’t do it! If you have a machine which automatically load-balances using the balls will extend the wash time greatly and cause reduced spin speeds to cut in because the machine can’t balance. Even so, when it spins at all the balls will make it out of balance and even at lower speeds there will be added wear and tear on your machine.
In the wash and rinse phases of the cycle, and in the tumble dryer, the wear and tear is less of an issue due to the slower speeds of rotation, but it still has some negative effect.
Any saving of cash in your pocket or impact on the environment made by not using detergent is many thousands of times wiped out by the cost of repairs and replacement machines and the impact on the environment of scrapping the broken parts / machines.
It’s not for nothing that there are no machine manufacturers who recommend balls!
As for the colour catcher sheets, I cannot believe that there are people out there who actually fall for this one!
I live alone so even in a small household, washing segregated items is not a difficulty. It requires simply looking at the care labels and sorting carefully: any item which is “non-fast coloured” – i.e. the dye is not fixed at temperatures over 40 degrees – can be washed with any other item in that category, regardless of the colours, without the risk of colour running. If you are mixing items of that category and washing at 40 then either the washing machine thermostat is faulty and it is heating up to a higher temperature or else something has been incorrectly labelled. Items which are “fast coloured” can be mixed and washed at up to 60 degrees and items which are “colour fast to boiling” can be washed at up to 95 degrees.
Part of the problem links to the attempts to save money on electricity by always stuffing the washer as full as it will go and part of the problem comes from an obsession with buying ever greater capacity machines, regardless of how many people are in the household. The greatest part of the problem is (in my opinion) that people no longer bother to read (or cannot understand as they have never been taught) the care labels.
Of course there is one other angle to this: Which? assert that most people wash everything at 40 degrees these days. If that is true then you should only need to separate white items from coloured items to ensure fantastic results. Mind you, you’ll still wreck your machine as at 40 the machine will grow many nasty moulds and develop horrible soap, limescale and fungal deposits which will ruin rubber seal, make it stink and eventually grunge up the heater (which is why most manufacturers tell you to run a 60 or 90 degree cycle at least once a month, even if the machine is empty, or else offer a super-hot “tub clean” function …. but how many people actually do that either?).

I usually buy – and do rate – Dylon’s colour catcher sheets when used in light or dark batch washes. However when my local supermarket ran out I purchased the 2 in 1 Colour Catcher & Oxi Stain Remover box of sachets.
The sachets were used as instructed and caused 2 items in 2 separate washes to be covered in grey stains all over that could not be removed, despite repeated additional washing.
I sent the remainder of the pack and photos of the ruined items to Dylon’s manufacturers Spotless Punch, and they took no responsibility saying in their opinion “the marks were caused by colour runs – we do state on our packaging to wash new items of clothing separately for at least 5 or 6 times”
I know there were no new/relatively new items in those washes and there were light colours in the washes, so how that accounts for grey stains goodness knows!
These products ruined my clothing and I would advise anyone to steer clear – very very bad experience and ruined clothes. …
As Which say, all the small print caveats try to protect the makers but even when they are shown photographic evidence they just say the customer must be in the wrong

Wash ball can not replace detergent. Detergent cleans the best. I bought a peanut butter maker last year. I only use it twice and now don’t remember where I put that thing. Gosh, I can not wait that long.

I think you missed my point about refils, I drilled a hole in the top of the cartridge and i only use the soap that I’ve always used costing 89p a sachet, they can re design it as much as they like I’ll keep on refilling with my soap, Part of my fun in gadgets is getting round the manufacturers repeat business. Also every soap dispenser I’ve ever had has broken or leaked after a few months so I had to get a new one anyway, this really was the cheapest option and it satisfies my gadget lust.