From ‘energy savers’ that increased energy usage to a Colour Catcher that turned whites pink, we’ve found plenty of pointless products. Are any lurking at the back of your cupboard?
The popularity of Lakeland demonstrates our national love of plastic paraphernalia for the kitchen. But at least when you’re buying an avocado slicer, you know perfectly well you don’t really need it.
I’ve taken the decision many times to buy stuff which turns out to do nothing but fill space at the back of my kitchen cupboards. That’s why I’ve got five different-shaped graters, and a squeezy clip for a tube of tomato paste that saves you from having to roll it up to get out the last bits.
Don’t waste your money
But there are some products out there that look like they do quite an important job, when, according to our tests, in fact, they’re not worth the money. It could be that they just didn’t work, or that something else you probably own already does the job better.
We’ve been scrutinising, investigating and testing those we thought might fall into this category, and today we’ve published our list of 10 products you don’t need.
And the prizes go to…
First there are smoothie makers. These are more hassle than they’re worth because the tap is incredibly hard to clean – and why would you even get one when a good jug blender will do the job just as well? Not to mention the fact that high-end ones will set you back £80.
Then there’s Colour Catcher, which claims to prevent colours running in your wash and turning everything pink. Except it didn’t when we tried it. Whites went pink in our tests, and by the time you’ve followed all the small print caveats on the box about taking care with mixing laundry, you wouldn’t need it anyway. And you’d be paying £19 a year for the privilege of adding it to your wash.
Moving swiftly on, there’s the fabulous ‘gas energy saver’ – a metal disk that sits on your hob and claims to save energy by making gas burn more efficiently. I think this is my favourite useless gadget because it actually did the opposite of what it’s designed for. In our tests we found it took longer to boil a pan of water with it than without it. So that’s £8 well spent.
Want to know what else reached our useless top ten? We’ve put together a rogues’ gallery of 10 products you don’t need where you can see them all in full glory. And if you’ve bought any pointless products and later regretted it, here’s your chance to reveal all.
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