Some time ago I wrote about the JML PediPaws nail trimmer for cats and dogs. At the time, it must have rated as the stupidest product ever – though plenty of Westie owners were clearly enthralled enough to buy it in spite of the obvious drawbacks, judging from the Amazon user reviews.
More recently, there was the JML PediPro. I didn’t write about this – I thought I had, but I can’t find it if I did. It’s like an electric razor for feet – human feet, this time – and the TV ad shows it grinding about a kilo of dead skin off some woman’s foot (I was having my dinner the first time they showed it). The reviews on Amazon reveal that it is a low-quality product that doesn’t appear to either do the job it says it does much of the time, or do it for very long before breaking.
And now, we have the JML Turbo Brush. You can call me old-fashioned, but to my mind a tool like this would – if it actually worked – come with a safety warning. Any footage of it working would see it producing sparks as it contacted a hard surface, and flinging bits of baked-on grease around the room. You see, the Laws of Physics absolutely dictate that it would do all these things if it was anywhere near powerful enough to do what it claims to be able to. And it wouldn’t run off four AA batteries. There’d be a generator out back.
As an aside, many years ago there was a TV advert for Spry Crisp’n’dry cooking oil. The ad showed chips (French fries to American readers) being cooked in the stuff and then – the point being that food was especially crispy when cooked in Spry – one was broken in half on camera. The chip in question was clearly the softest and least crispy of its kind, but that didn’t stop the sound effects crew dumping a hefty “snick” sound over the top. If you shut your eyes, it sounded like someone had snapped a pencil.
Well, the Turbo Brush must come courtesy of the same ad people. The blurb on JML’s website says:
Zap! Wham! Doktor Power Turbo Brush uses sonic power to make dirt and grime vanish in a flash. This heavy-duty scrubber generates over 12,000 oscillating scrubs per minute and is perfect for cleaning in awkward, hard to reach areas.
So, the four AA batteries make it vibrate. That seems pretty clear. But “scrubs”? That suggests to me that the brush head moves several centimetres either way – which it doesn’t. Mind you, the video seems to imply that the head oscillates – though most of the work appears to come from moving your hand around. And could those stains be any more phoney?
You’ve got to be realistic about this. You’re not going to be able to remove really caked-on dirt with something that runs off four small batteries any faster than you would be able to using a toothbrush and some elbow grease. And unless it was built specifically to withstand a nuclear strike, it isn’t going to last long if you use it a lot (indeed, some of the Amazon reviews make exactly that point).