Nads hair removal system works great! I have a bit of lower back hair that is a pain to deal with so when my roomate got some for her legs I asked her to rub her nads on my back and it worked just fine. The peeling process was mildly painful but no worse than plucking one or two hairs. The stuff is kinda tasty too.
Juice-Man does work but because of the design of the strainer you lose a lot of juice filled pulp and as someone noted you have to use waaay too much veggies or fruit to get juice. It also take about 15 minutes to clean.
A better juicer is the Omega Juicer which does not automatically discard the pulp. Instead it makes more thorough use of centripidal force because it is a true cylindar as opposed to the cone shaped Juice-Man.
The Ginsu knives are ok, but they are just cheap serrated knives. Serrated knives are the anethma to any true chef unless one is cutting cake or bread.
The rotisree thing from Popeil looks really great. I want one of those and will own one soon. But even if it works really well you need to plan meals to justify the expense.
I have a great bread machine, but the only way to make the expense worthwhile is to buy yeast in bulk (yeast can be pricey) and to eat a lot of bread with every meal.). I think anything that forces you to change dietary habits to justify it’s expense has to be considered for that factor as well as how well it does it’s main job (the juicer does not count as it’s purpose WAs to change my dietary habits).
The Vacu-Sealer is really good but there are a lot of them out there and some may not work as well as others. As a rule you want to one with the best PSI rating and warranty. Again, this is really only worthwhile if you buy to accomodate it. For instance I happen to own a deep freeze which i got for free and just had to fix the hinge, so buying meat in bulk is no problem for me. Of course mine is full of venison right now so I’m not buying any meat until I get around to eating all that I have (anyone want some venison? Summer sausage anyone?).
Another vote here in favor of Ginsu knives. I bought one in a WalMart when they first sold them in non-infomercial areas. They couldn’t reduce the price, they said, but could offer a second knive, a paring knife, and a fileting knife. I spoke up and said “If the knife if guarenteed for life, WHY would I need a second one??” Everyone laughed and the saleswoman ignored me, but I nudged the guy next to me, and we simply split the package – we each got one regular knife, I took the paring knife and he took the filet knife.
Man, do these work great. Cuts fresh bread w/o smooshing it. Cuts tomatoes great. Cuts pizza when you can’t find the pizza roller. And yes, I tried FIRST THING … it cuts tin cans. Weird Al was right – you can cut a tin can with it, but you wouldn’t want to!!
My Dad bought the Popeil Showtime Rotisserie and he LOVES it! He is usually only cooking for one and says it is really convenient for him. He will cook anything in it, chickens, game hens, fish, even hot dogs or burgers.
I tried “Sweet Simplicity”, the no-wax leg waxing system. (Same as the one Monica and Phoebe tried on Friends but I got mine first) It SUCKED. Was incredibly messy and had worse results.
And, at the mention of Ginsu knives…those are REALLY sharp. I nearly cut my finger off using one. Needed 27 stitches to fix. Not only will they go through a tomato with ease but your ring finger too! They have always worked well for us, but you’d better be careful! Ours are also about 20 yrs old.
We use our vacuum sealer relentlessly – but I can’t imagine it being worthwhile without the other two legs of the Sealing Triangle, Costco and a freezer. With our happy triumvirate, we’re packaging bulk-bought ground beef, shredded cheeses, and a host of leftovers (keeps my Tupperware out of the freezer and saves space). We recently planned a weekend where we knew we’d have time and made three dozen enchiladas, two meat loafs, four batches of spaghetti sauce, and two dozen manicotti, then broke everything up into meal-sized portions and packed them away. The joy of dinner in minutes – words fail me.
Andyman: the Egg Wave cups work great. My wife bought the whole 4-cup set + caddy + yolk separator for about $12 at the local Walmart.
My wife also tried that NADS hair remover and didn’t like it one bit. We ended up returning the stuff for a refund. I personally couldn’t buy anything named “NADS” without feeling a little bit wierd.
We also bought one of the American Harvest Jet Stream ovens a few years back and it worked really well. Haven’t used it in a while, though.
And didn’t really think much of it. I was using it to make beef jerky and had the liberty of trying it side by side with an electric oven that you could set on ‘warm’ which did the same thing. That is, use really low heat to dehydrate meat treated with soy sauce, Lawry’s seasoning salt, and Liquid Smoke.
The oven did a much better job in dehydrating the meat for the same amount of time (16 hours) and had the added benefit of not making the whole apartment smell like a forest fire (unlike the dehydrator). Also, those plastic trays on the dehydrator are a BITCH to clean because all the drippings get fused on to the plastic and NO dishwater is getting those stains off no matter how many times you wash them!
i’ll throw in for the rotissirie. It works as well as promised and then some, i cooked up a 15 lb turkey in her last week and aside from a little added whine from the electric motor it was superb. My only complaint is that when cooking large portions the drippings can get baked on which makes cleaning up tough, but its worth the effort.
Is the george foreman grill still considered an infomercial product? if so then I would vote for that. I don’t know about the less fat promises but it cooks well.
The ginsu’s are great but even better was one of the add-on “chef tool” gimmicks that included a “swedish design”-ed potato peeler that was supposed to be great for arthritic peelers of potatos. I wish i could find another because i used mine so often it wore out…
nordic track is by far the best piece of info-excerise equipment. the worst would have to be the tony little ab-isolator or the body by jake ab and back plus. Completely useless
If you are talking about the Food Saver, my dad loves his. He does an annual salmon fishing trip and other fishing trips and absolutely loves it. He even has given them as gifts even though he keeps forgetting me (big turd).
Anyhow, his fishing trip is usually in August and cooks up salmon steaks in January.
I have the George Forman grill and it works great.
I did a search to find out what the hell an Egg Wave is and found this website that has a bunch of the items that have been mentioned. http://www.iworld.mb.ca/
** amarinth, ** those are the tapes I was thinking of renting first, care to share why you didn’t stick with it for more than four days???
The only infomercial product that I’ve tried, is Quick And Brite. I didn’t get it from the commerical, but from a contractor that I had hired to get out a weird black outline that was on our beige carpeting at the baseboards. [turns out to be from the last steam cleaning machine]
Quick and Brite, not only got the stuff out, it doesn’t have a smell, I used it without gloves, and there is no toxicity either. HOWEVER, it is advertised to clean mirrors and glass, um, not so much. But it was good for the carpet.
One of my friends just tried the Nads last week. At first she hated it. Then she tried again, using the prep soap (as recommended by the instructions). She loves it now, and said that she will continue to use it. I asked if it hurt like regular waxing. Her response, “Of course it hurts, you’re ripping hair from your body.” So, I don’t know about the pain factor. I’m working up to it.
I did just recently get the the Orange trio at Target. The wood stuff, the kitchen cleaning stuff, the Oxy stuff. I’ve been impressed by all three. I’m not going to put the wood stuff on the very nice furniture, but I did put it on some average pieces and was very pleased with the result. My front door looks much nicer now. The kitchen cleaner is very impressive, but it does streak. Keep that in mind. The Oxy has been superior in its removal of the occasional pet stain.
What about that rotary drill/saw/cutter device? When they toss out the 4th payment, I can barely contain myself; my dialing finger is at the ready. Then I remember, I have absolutely no need for such an item.
Bought the Egg Wave for the wife. She seems to like it, but her eggs come out all funny looking and she says that they taste slightly different. But she says it is worth it due to the time and cleanup involved with frying eggs.
My aunt used that vacuum sealer for clothes for her move. She was able to pack like 15 pillows in a suitcase. She said the suitcase weighed a ton, but it worked really well. I think she uses it for winter/summer storage of clothes (she can store an entire wardrobe easily under the bed) and of course for her move. She also said it was a blast watching a pillow get reduced to 1/10th of its normal volume. I think this may destroy a feather pillow though (she’s allergic to feathers).
We also bought some “corner shelves” once. These things are right isosceles triangles that have retractable blades on the 2 non-hypotenuse sides. If you stick the triangle in a corner and extend the blades, they stick into the wall enough to keep up the shelf (and maybe something light on it). We ended up using 2 of the 4, and we had to put nails in the wall to prevent the one with the ivy on it from collapsing. But you can really effectively cut the bejeezus out of yourself with those blades.
I am absolutely mesmerized by the Ronco Rotisserie thing. I walk away after watching that one with my eyes glazed over, mumbling, “Set it and forget it, set it and forget it…”
I have held off buying one because I have a small kitchen and it looks like it takes up a lot of room, but I am secretly hoping hubby gets me one for Christmas!
On day four - I woke up in the morning, decided I didn’t want to get out of bed and hit the snooze button again… After coming home that night I said “but I made a commitment” or some such nonsense, stuck the tape in and punched & kicked.
Day 5 - didn’t want to get out of bed, came home and didn’t want to do anything else either.
Day 5 has repeated itself.
But I did definitely get a workout. And Billy Blanks falls more toward the inspiring side than the annoying side for videotape fitness people. Renting the tapes would be a good idea.
I actually own a couple of Ginsu knives. They are about 25 years old and, the blades bear the awe-inspiring logo GINSU 2000. The ‘2000’ is rendered in the same style as numbers on an LED watch.
And yes, they’re actually pretty good. One is a large chopping or slicing knife…it has a satisfying heft to it and can cut just about anything I need to cut.
Oohh oohh! George Forman lean and mean grilling machine. We got one for a wedding gift. I use it all the time for burgers for lunch. I can cook frozen hamburger patties in 7-8 minutes. I use it almost every lunch hour. I used it on Chicken Breast once too, and the results were pretty good, but I don’t know if I will use it again since I like to use chicken breast in other fancy dishes with sauces. But for burgers alone it works great! The fat runs down and away and doesn’t spit at you and burn you either. It cleans quite easily too. I notice there are lots of knock offs in the market now and I would imagine they work well too. I would recomend one to anybody just for hamburgers alone!
and it worked just fine. The peeling process was mildly painful but no worse than plucking one or two hairs. The stuff is kinda tasty too.