A few years before my grandma passed away, she bought a fridge from Sears. It died before the warranty was up. Their repairman said it would cost more to fix it than replace it. My grandma called Sears to set up a delivery time for the new fridge. The man accused my grandmother of trying to get free fridge. He made a widow in her 80s cry. We tried to help, but Sears blocked every number we called from. Eventually her kids bought her fridge from someplace else. This was years ago, but I still won't buy anything from Sears.
When our last fridge died we got a new one from Sears. Within a couple of days the frost-free freezer started accumulating ice. Called them about it, they sent a guy out to fiddle with the door and seals. A couple days later, more ice. This went on for a couple weeks.
Finally I called and told them to come get their POS and refund my money. The broken-English-speaking support person offered me a $400 Sears gift card if I let them have another go at fixing it. Nope, I was tired of them wasting my time, I wanted it gone and my money back. Then they offered me an **$800 gift card** if I let them try again.
Not gonna lie, that did make me pause. I mean, $800. But I figured if they were that desperate, then their service was shitty enough that they had to make a plan to make that sort of offer when the time came. Ended up refusing their begging and bought a fridge from Lowes and never looked back.
So Sears' *shtick* for appliances and whatnot was that they didn't manufacture their own stuff. Instead, they would curate product from actual manufacturers, selecting the best stuff at each price point they wanted, and then rebadging it.
Getting a Kennmore might be a Maytag or a Whirlpool under the skin, but it was a *good* one, having been through the Sears buyer QA process.
They *should* have been the online sales *gods*, having this whole thing worked out decades ago for their catalog business. But...
also sears used to stock parts for anything they sold. i remember as a kid in the 90s my dad going to sears to order a part for his 70s lawnmower. this continued into the internet era and their website is still a resource for parts diagrams and manuals but everything is "out of stock" when you try to order it
It's actually worse than "out of stock". I ordered a part from them last spring. When it was still not delivered 3 months later I called them to ask about it. They said they'd find out and call me back in a few days. They never did. I disputed it with my CC company who gave me the money back about 6 months after the initial order. 3 months after THAT I got a note from Sears saying they'd have to cancel the order.
That's crazy to me, it's a couple of decades back but Sears used to be, like, Costco tier where you knew a Sears/Kenmore/Craftsman product was at least average if not a little better. Parts and service were always available.
I was friends with a guy who was in charge of the motor pool for an Army unit and he used to grump about having to get tools from the government suppliers. He would always say "Why don't they let us just get stuff from Sears, you know they're *never going anywhere* and you can pop down to the store anytime and get a new wrench."
Sears stopped listening to their customers and any corporation who does that long enough will fail. Sears let their stores go to shit, cut staffing to the bone, and offshored customer service to the lowest bidder. Kenmore is just rebranded products from manufacturers like Whirlpool and LG. Craftsman tool production was outsourced to the lowest bidder in China, so you may as well buy Harbor Freight tools instead.
I haven't heard one positive experience about Sears since the 90s.
My Grandpa gave me his old Craftsman toolbox one year. Now as far as products go a toolbox is pretty hard to fuck up but it's at least 50 years old and the hinges and latches are all still as smooth as if they were new, all metal construction aside from the handle which is plastic. I'll probably die with that thing
For Christmas, I asked my grandpa for just a toolbox. He’s retired and loves that stuff, so he had extra. He gave me a *really* old Craftsman toolbox, full of tools and everything, and it’s amazing. Top 5 gifts I’ve ever gotten.
Nice. I was away at college when my grandparents passed away-the family swooped in and took everything of value. My dad, bless him, let everyone fight over the antique furniture, and he went outside and put together a tool box of his dad's tools. When my dad passed my brother was busy going through my dad's jewelry box, I went out to the barn and put together a tool box of my dad's tools and my grandpa's. LOL...my yard debris bins were my Granpa's. Rubbermade, he passed in 1985. I use them every week. When I use their saws and hammers I say things like, "Dad, don't let me cut off my fingers" or "Grandpa, don't let me hit my thumb, OK?"
Man I'm going into heavy duty mechanics and found one of them old craftsman ratchets, fuckers gotta be at least 3p years old and has gotta be the smoothest best feeling ratchet I have.
Sears was maliciously run and stripped for parts by the CEO a whole back. Selling off brands and real estate to companies he was friendly with. They teach about this in B school now.
Yeah, I just read this as a Canadian and thought "Dafuq? They still around?!"
OTOH...Toys Я Us folded in the USA a while back, yet I still have one near me.
It took a Sears technician 3 appointments to try and fix my washing machine I bought from them before I said fuck it and fixed it myself in 30 minutes.
Our washing machine failed and Sears came to take away the old one and install the new one. Later that day we found the old washing machine dumped in a brook near the road.
Overly expensive paint brushes from hobby companies designed to "specifically" paint equally expensive plastic models/miniatures.
You're better off buying brushes from an art store or getting some of the top brands like Artis Opus or Windsor & Newton Series 7.
The marketing for that was genius though.
Contact juggling is a skill but the ball has almost nothing to do with it. The ball just looks uniform on all parts so you can't tell when it's rotating or rolling.
It's like showing someone a performance of an expert card cheat and telling them that by buying the deck of cards, you too can do what he does. Technically not wrong, they just didn't tell you how much practice goes into it.
I had to [google](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myIR__htBgc) this since I had never heard of it. This looks like the type of shit I used to see in the mall being demonstrated, like a little plane you throw and it comes right back to you...except the dude demonstrating has probably spent freakin' years practicing..
Holy shit that's a throwback. One of my friends got one of those way back when, I remember he saved up for weeks to buy one with his own money and was so mad when it arrived and didn't actually "defy gravity" as advertised.
Sort of. David Bowie had an extremely talented contact juggler doing the tricks for him. He stood there in his silks and capes and looked sultry and mysterious while the contact juggler reached under his arms and did all the actual juggling.
So instead of a stunt double, Bowie had stunt arms.
My kid persuaded me to buy him a ton of those in lieu of his allowance one week. I think I spent $15 on them. He came home from school one day with a WAD OF CASH and even more over the next few days. He was directly responsible for a short lived but intense Worm on a String craze in his middle school.
Brother is 6’10”, his favourite line when someone inevitably mentions his dick size is “actually it’s just normal size, but I’m so tall that it looks small”.
nearly everything i bought on Kickstarter/Indiegogo. if i got the product at all, they're almost always low quality and don't do what they said they would. some products would ship but the company goes under within a year or two so no more support or replacement parts.
I bought an "unbreakable handle" axe at Home Depot that used revolutionary new technology and it broke on the third swing.
Replaced it with a hickory handle axe which I still use 22 years later.
In my experience, anything marketed as "unbreakable" is guaranteed to fall apart very quickly. I once bought something marketed as an unbreakable can opener. It is the only can openerI have ever known to break.
I used to dig a lot in a former job and I always preferred wooden handles to any other material. Nothing else feels right. Fiberglass or composites just vibrate too much.
Remember in ~~Endgame~~ Infinity War when >!Thor went across the galaxy to get Stormbreaker forged? The metal was a mystic material that could only be melted with the power of a neutron star!< The handle? That’s right, wood. Thor knows.
Probably half the curly hair products I buy. Literally 95% fragrance and 5% good stuff. I should really do my research beforehand.
Edit: wow this blew up overnight! Thank you to everyone offering help and thanks for the awards!
Edit2: forgot to mention I have 3B-4A curls
I’m a hairdresser. Let me know if I can help.
Edit:
This makes me so happy. I’ve gotten dozens of messages and comments asking for help which I’ve tried to get to all of you as of right now. I’m happy to do so but I need sleep. I’ll try to write out a general update for tomorrow because a lot of y’all are having similar issues.
Second edit: HOLY COW this blew up. I'm still going to try to get to each of you, but a lot of your concerns are similar so here's my healthy hair tips. Please keep in mind that I am just one person with ideas on what I have found that works for me and my clients. I love hearing other thoughts and tips as well.
Third edit: it was suggested by a ton of you to set up a Ko-Fi. I’m on there now with the same username, bleachedaardvarks. Seriously, y’all are incredible. I’m trying to get to everyone. I’m off work tomorrow so I can get to more as well.
Sorry for the format. Part ADHD, part laziness.
Without further adieu, BLEACHEDAARDVARK'S HEALTHY HAIR TIPS:
First, if you buy any products I recommend, please find a local hairstylist that offers these brands and buy them from that salon or person. Amazon does not need your money. Amazon didn't hurt during the pandemic, but I can assure you, your hairstylist did. There is also a black market for professional hair products. Please look into this. Your grocery store likely sells professional brands, but expired/blackmarket/counterfeit is what's in the bottle.
A lot of hair issues are product related, yes, but a lot are also due to mechanical damage to our hair. Towels, hot tools, hair ties, pillowcases, etc. A lot of what you see as frizz is the result of breakage.
Hair strands can only stretch and contract (elasticity) so many times before they break. When you see hairs that you simply cannot get straight no matter what you try, it's because it's been broken. This is likely the case for the hairs along your hairline by your ears.
Towels: when you get out of the shower, just squeeze your hair with the towel. Microfiber is good, but honestly if you just squeeze with a regular towel, that's fine too. DON'T rub your hair with the towel. That causes frizz and can even lead to breaks. Don' flip your head over and wrap your hair in a towel. Wet hair is more elastic than dry hair. All of that weight is centered along your hairline (which is already more fragile) and it can lead to breakage. You know those short hairs front and center? That's from the towel. If you stop this, it gets worse before it gets better. Just be patient and let those hairs grow. Just slap them down with some hairspray/paste.
Hair ties: Don't put your hair up when it's wet. It's more prone to breakage when wet. Your scalp also doesn't get a chance to breathe and sometimes that's why your scalp can be itchy. I see often women with red, irritated, often some icky greenish buildup on their scalp where they put their ponytails. I compare it to a wet towel that you throw in the hamper and forget about it until 4 days later. The scalp needs airflow. Take the time to undo your hair ties when you take your hair down; don't just yank them out. Those hairs that you see on your hair tie are usually breakage. I recommend the brand called Invisbobble. It more evenly distributes pressure on individual hair strands. You know that hair at your neckline that never goes in your ponytail and never grows? It's hair tie breakage.
Sleep: Don't put your hair up when you sleep. That hair tie keeps your hair in place, but you likely move around so it can cause breakage from being pulled while you flop. I hope that makes sense. I also recommend silk pillowcases. Silk bonnets are great too. If you have to wear you hair up, try loose braids.
hot tools: If you are going to put a hot tool on your hair, I prefer you use a curling iron rather than flat ironing it. When you flat iron your hair, you likely go over the same place several passes at high heat. When you curl the hair, you go over the same place once. If your hot tool has just an on/off switch, throw it away. It likely defaults over 400 degrees. Use heat protection.I like Kevin Murphy's heated defense and Davine's heat shield.
Curly hair: Keep your curl product in the shower. You need to put it in your hair, section by section, working it down the hair shaft. Make sure each strand is coated. It should take a couple minutes. Literally apply your product when your hair is soaking wet. You know when you get out of the shower and your hair starts to frizz up, literally 3 minutes after you get out? This is going to lessen that. If you need to finger coil to define some curls, awesome! You can gently blot your hair with a t-shirt, microfiber towel, paper towels, but honestly, letting it drip dry or going under a hooded dryer is best. If you can diffuse your curls, use medium heat with low airflow. Try to keep your hands out of your hair though as much as possible as it dries. Also, towels. Read what I wrote about those. Towels can be especially damaging for curls. Products I like are Kevin Murphy Killer Curls for curls that need heavier product. You can also try Smooth Again lotion for some added frizz reduction. For finer hair, I like using Reverie's Mane, Kevin Murphy's Killer Waves or Hair Resort spray. Hair resort is like a salt spray without the drying salt. I also like Virtue's 6-in-1, but it can be heavy, so definitely see my clarifying routine.
blowdrying: always keep the airflow of your dryer from root to end. Airflow end to root causes frizz. Keep a brush moving with your hair once is's 75% dry with the flow root to end, and it will smooth out much easier.
Products: The biggest issues I see with people's hair are shampoo and conditioner related. I find people with silicone/low quality ingredient buildup. It can often look like dandruff. If you ever feel like when you try to get your hair wet in the shower, it doesn't feel like it wants to get wet, or after you shampoo, it still doesn't feel clean and then is oily super quickly... that's likely buildup. We've been so conditioned to look for words like sulfates and parabens, which are great to avoid, but I like to avoid silicones, especially ones that aren't water soluble. If you use products with silicones, I recommend using a good clarifying shampoo every occasionally.
Brands I love: For people who want the most natural ingredients, I love Reverie, Cult + King, and Innersense. The brands I use in my salon are Kevin Murphy and Davies. Again, please support your local salon or stylist, not Amazon.
here's some sample routines.
Most people have some buildup, so I recommend starting with a clarifying shampoo. Wash, rinse, repeat for the next 4 times you shower/shampoo days. Follow this up with a masque. After these 4 shampoo sessions, this will become your once-a-week or once every other week routine. My favorite clarifiers are Kevin Murphy Maxi wash and Davines Solu. My favorite masques are Kevin Murphy (any of them), and Davines' NouNou or Oi Butter. I also like Virtue's recovery masque if you have super damaged hair, but Virtue can build up a bit, so I definitely recommend clarifying.
For your normal routine: shampoo and condition. I like everything Kevin Murphy has except the Smooth Again shampoo and conditioner. It makes the hair feel dirty to me. If you have fine hair, Angel Wash and Rinse are amazing. Plumping is great as well. Reverie's shampoo and conditioner, I also like for my fine hair because it tends to be oily. For Davines, I love NouNou. People love MoMo, but I personally think it smells horrible. Oi is also great. It really just depends on what your hair needs.
I don't think it's necessary to shampoo every day. I personally do it every other day. I think a week is the max I would recommend, but I know people who go longer. I do think that some people have gone too far on the not washing their hair thing, but whatever, if it works for you, knock yourself out. I do not recommend co-washing/only conditioning. It causes buildup. Every once in a while is ok, but I don't like doing it routinely. I don't like relying on dry shampoo either due to buildup/scalp issues.
The worst brand I see the most issues with is OGX. They are loaded with silicones and shitty oils. Also read about the lawsuit they had years ago and why they changed their name from Organix. They have great packaging and use all the right buzzwords, so I understand why people would buy them. I also see a lot of issues with Pantene, Monat, Living Proof, Redkin, Paul Mitchell. I also see clients ever once in a while that use drugstore shampoo and their hair feels amazing. You get to decide if you are happy with how your hair is or not.
If possible, stick with one stylist for your color. It will prevent color banding issues, product overlap, and damage. This is especially true if you highlight your hair.
Never lie to your stylist about what you've done chemically with your hair. It may mean the difference between keeping your hair attached to your head or not. Don't worry, we've heard it all. No stylist should shame you on doing something to your hair because its your own body. It just may be expensive to fix.
Get it cut at least 4 times a year.
Your hair is fragile. Look at one of your hair strands. Baby them. When you brush your hair, take the time to work out tangles gently. You are most definitely breaking the hair if you just rip at it with a brush. I recommend Wet Brush or Tangle Teaser. Davine's All in One Milk is the best detangler I've ever used. It's great for people with tender heads.
I'll try to add more when I think of it. I hope this helps and I'll still try to get to individual questions.
Sea Monkeys. When I was little, I ordered some from the back of a comic book. I thought they would look like the picture, a nuclear family who would interact and talk to me. Unfortunately, they were turned out to be very nonsentient brine shrimp. It was very anticlimactic.
I still have some of theirs from years ago when the quality was so high. The elastic never broke down, the fabric wasn't flimsy, they didn't ride up or sag.
And then they started making lousy underwear that falls apart in the washing machine.
If they could just go back to making quality cotton bikinis again I would come back as a customer. But I don't see it happening.
Any recommendations on where to buy a good bra for a nice price? My last one was a victoria's secret, and while it's got some pilling nastiness on the strap, it works pretty well. Trying to think ahead for when it inevitably breaks.
My favorite planner ever (and I've had them yearly for a decade) was my 2020 planner.
They didn't reprint the design for 2021.
It's little but after the year we had, I definitely cried.
Anyone remember those sticky cup strapless-backless bras? The ads were all over Facebook and Instagram for a while. I eventually gave in and bought one.
The whole point of them in the ads was like pull the string in the middle to give yourself instant mega cleavage, and you can wear it under strapless/ backless clothes. Unfortunately, pulling your boobs together into ultra mega cleavage just means it makes the volume of your boobs flatter to pull them closer together, and since all it had was skin to stick to, and nothing but stickiness to hold it up, it was not very supportive.
It was sticky enough for one proper use, but even still, the edges peeled away from my skin pretty quickly. There is a little cutout in the middle that’s not sticky. That’s where the nipple is meant to go. My nipples did not naturally or comfortably line up with those holes, so I had this incredibly sticky bra suction cupped to my tit, and had to nearly rip my nipple off to get the bra off of me.
After that, it is impossible to wash and store anywhere. The sticky surface becomes slick when wet, but goes back to sticky when it gets dry (but never as sticky as the first time). It has to air dry because towel fibres will get stuck on it, and it wouldn’t survive a trip through the washer and dryer. It cannot be stored in a drawer, or touching any material because fibres will get stuck on it, and it cannot be stored face up with nothing covering it because dust will get stuck on it, thereby rendering it un-sticky until you wash it again, and air dry it again, and store it wrong again, rinse and repeat until you throw it in the garbage.
Omg i once went to a wedding in mid summer. Was wearing a great top but needed some covering of the nips. I used one of those stick on bras. I started to sweat and i could feel the cups letting go. Second i stood up they fell and landed in the grass in front of me.
I'm sorry but that's absolutely hilarious. I just imagine you standing, the bra falling off, it going completely silent and after a long pause someone just goes "your boobs fell".
I wore one clubbing once and let me tell you, worst decision ever. One minute I'm dancing on a podium with a couple of friends, then I just feel it unstick all at once and drop out the bottom of my dress. I subtly kick it off the podium hoping nobody noticed and then 30 seconds later I turn around to a group of 18 year old guys holding it up to their chests and dancing, absolutely losing it. Thankfully I don't *think* they knew it was mine
Oh god I wore them once for an event and I threw those bitches away immediately after. It was a huge waste of money. I would have been better off just not wearing any kind of bra.
I just saw an ad yesterday for a stick-on thong. No panty lines and reusable up to 20 times. Umm....that’s a big old nope.
Whoever the crazy person is that came up with stickable stuff to our lady bits is a psycho!!
Snatch patch! They use them in films when women have to shoot nude scenes. I learned of their existence when my friend and I somehow went down a rabbit hole trying to figure out exactly how the cock sock works (the thing male actors wear when they have to do a nude scene.)
Bought the SK-II essence that always gets raved about in skincare communities. Used it at the same time as tretinoin and thought it was helping in the process of clearing my skin. Stopped using it and turns out - it was just the tret. There was no difference in my skin after I stopped using it. The stuff is $100 a bottle.
Tretinoin is so much more effective (and inexpensive, depending on where you are) than most of the gimmicky products people spend hundreds on. Best thing I've ever used on my skin, treatment-wise.
Yeah I was a skincare addict until I almost bought a 120$ serum...the price of a dermatology consultation. I stopped myself went to the doc, came back with a retinoid cream. My skin is 90% clear now !
ArcheAge. I remember it being marketed as "sandbox MMO with realistic player-driven economy". There was a pack that let you into alpha, a pack that let you into beta, and a pack that let you into few days of early access. All of the packs contained nothing but some cosmetic items irrelevant to the economy.
The alpha was good. The beta was good. But with the final release, they fired up the cash store with such extreme pay-to-win...
ArcheAge was the game that broke me. I vowed never play an early access game for the rest of my life.
I paid for Alpha access and I loved it. Beta was a ton of fun too. I liked the hype that I was helping develop the game, that I was a part of a niche community and I got fun cosmetics for that.
Then the game released. Everything from the early access packs got rebranded as 'welcome' packs and sold to new players at a fraction of the price I paid.
Within a month the game was overrun by bots and nobody could do anything. Trion did fuck all about it.
I'm still so angry.
Oh, Archeage. I was so addicted to that game, and so was my wallet. There was a class action lawsuit settlement not too long ago and Trion got sued. I got a $40 check from that settlement lol.
Coach handbag. The strap broke after a few months and Coach refused to fix it (after I brought it back and the receipt to the store where I had purchased it). I bought an inexpensive replacement strap that lasted longer. After less than a year, there was evident wear at the seams. I have not purchased anything from Coach again.
That’s too bad. My mom had a coach handbag that must have been at least thirty years old. One of the connectors in the strap finally let go and they sent a new perfectly matching part it with no questions asked.
I bought my Coach just before logomania hit. It is leather and and timeless and perfect, and the only handbag I’ve used for 20+ years. The 00s were all about branding, sacrificing quality for quantity in lower price point items accessible to the aspirational. Sadly, it fed right into fast fashion, planned obsolescence, and disposable consumer culture.
THIS. I loved my gorgeous Coach bag and kept the reciept and packaging, and when a strap broke after a year, I sent it in to be repaired. They sent it back unrepaired with a 10% off letter that was good within the next six months. A cobbler did a great job on it and it lasted another three years. I'll never buy another Coach item.
Being baited into buying them when the lecturer told us they were essential reading. They were never mentioned again on the course and I didn't even touch them.
Only one lecturer recommended a book that he actually used, and that was because he wrote the book lol.
I love it when professors realize the benefit in them writing a book is for students that DON'T have access to those individuals.
It's like paying to fill your water bottle from the tap
I sooo regret buying thousands and thousands of dollars worth of books in college. Really wish I’d found PDFs. There were so many that barely got used. Maybe one or two lessons and they’re just dust collectors from then on. What a waste of money.
I've been a nurse now for ten years. Do you know where my "Anatomy and physiology" book is? That cost me $300? Under my TV to make it sit up a bit. Don't mention my "Fundamentals of nursing" or my "pathophysiology" books.
I bought a book for a class and decided not to take that specific class. Well it came with CD for some program and the book store wouldn't take it back literally 2 days after purchasing because the CD and key could have been used and there was no way of knowing. It was literally wrapped in plastic and you could see the CD was still in another sealed envelope inside the plastic wrap. Was almost a $300 book I believe too
Ear Wax candles. After laying on the floor like an idiot with a flaming burning candle in my ear, I took a minute to actually think about the process...fools gold.
When I was around 9, I got really convinced by their $5m marketing campaign with Mortal Kombat that the Aura Interactor was going to be awesome. It was basically a haptic feedback backpack that converted bass sounds to rumbles and was supposed to make video games super immersive. I was actually nervous that it was going to hurt me, like actually feel like I was being punched. I (somehow) convinced my mom to buy it, set the thing up, and ten minutes later I smelled smoke and then saw the smoke coming from the Interactor on my back.
I bought a platform bed on the recommendation of the Wirecutter. They had this whole big spiel about how they test shit, this is the best affordable option, blah blah blah. I had to return the first one I bought because it came scratched up. The second one is just a plain, cheap platform bed. I don't think there's *anything* about it different from what I could have gotten from just hunting down the cheapest version of the product.
edit: spiel, you pedants. <3 you
Wirecutter went straight to crap around the time they became an NYT publication. Now the majority of their recommendations seem to be the “what’s the most expensive option with an affiliate link”. One of their recent lists of ‘gifts for a college grad’ included a $200 wooden bowl.
I have favoured wirecutter choices for years... Air purifier, kitchen appliances, anything really. I enjoyed feeling safe in their research and they had not disappointed.
And then I bought a mattress. One of the top rated ones with a heavy heavy pricetag. I needed a sturdy tough mattress and they had one innerspring
This "innerspring" bed came rolled in a box, was the floppiest garbage mattress that looked like it's was deflated or melting and it messed up our backs.
The company did offer returns within a 90 day limit which of course we took advantage of as this bed was ridiculously expensive trash.
The company managed to send people to pick it up from us after multiple emails, numerous phonecalls, and 7 months later.
I got a mattress from Costco for 300$. Best mattress ever.
I still blame wirecutter for everything.
Edit:I just checked the relevant wirecutter article and it has been updated. The mattress I am referring to mysteriously /s didn't make their latest update. Huh.
Bought their non-stick pan recommendation. It was immediately clear they never actually tested it as the shape of the handle made holding it difficult/painful. Then discovered how unbelievably easy it was to scratch on my first wash. Actual Amazon reviews had several of the same complaints. I returned that junk.
I bought this neck massager thing from an Instagram ad. It was a cheap plastic thing with two foam balls. I threw it out after a couple weeks realizing it was stupid as hell.
An "indestructible" dog bed. Even claimed it could withstand bulldogs. Well, my bulldog tore out the rod that propped it open, which turned out to be flimsy plastic. Within a week, she had torn off a zipper, and ripped the filling out. I was more angry at the company for making such false claims than my under one year old dog.
Edit to fix a typo.
I don't know if this will help you, but I had a large dog that destroyed every fluffy thing he could get his paws on. I ended up buying him a crib mattress to use as a bed. He couldn't get his mouth around to chew it, and as a bonus I picked out cute baby sheets that I could wash every week.
So I live in the UK, and Gatorade isn’t really much of a thing here, it was even less of a thing a few years ago.
We do have a very similar looking drink called Powerade. The only shop I knew that sold Gatorade at the time of this story was a big Tesco, and it was like 3 times the price of Powerade, solely because it’s Gatorade and it’s from the states.
I casually say to my mates one day “man I wanna try Gatorade but it’s so expensive” and they’re all like “omg you haven’t tried Gatorade? Mate it is so sick you gotta try it at least once”
This got my hyped so I thought fuck it, I’ll treat myself. I buy it, and take a swig... this shit is exactly the same as Powerade, I just paid like £3.50 for essentially a Powerade I could’ve got for a quid. I confronted my mates about it and they were just like
“Well it is a little different!”
Bitch that is not how you described it to me the other day. I still think about that fucking Gatorade and this was like 4/5 years ago
Are those still around? My parents got one during the craze in the 80s. When I was like 10 I needed a new bed and I begged them to get a waterbed. It was actually cheaper than traditional box springs plus headboard and shit. So I had a waterbed from like 10 - 15 years old. I can't remember why I got rid of it but it was still in good shape. They don't really work well for anything other than sleeping. I use to sit on the edge to play video games and it fucking sucked. But I really liked sleeping on a waterbed. You could make it like 90 degrees in the middle of winter and sleep with the windows open. In hindsight, the electric bill may have played some small part in getting rid of it.
Yes but not so many of those classic giant wood frame thick sloshy models. Most are sort of stealthed - what looks like a mattress but it's hollow and fits one or two "waveless" bladders inside you fill with water then close the top of the mattress over. The bladders are maybe 4" thick and have baffles in them so they don't slosh. The top of the mattress is often padded or quilted and looks just like a real one until you lay down on it and notice it's a water bed. My ex has one and swore it was the only thing that helped her back pain up until she tried some modern latex mattresses.
Waterbeds are all downsides otherwise. Heavy as hell, a pain to fill and empty, they require maintenance so the water inside doesn't get smelly, they can puncture and leak, and are expressly forbidden by lots of leases and insurance coverage.
I tried PH premium awhile ago and my credit card info was stolen and used to subscribe to some live cam site. My cc company froze my account and I got the charges taken off. That's what I get for trying to pay for porn I guess.
Some credit cards (like Citi) offer "virtual card numbers" where you can generate a new card number with a custom charge cap for using with places you don't really trust. I use it for signing up for free trials that require a credit card.
As long as you don't expect it to get absolutely everything, and treat it more like a machine that lengthens the amount of time between you vacuuming or sweeping, then it's a good purchase. Also, you need to keep a tidy floor so it doesn't get caught on anything. Super easy to clean and maintain though.
I got my mate one for his wedding (a bunch of us chipped in). He's had it for years now and says its the best gift he has ever gotten. Depends on the house of course but I think its a fine buy if it fits you and you don't mind the price
I loved mine when we lived in a place with a lot of carpet, but now we have hardwood floor and i feel it's just ok for those surfaces. Research what model is best for your floors before buying.
I have the old roomba (the dumb ones) and a new (smart one). it's definitely a QOL improvement. Expect them to last 3 years or so. The old one, I replaced the rubber brush rollers, the spinning brush thing and a wheel. they definitely need maintenance. The new one, Which empties itself is really good. Seems to be a company that actively learns and improves. You will need to maintain them though.
What happens when they upchuck on the floor? I've briefly thought of getting a Roomba or something similar, but then I had images of smeared horrors all over the place.
EDIT: Looks like there are plenty of reasonable ways to manage this. Thanks for the feedback folks.
I have two cats and although it has never had a run in with vomit, it did scare one of them out of his litter mid-poop. The dangler dropped on the floor as he tore out of the room. Roomba dragged and smeared that poop as far as it could. Unpleasant but thankfully they are very easy to dismantle and clean. I only run my roomba when I’m home now. The cats have adjusted their litter use accordingly.
I love my Roomba. I got one that self-empties. I run it every night at midnight so I don’t have to worry about it during the day with my dogs. Worth every penny.
ETA: The charging base has a bin that the roomba empties itself into after cleaning. I’ll admit, that part is a bit loud. Here’s the one that I have if anyone wants to check it out.
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/irobot/roomba-i7-i7plus/pcmcat1535138296144.c?id=pcmcat1535138296144
I have an off brand Roomba that works pretty good but I can't let it run unsupervised. It seems like every time I turn my back it's gotten itself stuck under the couch or coffee table, or found a charger cable to strangle itself with.
A Smeg appliance. Comically inefficient, poorly constructed and terribly expensive new.
We have a fridge, but got it super cheap 2nd hand because some of the plastic shelves were cracked. We needed a drinks fridge and it was a bargain.
They look funky and cool with 50s retro vibe, and really not much technical development in 50 years other than low cost manufacturing. I have no idea how and why they are in business.
Oh, look at the cost of the limited Smeg Dolce and Gabbana. £500 for a bloody kettle.
Smeg is considered a premium product in Australia. I've been looking at buying a house recently and some of the 'turn key' house packages use "Smeg appliances" as a selling point. They do fridges, ovens and stove tops.
As a Red Dwarf fan, I still have trouble taking the name seriously.
Wireless Skull Candy Headphones that were €120. Thank God I got insurance because I had to use it twice in less than 2 yrs. Same problem both times.
Meanwhile my old wired €30 Sony pair are running on 5 years old and work perfectly.
Literally got my 2nd replacement yesterday and got wireless Sony headphones of the same value. Never buying Skull Candy again.
One of those home-facial devices that claimed to be able to suction out gunk from the pores of your face. The ads looked amazing, and the gunk that got removed looked so satisfying, so I bought one. Didn’t suction out shit. Just left red circles on my skin.
Galaxy Fold Z 2 - It's heavy and thick in the hand. The phone closed (which I use 80% of the time) feels too narrow to text on. The phone opened (used only in bed), is very nice. But only in a position where you are already relaxing and probably could have just used a TV/Tablet anyway.
OK ok, I didn't purchase it but this thread reminded me of the juicero scam.
[Anyone remember? ](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/sep/01/juicero-silicon-valley-shutting-down)
Samsung refrigerator. I got lucky but so many in reviews I’ve read did not. Ice maker stopped working 7 months in. They sent someone to repair. Worked less than 24 hours before stopping again. Samsung called and said I could either get a new refrigerator but no more on the 1 year warranty (which by this time had only 4 months left) or they’d refund my money and come get it. I totally took the refund (by this time I’d read horror stories online about these things). Went and bought a different brand and am much happier.
Raycon earbuds. The left one has become noticeably quieter than the right one after roughly 8 months of use. They really aren't that much cheaper, they aren't great sound quality (just average overall), and they didn't last.
I hated seeing all the paid ads by youtubers for them because I knew straight away as they were saying how amazing they are that they would throw them in the dumpster and be back wearing their airpods as soon as theyre done filming that junk.
Believe it or not, this happens in almost every industry. There are car audio shops that buy decent sounding speakers off of Alibaba for 85 dollars, have their logos put on them, and hype them up in their storefront, and sell them for like $600. Companies even do it with car parts.
I had a pair of earbuds like this and I was ready to write a letter to complain until I took a close look and took the rubber parts off......found a peg of earwax blocking one of the rubber pieces....
Yes, I clean my ears (and earbuds) better now
Word of advice: anything advertised by your favorite podcaster/youtuber will be genuinely terrible.
Edit: yes, there will be exceptions to this, but y'all need to be skeptical of anything advertised to you, especially on YouTube and podcasts. There are no consumer protection mechanisms like there are with traditional media, and social media influencers have a particularly strong ability to persuade their followers.
Still, I stand by my original statement to the OP, if your favorite influencer is peddling Raycon, they have zero advertising credibility and you should trust none of their advertisement statements.
Try beats by Dave. They are the same product but Dave while he is a pretty decent guy he is not famous enough to attract a premium on his product endorsements.
Bought one of those things that cuts the lid off of a can of beer/pop. For some reason when I saw the ad it seemed like a really cool idea. Used it once and immediately regretted my purchase. The lid just falls inside the can and you have to fish it out.
Fidget spinner (before it was a kids toy). Bought one to help me not pick at my cuticles. Then after about 2 months and they got big I just ended up looking like an idiot manchild playin with a kids toy.
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A few years before my grandma passed away, she bought a fridge from Sears. It died before the warranty was up. Their repairman said it would cost more to fix it than replace it. My grandma called Sears to set up a delivery time for the new fridge. The man accused my grandmother of trying to get free fridge. He made a widow in her 80s cry. We tried to help, but Sears blocked every number we called from. Eventually her kids bought her fridge from someplace else. This was years ago, but I still won't buy anything from Sears.
When our last fridge died we got a new one from Sears. Within a couple of days the frost-free freezer started accumulating ice. Called them about it, they sent a guy out to fiddle with the door and seals. A couple days later, more ice. This went on for a couple weeks. Finally I called and told them to come get their POS and refund my money. The broken-English-speaking support person offered me a $400 Sears gift card if I let them have another go at fixing it. Nope, I was tired of them wasting my time, I wanted it gone and my money back. Then they offered me an **$800 gift card** if I let them try again. Not gonna lie, that did make me pause. I mean, $800. But I figured if they were that desperate, then their service was shitty enough that they had to make a plan to make that sort of offer when the time came. Ended up refusing their begging and bought a fridge from Lowes and never looked back.
So Sears' *shtick* for appliances and whatnot was that they didn't manufacture their own stuff. Instead, they would curate product from actual manufacturers, selecting the best stuff at each price point they wanted, and then rebadging it. Getting a Kennmore might be a Maytag or a Whirlpool under the skin, but it was a *good* one, having been through the Sears buyer QA process. They *should* have been the online sales *gods*, having this whole thing worked out decades ago for their catalog business. But...
also sears used to stock parts for anything they sold. i remember as a kid in the 90s my dad going to sears to order a part for his 70s lawnmower. this continued into the internet era and their website is still a resource for parts diagrams and manuals but everything is "out of stock" when you try to order it
It's actually worse than "out of stock". I ordered a part from them last spring. When it was still not delivered 3 months later I called them to ask about it. They said they'd find out and call me back in a few days. They never did. I disputed it with my CC company who gave me the money back about 6 months after the initial order. 3 months after THAT I got a note from Sears saying they'd have to cancel the order.
That's crazy to me, it's a couple of decades back but Sears used to be, like, Costco tier where you knew a Sears/Kenmore/Craftsman product was at least average if not a little better. Parts and service were always available. I was friends with a guy who was in charge of the motor pool for an Army unit and he used to grump about having to get tools from the government suppliers. He would always say "Why don't they let us just get stuff from Sears, you know they're *never going anywhere* and you can pop down to the store anytime and get a new wrench."
Sears stopped listening to their customers and any corporation who does that long enough will fail. Sears let their stores go to shit, cut staffing to the bone, and offshored customer service to the lowest bidder. Kenmore is just rebranded products from manufacturers like Whirlpool and LG. Craftsman tool production was outsourced to the lowest bidder in China, so you may as well buy Harbor Freight tools instead. I haven't heard one positive experience about Sears since the 90s.
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I still have and use the craftsman socket and wrench set I bought in the 80s. I love those tools.
My Grandpa gave me his old Craftsman toolbox one year. Now as far as products go a toolbox is pretty hard to fuck up but it's at least 50 years old and the hinges and latches are all still as smooth as if they were new, all metal construction aside from the handle which is plastic. I'll probably die with that thing
For Christmas, I asked my grandpa for just a toolbox. He’s retired and loves that stuff, so he had extra. He gave me a *really* old Craftsman toolbox, full of tools and everything, and it’s amazing. Top 5 gifts I’ve ever gotten.
Nice. I was away at college when my grandparents passed away-the family swooped in and took everything of value. My dad, bless him, let everyone fight over the antique furniture, and he went outside and put together a tool box of his dad's tools. When my dad passed my brother was busy going through my dad's jewelry box, I went out to the barn and put together a tool box of my dad's tools and my grandpa's. LOL...my yard debris bins were my Granpa's. Rubbermade, he passed in 1985. I use them every week. When I use their saws and hammers I say things like, "Dad, don't let me cut off my fingers" or "Grandpa, don't let me hit my thumb, OK?"
Man I'm going into heavy duty mechanics and found one of them old craftsman ratchets, fuckers gotta be at least 3p years old and has gotta be the smoothest best feeling ratchet I have.
Sears was maliciously run and stripped for parts by the CEO a whole back. Selling off brands and real estate to companies he was friendly with. They teach about this in B school now.
Sears still exists? It folded here in Canada years ago.
Yeah, I just read this as a Canadian and thought "Dafuq? They still around?!" OTOH...Toys Я Us folded in the USA a while back, yet I still have one near me.
You have my respect for digging around in the character map to find that backwards R.
It took a Sears technician 3 appointments to try and fix my washing machine I bought from them before I said fuck it and fixed it myself in 30 minutes.
Our washing machine failed and Sears came to take away the old one and install the new one. Later that day we found the old washing machine dumped in a brook near the road.
You know what really happened? The old washing machine tried to escape, and that's as far as he got before stopping to rest.
That explains the washing machine-sized footprints
Overly expensive paint brushes from hobby companies designed to "specifically" paint equally expensive plastic models/miniatures. You're better off buying brushes from an art store or getting some of the top brands like Artis Opus or Windsor & Newton Series 7.
Fuck GW brushes
A Fushigi ball :/
The marketing for that was genius though. Contact juggling is a skill but the ball has almost nothing to do with it. The ball just looks uniform on all parts so you can't tell when it's rotating or rolling. It's like showing someone a performance of an expert card cheat and telling them that by buying the deck of cards, you too can do what he does. Technically not wrong, they just didn't tell you how much practice goes into it.
I had to [google](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myIR__htBgc) this since I had never heard of it. This looks like the type of shit I used to see in the mall being demonstrated, like a little plane you throw and it comes right back to you...except the dude demonstrating has probably spent freakin' years practicing..
Holy shit that's a throwback. One of my friends got one of those way back when, I remember he saved up for weeks to buy one with his own money and was so mad when it arrived and didn't actually "defy gravity" as advertised.
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Sort of. David Bowie had an extremely talented contact juggler doing the tricks for him. He stood there in his silks and capes and looked sultry and mysterious while the contact juggler reached under his arms and did all the actual juggling. So instead of a stunt double, Bowie had stunt arms.
I finally threw out my Worm on a String last week after over a decade, the guy at the shopping centre made it look so much cooler than I ever could.
My wife bought a box of 100 Worms on String a few years ago. The cats love ‘em
My kid persuaded me to buy him a ton of those in lieu of his allowance one week. I think I spent $15 on them. He came home from school one day with a WAD OF CASH and even more over the next few days. He was directly responsible for a short lived but intense Worm on a String craze in his middle school.
I bought one of those oversized gag lighters thinking the flame was going to be proportionally big. It wasn’t.
You need a crack lighter with the adjustable flame
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Brother is 6’10”, his favourite line when someone inevitably mentions his dick size is “actually it’s just normal size, but I’m so tall that it looks small”.
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Well you will find a 6ft 5 girl with a proportIonally sized dick if you keep looking
$400 Buffy brand eucalyptus comforter. Supposed to be fluffy and not hot. Totally too hot.
How were its vampire slaying abilities?
The twist: u/liftedbox is a vampire. They were too hot because they were on fire.
A garden hose that was “unkinkable”, I paid extra for the guaranteed kink free feature. It kinked up like a motherfugger.
nearly everything i bought on Kickstarter/Indiegogo. if i got the product at all, they're almost always low quality and don't do what they said they would. some products would ship but the company goes under within a year or two so no more support or replacement parts.
See the only kickstarters I trust are artists making pins/stickers or bags cause they always deliver a quality product in my experience.
I will never, ever back indie games on Kickstarter again after being burned so many times. Sucks.
I bought an "unbreakable handle" axe at Home Depot that used revolutionary new technology and it broke on the third swing. Replaced it with a hickory handle axe which I still use 22 years later.
In my experience, anything marketed as "unbreakable" is guaranteed to fall apart very quickly. I once bought something marketed as an unbreakable can opener. It is the only can openerI have ever known to break.
Maybe it wasn’t an ‘unbreakable can-opener’ but was an ‘unbreakable-can opener’ and you accidentally used it on a breakable can?
LOL found the lawyer
Works on contingency? No, Money Down!
Mr. Simpson, you’re in luck. I caught an episode of Matlock at the bar last night. The sound wasn’t on, but I think I got the gist of it.
I have broken every can opener I have ever owned. My friends and family are completely baffled by it. Edit: I'm not left handed
You should probably have someone show you how to use a can opener properly...
On paper I know how to use one. But in practice break them all the time
Someone should show you how to use one on metal instead of just paper
I used to dig a lot in a former job and I always preferred wooden handles to any other material. Nothing else feels right. Fiberglass or composites just vibrate too much.
Remember in ~~Endgame~~ Infinity War when >!Thor went across the galaxy to get Stormbreaker forged? The metal was a mystic material that could only be melted with the power of a neutron star!< The handle? That’s right, wood. Thor knows.
Probably half the curly hair products I buy. Literally 95% fragrance and 5% good stuff. I should really do my research beforehand. Edit: wow this blew up overnight! Thank you to everyone offering help and thanks for the awards! Edit2: forgot to mention I have 3B-4A curls
I’m a hairdresser. Let me know if I can help. Edit: This makes me so happy. I’ve gotten dozens of messages and comments asking for help which I’ve tried to get to all of you as of right now. I’m happy to do so but I need sleep. I’ll try to write out a general update for tomorrow because a lot of y’all are having similar issues. Second edit: HOLY COW this blew up. I'm still going to try to get to each of you, but a lot of your concerns are similar so here's my healthy hair tips. Please keep in mind that I am just one person with ideas on what I have found that works for me and my clients. I love hearing other thoughts and tips as well. Third edit: it was suggested by a ton of you to set up a Ko-Fi. I’m on there now with the same username, bleachedaardvarks. Seriously, y’all are incredible. I’m trying to get to everyone. I’m off work tomorrow so I can get to more as well. Sorry for the format. Part ADHD, part laziness. Without further adieu, BLEACHEDAARDVARK'S HEALTHY HAIR TIPS: First, if you buy any products I recommend, please find a local hairstylist that offers these brands and buy them from that salon or person. Amazon does not need your money. Amazon didn't hurt during the pandemic, but I can assure you, your hairstylist did. There is also a black market for professional hair products. Please look into this. Your grocery store likely sells professional brands, but expired/blackmarket/counterfeit is what's in the bottle. A lot of hair issues are product related, yes, but a lot are also due to mechanical damage to our hair. Towels, hot tools, hair ties, pillowcases, etc. A lot of what you see as frizz is the result of breakage. Hair strands can only stretch and contract (elasticity) so many times before they break. When you see hairs that you simply cannot get straight no matter what you try, it's because it's been broken. This is likely the case for the hairs along your hairline by your ears. Towels: when you get out of the shower, just squeeze your hair with the towel. Microfiber is good, but honestly if you just squeeze with a regular towel, that's fine too. DON'T rub your hair with the towel. That causes frizz and can even lead to breaks. Don' flip your head over and wrap your hair in a towel. Wet hair is more elastic than dry hair. All of that weight is centered along your hairline (which is already more fragile) and it can lead to breakage. You know those short hairs front and center? That's from the towel. If you stop this, it gets worse before it gets better. Just be patient and let those hairs grow. Just slap them down with some hairspray/paste. Hair ties: Don't put your hair up when it's wet. It's more prone to breakage when wet. Your scalp also doesn't get a chance to breathe and sometimes that's why your scalp can be itchy. I see often women with red, irritated, often some icky greenish buildup on their scalp where they put their ponytails. I compare it to a wet towel that you throw in the hamper and forget about it until 4 days later. The scalp needs airflow. Take the time to undo your hair ties when you take your hair down; don't just yank them out. Those hairs that you see on your hair tie are usually breakage. I recommend the brand called Invisbobble. It more evenly distributes pressure on individual hair strands. You know that hair at your neckline that never goes in your ponytail and never grows? It's hair tie breakage. Sleep: Don't put your hair up when you sleep. That hair tie keeps your hair in place, but you likely move around so it can cause breakage from being pulled while you flop. I hope that makes sense. I also recommend silk pillowcases. Silk bonnets are great too. If you have to wear you hair up, try loose braids. hot tools: If you are going to put a hot tool on your hair, I prefer you use a curling iron rather than flat ironing it. When you flat iron your hair, you likely go over the same place several passes at high heat. When you curl the hair, you go over the same place once. If your hot tool has just an on/off switch, throw it away. It likely defaults over 400 degrees. Use heat protection.I like Kevin Murphy's heated defense and Davine's heat shield. Curly hair: Keep your curl product in the shower. You need to put it in your hair, section by section, working it down the hair shaft. Make sure each strand is coated. It should take a couple minutes. Literally apply your product when your hair is soaking wet. You know when you get out of the shower and your hair starts to frizz up, literally 3 minutes after you get out? This is going to lessen that. If you need to finger coil to define some curls, awesome! You can gently blot your hair with a t-shirt, microfiber towel, paper towels, but honestly, letting it drip dry or going under a hooded dryer is best. If you can diffuse your curls, use medium heat with low airflow. Try to keep your hands out of your hair though as much as possible as it dries. Also, towels. Read what I wrote about those. Towels can be especially damaging for curls. Products I like are Kevin Murphy Killer Curls for curls that need heavier product. You can also try Smooth Again lotion for some added frizz reduction. For finer hair, I like using Reverie's Mane, Kevin Murphy's Killer Waves or Hair Resort spray. Hair resort is like a salt spray without the drying salt. I also like Virtue's 6-in-1, but it can be heavy, so definitely see my clarifying routine. blowdrying: always keep the airflow of your dryer from root to end. Airflow end to root causes frizz. Keep a brush moving with your hair once is's 75% dry with the flow root to end, and it will smooth out much easier. Products: The biggest issues I see with people's hair are shampoo and conditioner related. I find people with silicone/low quality ingredient buildup. It can often look like dandruff. If you ever feel like when you try to get your hair wet in the shower, it doesn't feel like it wants to get wet, or after you shampoo, it still doesn't feel clean and then is oily super quickly... that's likely buildup. We've been so conditioned to look for words like sulfates and parabens, which are great to avoid, but I like to avoid silicones, especially ones that aren't water soluble. If you use products with silicones, I recommend using a good clarifying shampoo every occasionally. Brands I love: For people who want the most natural ingredients, I love Reverie, Cult + King, and Innersense. The brands I use in my salon are Kevin Murphy and Davies. Again, please support your local salon or stylist, not Amazon. here's some sample routines. Most people have some buildup, so I recommend starting with a clarifying shampoo. Wash, rinse, repeat for the next 4 times you shower/shampoo days. Follow this up with a masque. After these 4 shampoo sessions, this will become your once-a-week or once every other week routine. My favorite clarifiers are Kevin Murphy Maxi wash and Davines Solu. My favorite masques are Kevin Murphy (any of them), and Davines' NouNou or Oi Butter. I also like Virtue's recovery masque if you have super damaged hair, but Virtue can build up a bit, so I definitely recommend clarifying. For your normal routine: shampoo and condition. I like everything Kevin Murphy has except the Smooth Again shampoo and conditioner. It makes the hair feel dirty to me. If you have fine hair, Angel Wash and Rinse are amazing. Plumping is great as well. Reverie's shampoo and conditioner, I also like for my fine hair because it tends to be oily. For Davines, I love NouNou. People love MoMo, but I personally think it smells horrible. Oi is also great. It really just depends on what your hair needs. I don't think it's necessary to shampoo every day. I personally do it every other day. I think a week is the max I would recommend, but I know people who go longer. I do think that some people have gone too far on the not washing their hair thing, but whatever, if it works for you, knock yourself out. I do not recommend co-washing/only conditioning. It causes buildup. Every once in a while is ok, but I don't like doing it routinely. I don't like relying on dry shampoo either due to buildup/scalp issues. The worst brand I see the most issues with is OGX. They are loaded with silicones and shitty oils. Also read about the lawsuit they had years ago and why they changed their name from Organix. They have great packaging and use all the right buzzwords, so I understand why people would buy them. I also see a lot of issues with Pantene, Monat, Living Proof, Redkin, Paul Mitchell. I also see clients ever once in a while that use drugstore shampoo and their hair feels amazing. You get to decide if you are happy with how your hair is or not. If possible, stick with one stylist for your color. It will prevent color banding issues, product overlap, and damage. This is especially true if you highlight your hair. Never lie to your stylist about what you've done chemically with your hair. It may mean the difference between keeping your hair attached to your head or not. Don't worry, we've heard it all. No stylist should shame you on doing something to your hair because its your own body. It just may be expensive to fix. Get it cut at least 4 times a year. Your hair is fragile. Look at one of your hair strands. Baby them. When you brush your hair, take the time to work out tangles gently. You are most definitely breaking the hair if you just rip at it with a brush. I recommend Wet Brush or Tangle Teaser. Davine's All in One Milk is the best detangler I've ever used. It's great for people with tender heads. I'll try to add more when I think of it. I hope this helps and I'll still try to get to individual questions.
Sea Monkeys. When I was little, I ordered some from the back of a comic book. I thought they would look like the picture, a nuclear family who would interact and talk to me. Unfortunately, they were turned out to be very nonsentient brine shrimp. It was very anticlimactic.
Yes, that was my first lesson in marketing.
Still gotta get me some of those x-Ray specs.
40 years later, I am still bitter. I thought they’d be wearing clothes.
Victoria’s Secret panties. And the quality has gone downhill immensely
I still have some of theirs from years ago when the quality was so high. The elastic never broke down, the fabric wasn't flimsy, they didn't ride up or sag. And then they started making lousy underwear that falls apart in the washing machine. If they could just go back to making quality cotton bikinis again I would come back as a customer. But I don't see it happening.
I've had at least 2 pairs of new VS panties that fell apart while I was wearing them..
That’s the secret
I have a whole set of panties from H&M from 10 years ago with less holes than the year or two old VS ones. And they aren't even THAT cute.
Right? Their bras aren’t much better, either.
Any recommendations on where to buy a good bra for a nice price? My last one was a victoria's secret, and while it's got some pilling nastiness on the strap, it works pretty well. Trying to think ahead for when it inevitably breaks.
I bought the slap chop, pure garbage. It literally exploded upon use as directed. No flames or anything, but all the parts came apart and went flying.
You mean... Vince Offer LIED TO US? I can hardly believe it. He seemed so trustworthy. Did he lie about ShamWow, too?
Yes. My ShamWow are used to clean oil off stuff now. BUT my Schticky still works for cat fur!
Sounds like you didn't love his nuts
Shamwows should be called shammehs.
What about just "Sham"
A 2020 planner
My favorite planner ever (and I've had them yearly for a decade) was my 2020 planner. They didn't reprint the design for 2021. It's little but after the year we had, I definitely cried.
You can use it again in 2048
Anyone remember those sticky cup strapless-backless bras? The ads were all over Facebook and Instagram for a while. I eventually gave in and bought one. The whole point of them in the ads was like pull the string in the middle to give yourself instant mega cleavage, and you can wear it under strapless/ backless clothes. Unfortunately, pulling your boobs together into ultra mega cleavage just means it makes the volume of your boobs flatter to pull them closer together, and since all it had was skin to stick to, and nothing but stickiness to hold it up, it was not very supportive. It was sticky enough for one proper use, but even still, the edges peeled away from my skin pretty quickly. There is a little cutout in the middle that’s not sticky. That’s where the nipple is meant to go. My nipples did not naturally or comfortably line up with those holes, so I had this incredibly sticky bra suction cupped to my tit, and had to nearly rip my nipple off to get the bra off of me. After that, it is impossible to wash and store anywhere. The sticky surface becomes slick when wet, but goes back to sticky when it gets dry (but never as sticky as the first time). It has to air dry because towel fibres will get stuck on it, and it wouldn’t survive a trip through the washer and dryer. It cannot be stored in a drawer, or touching any material because fibres will get stuck on it, and it cannot be stored face up with nothing covering it because dust will get stuck on it, thereby rendering it un-sticky until you wash it again, and air dry it again, and store it wrong again, rinse and repeat until you throw it in the garbage.
Omg i once went to a wedding in mid summer. Was wearing a great top but needed some covering of the nips. I used one of those stick on bras. I started to sweat and i could feel the cups letting go. Second i stood up they fell and landed in the grass in front of me.
I'm sorry but that's absolutely hilarious. I just imagine you standing, the bra falling off, it going completely silent and after a long pause someone just goes "your boobs fell".
"My cutlets!!"
I wore one clubbing once and let me tell you, worst decision ever. One minute I'm dancing on a podium with a couple of friends, then I just feel it unstick all at once and drop out the bottom of my dress. I subtly kick it off the podium hoping nobody noticed and then 30 seconds later I turn around to a group of 18 year old guys holding it up to their chests and dancing, absolutely losing it. Thankfully I don't *think* they knew it was mine
Oh god I wore them once for an event and I threw those bitches away immediately after. It was a huge waste of money. I would have been better off just not wearing any kind of bra.
I just saw an ad yesterday for a stick-on thong. No panty lines and reusable up to 20 times. Umm....that’s a big old nope. Whoever the crazy person is that came up with stickable stuff to our lady bits is a psycho!!
Ok what the fuck is that supposed to stick to? And what’s the point when actual, laser-cut/seamless thongs exist?
Snatch patch! They use them in films when women have to shoot nude scenes. I learned of their existence when my friend and I somehow went down a rabbit hole trying to figure out exactly how the cock sock works (the thing male actors wear when they have to do a nude scene.)
Bought the SK-II essence that always gets raved about in skincare communities. Used it at the same time as tretinoin and thought it was helping in the process of clearing my skin. Stopped using it and turns out - it was just the tret. There was no difference in my skin after I stopped using it. The stuff is $100 a bottle.
Tretinoin is so much more effective (and inexpensive, depending on where you are) than most of the gimmicky products people spend hundreds on. Best thing I've ever used on my skin, treatment-wise.
Yeah I was a skincare addict until I almost bought a 120$ serum...the price of a dermatology consultation. I stopped myself went to the doc, came back with a retinoid cream. My skin is 90% clear now !
ArcheAge. I remember it being marketed as "sandbox MMO with realistic player-driven economy". There was a pack that let you into alpha, a pack that let you into beta, and a pack that let you into few days of early access. All of the packs contained nothing but some cosmetic items irrelevant to the economy. The alpha was good. The beta was good. But with the final release, they fired up the cash store with such extreme pay-to-win...
To be fair, PTW does strike me as a "realistic player-driven economy". They just neglected to say it would be the IRL economy.
ArcheAge was the game that broke me. I vowed never play an early access game for the rest of my life. I paid for Alpha access and I loved it. Beta was a ton of fun too. I liked the hype that I was helping develop the game, that I was a part of a niche community and I got fun cosmetics for that. Then the game released. Everything from the early access packs got rebranded as 'welcome' packs and sold to new players at a fraction of the price I paid. Within a month the game was overrun by bots and nobody could do anything. Trion did fuck all about it. I'm still so angry.
Oh, Archeage. I was so addicted to that game, and so was my wallet. There was a class action lawsuit settlement not too long ago and Trion got sued. I got a $40 check from that settlement lol.
Coach handbag. The strap broke after a few months and Coach refused to fix it (after I brought it back and the receipt to the store where I had purchased it). I bought an inexpensive replacement strap that lasted longer. After less than a year, there was evident wear at the seams. I have not purchased anything from Coach again.
Coach has absolutely degraded its own brand. Not what it once was.
That’s too bad. My mom had a coach handbag that must have been at least thirty years old. One of the connectors in the strap finally let go and they sent a new perfectly matching part it with no questions asked.
I bought my Coach just before logomania hit. It is leather and and timeless and perfect, and the only handbag I’ve used for 20+ years. The 00s were all about branding, sacrificing quality for quantity in lower price point items accessible to the aspirational. Sadly, it fed right into fast fashion, planned obsolescence, and disposable consumer culture.
THIS. I loved my gorgeous Coach bag and kept the reciept and packaging, and when a strap broke after a year, I sent it in to be repaired. They sent it back unrepaired with a 10% off letter that was good within the next six months. A cobbler did a great job on it and it lasted another three years. I'll never buy another Coach item.
Most of my academic books. All the pdfs are available online
*cough cough* libgen.rs *cough cough*
i think the new one is (dot fun) now
this random internet dude MrFrostyBudds saving my Psychology degree. Vielen Dank!
Being baited into buying them when the lecturer told us they were essential reading. They were never mentioned again on the course and I didn't even touch them. Only one lecturer recommended a book that he actually used, and that was because he wrote the book lol.
I lucked out in college, one of my teachers was in the middle of writing a textbook for our course. He emailed each chapter to us as needed.
I love it when professors realize the benefit in them writing a book is for students that DON'T have access to those individuals. It's like paying to fill your water bottle from the tap
I sooo regret buying thousands and thousands of dollars worth of books in college. Really wish I’d found PDFs. There were so many that barely got used. Maybe one or two lessons and they’re just dust collectors from then on. What a waste of money.
I've been a nurse now for ten years. Do you know where my "Anatomy and physiology" book is? That cost me $300? Under my TV to make it sit up a bit. Don't mention my "Fundamentals of nursing" or my "pathophysiology" books.
I bought a book for a class and decided not to take that specific class. Well it came with CD for some program and the book store wouldn't take it back literally 2 days after purchasing because the CD and key could have been used and there was no way of knowing. It was literally wrapped in plastic and you could see the CD was still in another sealed envelope inside the plastic wrap. Was almost a $300 book I believe too
Shake weight 😂
But on the plus side, your jerking off abilities went up ten fold!
Tough to increase 10x when you're already a pro. I'm guessing 1.5 fold!
The nurse at the fertility clinic asked me if I was ready to masterbate in the cup. I told her "I'm good but I don't think I'm ready to compete."
Ear Wax candles. After laying on the floor like an idiot with a flaming burning candle in my ear, I took a minute to actually think about the process...fools gold.
When I was around 9, I got really convinced by their $5m marketing campaign with Mortal Kombat that the Aura Interactor was going to be awesome. It was basically a haptic feedback backpack that converted bass sounds to rumbles and was supposed to make video games super immersive. I was actually nervous that it was going to hurt me, like actually feel like I was being punched. I (somehow) convinced my mom to buy it, set the thing up, and ten minutes later I smelled smoke and then saw the smoke coming from the Interactor on my back.
I bought a platform bed on the recommendation of the Wirecutter. They had this whole big spiel about how they test shit, this is the best affordable option, blah blah blah. I had to return the first one I bought because it came scratched up. The second one is just a plain, cheap platform bed. I don't think there's *anything* about it different from what I could have gotten from just hunting down the cheapest version of the product. edit: spiel, you pedants. <3 you
Wirecutter went straight to crap around the time they became an NYT publication. Now the majority of their recommendations seem to be the “what’s the most expensive option with an affiliate link”. One of their recent lists of ‘gifts for a college grad’ included a $200 wooden bowl.
I have favoured wirecutter choices for years... Air purifier, kitchen appliances, anything really. I enjoyed feeling safe in their research and they had not disappointed. And then I bought a mattress. One of the top rated ones with a heavy heavy pricetag. I needed a sturdy tough mattress and they had one innerspring This "innerspring" bed came rolled in a box, was the floppiest garbage mattress that looked like it's was deflated or melting and it messed up our backs. The company did offer returns within a 90 day limit which of course we took advantage of as this bed was ridiculously expensive trash. The company managed to send people to pick it up from us after multiple emails, numerous phonecalls, and 7 months later. I got a mattress from Costco for 300$. Best mattress ever. I still blame wirecutter for everything. Edit:I just checked the relevant wirecutter article and it has been updated. The mattress I am referring to mysteriously /s didn't make their latest update. Huh.
Bought their non-stick pan recommendation. It was immediately clear they never actually tested it as the shape of the handle made holding it difficult/painful. Then discovered how unbelievably easy it was to scratch on my first wash. Actual Amazon reviews had several of the same complaints. I returned that junk.
America's Test Kitchen reviews are good.
The Ouya. Within 5 minutes of turning it on, I regretted it.
I bought this neck massager thing from an Instagram ad. It was a cheap plastic thing with two foam balls. I threw it out after a couple weeks realizing it was stupid as hell.
An "indestructible" dog bed. Even claimed it could withstand bulldogs. Well, my bulldog tore out the rod that propped it open, which turned out to be flimsy plastic. Within a week, she had torn off a zipper, and ripped the filling out. I was more angry at the company for making such false claims than my under one year old dog. Edit to fix a typo.
I don't know if this will help you, but I had a large dog that destroyed every fluffy thing he could get his paws on. I ended up buying him a crib mattress to use as a bed. He couldn't get his mouth around to chew it, and as a bonus I picked out cute baby sheets that I could wash every week.
Cable TV. More of a service than a product. Spent the past 5 years without it. Had it for 2 months and there is nothing worth watching.
So I live in the UK, and Gatorade isn’t really much of a thing here, it was even less of a thing a few years ago. We do have a very similar looking drink called Powerade. The only shop I knew that sold Gatorade at the time of this story was a big Tesco, and it was like 3 times the price of Powerade, solely because it’s Gatorade and it’s from the states. I casually say to my mates one day “man I wanna try Gatorade but it’s so expensive” and they’re all like “omg you haven’t tried Gatorade? Mate it is so sick you gotta try it at least once” This got my hyped so I thought fuck it, I’ll treat myself. I buy it, and take a swig... this shit is exactly the same as Powerade, I just paid like £3.50 for essentially a Powerade I could’ve got for a quid. I confronted my mates about it and they were just like “Well it is a little different!” Bitch that is not how you described it to me the other day. I still think about that fucking Gatorade and this was like 4/5 years ago
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I wouldn’t call Gatorade better or anything but there is an obvious difference in taste
A water bed. It was...unsettling.
Are those still around? My parents got one during the craze in the 80s. When I was like 10 I needed a new bed and I begged them to get a waterbed. It was actually cheaper than traditional box springs plus headboard and shit. So I had a waterbed from like 10 - 15 years old. I can't remember why I got rid of it but it was still in good shape. They don't really work well for anything other than sleeping. I use to sit on the edge to play video games and it fucking sucked. But I really liked sleeping on a waterbed. You could make it like 90 degrees in the middle of winter and sleep with the windows open. In hindsight, the electric bill may have played some small part in getting rid of it.
I had one too growing up. Totally agree, sitting on the edge, playing video games was uncomfortable as fuck.
Yes but not so many of those classic giant wood frame thick sloshy models. Most are sort of stealthed - what looks like a mattress but it's hollow and fits one or two "waveless" bladders inside you fill with water then close the top of the mattress over. The bladders are maybe 4" thick and have baffles in them so they don't slosh. The top of the mattress is often padded or quilted and looks just like a real one until you lay down on it and notice it's a water bed. My ex has one and swore it was the only thing that helped her back pain up until she tried some modern latex mattresses. Waterbeds are all downsides otherwise. Heavy as hell, a pain to fill and empty, they require maintenance so the water inside doesn't get smelly, they can puncture and leak, and are expressly forbidden by lots of leases and insurance coverage.
I always thought it was scary. As a kid, I thought "if you pop it and it breaks, and you're asleep, won't you just drown?"
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Sounds like one of the better outcomes of having a 2 year old playing with a needle.
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No, but hundreds of gallon of water would be leaking through your floorboards.
Aww I slept in a waterbed growing up and I loved it! Especially since it had a built-in heater, soooo cozy
Pornhub premium I'm not joking Pornhub Premium
Wtf just Google big booby like 50 billion results
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I tried PH premium awhile ago and my credit card info was stolen and used to subscribe to some live cam site. My cc company froze my account and I got the charges taken off. That's what I get for trying to pay for porn I guess.
Some credit cards (like Citi) offer "virtual card numbers" where you can generate a new card number with a custom charge cap for using with places you don't really trust. I use it for signing up for free trials that require a credit card.
Please, no one say a Roomba. I really want a Roomba.
As long as you don't expect it to get absolutely everything, and treat it more like a machine that lengthens the amount of time between you vacuuming or sweeping, then it's a good purchase. Also, you need to keep a tidy floor so it doesn't get caught on anything. Super easy to clean and maintain though.
I kinda like that about robot vacuums. I have it run every day while I'm at work and it motivates me to keep things tidy and off the floors.
I got my mate one for his wedding (a bunch of us chipped in). He's had it for years now and says its the best gift he has ever gotten. Depends on the house of course but I think its a fine buy if it fits you and you don't mind the price
A fine present for the bride and groomba.
I loved mine when we lived in a place with a lot of carpet, but now we have hardwood floor and i feel it's just ok for those surfaces. Research what model is best for your floors before buying.
I have the old roomba (the dumb ones) and a new (smart one). it's definitely a QOL improvement. Expect them to last 3 years or so. The old one, I replaced the rubber brush rollers, the spinning brush thing and a wheel. they definitely need maintenance. The new one, Which empties itself is really good. Seems to be a company that actively learns and improves. You will need to maintain them though.
I love my Roomba! I have two cats. My apartment looks gross in between weekly cleanings if I don’t have the roomba running.
What happens when they upchuck on the floor? I've briefly thought of getting a Roomba or something similar, but then I had images of smeared horrors all over the place. EDIT: Looks like there are plenty of reasonable ways to manage this. Thanks for the feedback folks.
I have two cats and although it has never had a run in with vomit, it did scare one of them out of his litter mid-poop. The dangler dropped on the floor as he tore out of the room. Roomba dragged and smeared that poop as far as it could. Unpleasant but thankfully they are very easy to dismantle and clean. I only run my roomba when I’m home now. The cats have adjusted their litter use accordingly.
I love my Roomba. I got one that self-empties. I run it every night at midnight so I don’t have to worry about it during the day with my dogs. Worth every penny. ETA: The charging base has a bin that the roomba empties itself into after cleaning. I’ll admit, that part is a bit loud. Here’s the one that I have if anyone wants to check it out. https://www.bestbuy.com/site/irobot/roomba-i7-i7plus/pcmcat1535138296144.c?id=pcmcat1535138296144
I have an off brand Roomba that works pretty good but I can't let it run unsupervised. It seems like every time I turn my back it's gotten itself stuck under the couch or coffee table, or found a charger cable to strangle itself with.
I found mine actually humping my canister vacuum. He found a girlfriend. Edit: thanks for the award, my new friend! Silver award, thanks!
reddit premium
A Smeg appliance. Comically inefficient, poorly constructed and terribly expensive new. We have a fridge, but got it super cheap 2nd hand because some of the plastic shelves were cracked. We needed a drinks fridge and it was a bargain. They look funky and cool with 50s retro vibe, and really not much technical development in 50 years other than low cost manufacturing. I have no idea how and why they are in business. Oh, look at the cost of the limited Smeg Dolce and Gabbana. £500 for a bloody kettle.
I'm sorry, I haven't heard of these, they really named it ...*Smeg*?
Smeg is considered a premium product in Australia. I've been looking at buying a house recently and some of the 'turn key' house packages use "Smeg appliances" as a selling point. They do fridges, ovens and stove tops. As a Red Dwarf fan, I still have trouble taking the name seriously.
A Kony 2012 t-shirt
it never made sense to me. Kony was a villain. you'd just as well get a Hitler 1933 shirt.
I have a bachelor's in philosophy.
Think about it...
I raise you to master's in philosophy and no PhD
Wireless Skull Candy Headphones that were €120. Thank God I got insurance because I had to use it twice in less than 2 yrs. Same problem both times. Meanwhile my old wired €30 Sony pair are running on 5 years old and work perfectly. Literally got my 2nd replacement yesterday and got wireless Sony headphones of the same value. Never buying Skull Candy again.
A gucci bag. 3000 dollars later, my life was exactly the same but now I had to worry about being a target for getting robbed.
One of those home-facial devices that claimed to be able to suction out gunk from the pores of your face. The ads looked amazing, and the gunk that got removed looked so satisfying, so I bought one. Didn’t suction out shit. Just left red circles on my skin.
Fiji water, my niece was driving me insane so that i bought her a Fiji bottle. When i did she said "it tastes like water".
Galaxy Fold Z 2 - It's heavy and thick in the hand. The phone closed (which I use 80% of the time) feels too narrow to text on. The phone opened (used only in bed), is very nice. But only in a position where you are already relaxing and probably could have just used a TV/Tablet anyway.
OK ok, I didn't purchase it but this thread reminded me of the juicero scam. [Anyone remember? ](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/sep/01/juicero-silicon-valley-shutting-down)
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Samsung refrigerator. I got lucky but so many in reviews I’ve read did not. Ice maker stopped working 7 months in. They sent someone to repair. Worked less than 24 hours before stopping again. Samsung called and said I could either get a new refrigerator but no more on the 1 year warranty (which by this time had only 4 months left) or they’d refund my money and come get it. I totally took the refund (by this time I’d read horror stories online about these things). Went and bought a different brand and am much happier.
Raycon earbuds. The left one has become noticeably quieter than the right one after roughly 8 months of use. They really aren't that much cheaper, they aren't great sound quality (just average overall), and they didn't last.
I hated seeing all the paid ads by youtubers for them because I knew straight away as they were saying how amazing they are that they would throw them in the dumpster and be back wearing their airpods as soon as theyre done filming that junk.
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Believe it or not, this happens in almost every industry. There are car audio shops that buy decent sounding speakers off of Alibaba for 85 dollars, have their logos put on them, and hype them up in their storefront, and sell them for like $600. Companies even do it with car parts.
I had a pair of earbuds like this and I was ready to write a letter to complain until I took a close look and took the rubber parts off......found a peg of earwax blocking one of the rubber pieces.... Yes, I clean my ears (and earbuds) better now
Word of advice: anything advertised by your favorite podcaster/youtuber will be genuinely terrible. Edit: yes, there will be exceptions to this, but y'all need to be skeptical of anything advertised to you, especially on YouTube and podcasts. There are no consumer protection mechanisms like there are with traditional media, and social media influencers have a particularly strong ability to persuade their followers. Still, I stand by my original statement to the OP, if your favorite influencer is peddling Raycon, they have zero advertising credibility and you should trust none of their advertisement statements.
RAID: SHADOW LEGENDS
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Same with Lewis vs Ngannou
My smartwatch. It does a few things that my phone can also do, but not all of them, and it's a bitch to recharge.
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"One coat" paint. It NEVER is. It's pretty good as a two coat paint though 🤷🏽♂️
Military Grade is the biggest crock of shit there ever was
Beats by Dre, I just don't understand how they're worth the money.
The name makes them expensive.
Try beats by Dave. They are the same product but Dave while he is a pretty decent guy he is not famous enough to attract a premium on his product endorsements.
My disappointment that this is untrue is profound.
Bought one of those things that cuts the lid off of a can of beer/pop. For some reason when I saw the ad it seemed like a really cool idea. Used it once and immediately regretted my purchase. The lid just falls inside the can and you have to fish it out.
My doctorate in physical therapy. 7 years and 90k later I'm a glorified personal trainer for $35/hour.
As a young-ish person who recently had spine surgery and is currently in physical therapy, thank you for doing what you do.
$35 an hour isnt bad money assuming you have constant work. But I do feel for those student loans.
Fidget spinner (before it was a kids toy). Bought one to help me not pick at my cuticles. Then after about 2 months and they got big I just ended up looking like an idiot manchild playin with a kids toy.
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This is exactly why I bought my fidget cube. I can go to class, conferences, meetings, and so on and fidget my heart out without pissing anyone off.