ShamWow fails to wow in Consumer Reports tests

If you've been blanketed by ads touting the ShamWow cloth and its ability to soak up copious spills, you're probably wondering how well this chamois-sponge-towel hybrid performs.

So we laid out $27.90 including handling and shipping for a set of four 19.5x23.5-inch and four 15x15-inch ShamWows. One of the key tests was to see how many times its weight in water the ShamWow can hold; pitchman Vince on the ShamWow Web site says the cloth can hold 12 times its weight in liquid, though we've also seen this product advertised with claims of 10 and 20 times its weight.

Bob Karpel, a program leader in our Technical department, put the figure at 10 times its weight. (Watch the video, right.) That's not bad, but it's comparable to the performance of the average kitchen sponge, which costs less than the ShamWow.

If you have fumble-fingered kids or are a gearhead, you'll be happy to know that the ShamWow did hold slightly more spilled milk and used motor oil than sponges and cloths. But a pass from a damp ShamWow left a trail of droplets on the surface being cleaned, which required a cleanup pass from another cloth or a sponge.

The ShamWow does shine in some situations, such as when you're drying your just bathed pet—a sponge just won't cut it then and you might not want to use a good towel. e-mail | Twitter

Essential Information: Visit our cleaning-supplies page to find information on other cleaning supplies, and watch our videos on removing stains from carpets and getting tarnish off of silver.   

Comments

[alba]

I've found that the ShamWow works slightly worse than a paper towel at just 200x the price.

[Frank]

I noticed something amiss in the commercial after watching it a few times. At one point Vince pours soda on the piece of carpet and it overflows into a puddle bigger than the piece of carpet. Shortly after that he soaks up a smaller puddle of soda, much smaller in fact. Is this deceptive advertising? It was good enough for me not to consider buying the product.

[Andrew]

infoNOTmercial.com just did a video review as well. They liked some things about it, but ended up giving it just 2 stars.

[Howard M.]

Just finished washing three cars and an SUV... the small ShamWow works great cleaning windows... works much better than a paper towel... however, the ShamWow performs no better than a towel drying off the car... a chamois works much better...

[Sue W]

The floors in my house are tiled. I love this ShamWow product, it absorbs much more water then a papor towel and leaves a cleaner finish compared to a mop. It also works great on the windows. It`s easy to wring out and also washs up beautifully.

[Andrew]

ShamWow would be better served to call themselves ScamWow. We bought this product as a semi-gag gift, due to the meticulous cleaning my wife prefers. Product begins to breakdown upon first usage and tears very easily. Basically a very thin $20 rag.

[Dan Futoran]

Works well on the car, which makes the chore of washing it a lot easier. Better than chamois, I think. You have to wet a chamois first, and it's tougher to squeeze water out of it. But ShamWow is not as effective on windows as chamois, where it leaves streaks. When our frig died, ShamWow readily mopped up the water (dripping down from ice bags that I bought to keep the freezer food cold). Washes up well enough. Works best on spill accidents, or saturating pools of water, for instance, applied to dog or cat urine stains in carpets.

[Josh D]

Just another scam!

[Terri]

More "Sham" than "Wow"... another infomercial product fails to live up to the hype. Go Figure

[Mark Schull]

Should be called Sham, period there is no wow. One of the worst products I ever purchased. I wouldn't take more of them if they were free. They are worse than a towel for picking up spills, they have to be wetted before they will absorb anything. If you're wanting to clean a spill up quickly. Who has time to wet the clean up tool first? Worked terrible on a wet car just smearing around the water. I had to get an old towel to finish the job.

[Dorothy Vaccaro]

I've thrown mine out.....when I washed them, they pilled so bad that I've been picking up small pieces for weeks!! Plus I put some other cleaning towels in the wash with them so they were covered with the pieces. I'm done with ShamWow. Microfiber cloths are the only way to clean...anything!

[Nat Antler]

This a copy of an email I sent to CVS Corp:

This is in reference to our local pharmacy/retail general merchandise store that is now a CVS store at Mango & Del Mar Heights Rd., Del Mar, CA:

Longs has been a neighborhood store for 25 years and during that time we have always found the customer service and value to be excellent. Our experiences at CVS stores in nearby locations have been less than satisfactory with poor customer service, advertised items that were not available, check out lines confusing, and checkers who were curt and unfriendly.

Thankfully our local store has retained most of the Longs employees. However, the CVS corporate culture and deceptive advertising is having a negative effect.

I recently went in to pick up a prescription refill and was attracted to an end cap display of various canned foods. All had prominent yellow signs with a red border at the bottom. I thought about getting some of the canned salmon on display with the words "SALE" at the bottom of the sign. The original price was not listed so I went to the primary shelf display to see if it was actually a sale price. The normal price was in fact the same. Other items on special display had the same yellow signs with words "WOW" printed in place of the word "SALE". Those items were also regular price so the "WOW" is meaningless and deceptively enticing.

This attitude of trying to trick the customer into thinking that an item is on sale is nothing short of stealing at worst and deceptive at least. It does nothing to build customer loyalty and, in fact leads me to suspect the honesty and diligence of every aspect of CVS consumer care. Remember the problem that your competitor had with out-of-date drug sales. The small additional profits that may result from customers fooled by these deceptive tactics is not worth the loss of customers like me, when they realize they are being tricked.

I would suggest a thorough re-evaluation of your marketing staff and philosophy. When I brought this matter to the attention of the management at the store, they suggested that I call 1-800-shopCVS. Before I left, I pointed out the situation to one of the employees who had been at the store before the conversion to CVS and they too were appalled at the deceptive and confusing marketing ploy.

I have forwarded my complaints to the California Attorney General and the State Consumer Affairs office.

Yours truly,

Nat Antler
nantler@pacbell.net

[collin]

When he does the demonstration with the soda on the carpet square, that when he "soaks up" the soda then lifts up the carpet square and shows the bottom, why is there no discoloration on the bottom of the carpet?

Shouldn't the bottom of the carpet show at least a little bit of discoloring?

[Daniel]

I bought a pack and I didn't spend $28 I spent $20 canadian. The only problem I had with shamwow was taht it doesn't do what it says it does as easy as it on tv by this I mean only when doing the carpet trick you actual do put pressure on it he also doese that in the infomercial just says he doesn't. I did some test of my own and ya it will not leave little water droplets that easly actually I say would have to perposlly do that. I use to dish wash while all through junior highschool and highschool (not long ago) and ya I have never seen a sponge absorb a whole glass the size of pint glass full of water not even close but shamwow when I did that acually just left a very very small amount of water. those things ar so absorbent when I ring them out they are hard to get dry they leave a small amount of water inside them but get rid of most of it i just leave mine to dry for a minute or two but man come on I have had mine for months and I haven't used all of them because the ones I have are still going strong and I have had mine for months. even expensive sponges sponges only last like a month or two when they are actually geting used so I personlly think the shamwows are personlly worth buying and yes I have put mine through the wash.

[michael]

What you really gotta look for in these infomercials is how many times they change camera angels, because each time they change means that something in the set up could have been altered. The scene where he put the Shamwow in a bowl of water is a single take so possibly believable. But the scene with the soda, they constantly change angles as someone mentioned about the change in size of the cola puddle. This means they poured a lot, stopped taping, changed angles so you wouldn't be the wiser, cleaned up some of the soda, and the resumed at another angle. I bought the Shamwow, definitely NOT WOW'ed.

[Stephen Adams]

With regard to the soda spill in the carpet - it's even worse than you say. In his test, the carpet is on a smooth surface which as no absorption nor nooks and crannies. Normal carpet is laid on top of padding, which is very much like a sponge, which is laid on top of plywood, which in addition to being absorbent has all kinds of nooks and crannies. To put it mildly, the performance in a real-world situation won't match his no matter the size of the spill!

[Teri Davis Newman]

I bought a set at WalMart for half the TV price and I love them--they suck up spills fast and are great for cleaning pet stains out of the carpet. I love my Sham-Wow!!

[brianguy]

"This a copy of an email I sent to CVS Corp:

This is in reference to our local pharmacy/retail general merchandise store that is now a CVS store at Mango & Del Mar Heights Rd., Del Mar, CA:"

let me throw out a line from the TV dubbed version of "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" (the squeaky clean version):

pardon my french, but you're an idiot.

[The Shopkeeper]

The only use I found it good for was for drying my car after I washed it. It did a decent job but so do products that sell for a 1/4 of the price of Shamwow.