Do laundry balls really work?
Dear Cecil: What do you know about those plastic ion laundry balls that supposedly replace detergent? — RosenClan, via AOL Cecil replies: Here’s what I know: (1) People are charging as much as $75 for a set of little gizmos that look like they came as a prize in a Happy Meal. (2) Fifty bucks a set is more typical, but even that has to be an outrageous markup inasmuch as there’s an outfit in Hong Kong that will sell them to you for $3.60 a pair. (Minor drawback: you have to go to Hong Kong to pick them up.) (3) If you believe Consumer Reports, even $3.60 is a rip because you can get equally good results tossing your kid’s Koosh ball in the washing machine, i.e., none. Taking all this into consideration, I figure laundry balls aren’t just the name of the product, they’re what you need to sell it. But we believe in fairness around here. So I’ll say this. We tested a set of laundry thingies (laundry disks rather than laundry balls, actually, but what’s the diff?) with unexpected results. B
