Oscars? In our labs, products, not stars, get the red carpet treatment Home Improvement Partner

Feb 24

Oscars? In our labs, products, not stars, get the red carpet treatment

Posted by: Leila Williams in Home Improvement Advisor Add comments

Yonkers, New York, home of Consumer Reports, ain’t Tinseltown. No red carpets here, only red blobs. Instead of tuxes and slinky gowns, we don lab coats and safety goggles. As a result, we can’t help you fill out your Oscar ballot for this Sunday’s Academy Awards—unless, that is, you want to base your Best Picture picks on things most likely to be overheard in the Consumer Reports testing laboratories. In which case, the winners are …

True Grit. As one Consumer Reports lab tester said to the other during our recent vacuum test, referring to the sand used to evaluate upright and canister models. We also measure how well vacuums capture talc, pet hair, and dust-simulating wood flour (which, incidentally, is the name of James Cameron’s next 3-D epic).

The Fighter. That’s how our laundry detergent testers desribed Tide 2X Ultra for Cold Water during our latest laundry detergent review. It was tops among conventional detergents at vanquishing grass, wine, chocolate, and other tough stains. Plus its cold-water formulation will save you about $60 bucks versus washing with hot water.

The Kids Are All Right. At least they will be if you follow these six tips for maintaining healthy child weight, devloped by Consumer Reports’ health experts. You should also learn which kids cereals are healthful. The difference between Honey Nut Cheerios and Honey Smacks is pretty dramatic.

127 Hours. If we’re talking minutes, 127 is the approximate cycle time for many dishwashers. A few models in our latest review take up to 145 minutes. Since we’ve tested more than 65 models, it took us roughly 127 hours to figure that out, and much longer to determine how well they all clean dishes.

Winter’s Bone. We’ve all got a bone to pick with winter this year, given how lousy the weather’s been. Snow in all fifty states? Really? But for our experts who test snow blowers, the record amounts of white stuff made their efforts well worth it. You’ll have a hard time finding one of their top picks, since most retailers sold out months ago, but bookmark our buying advice for next year.

Inception. If you’re trying to prevent one of these, a birth that is, you’ll want to learn which condoms earned a perfect score in our latest tess, for which we had to order more than 15,000 samples.

Black Swan. Uhhh … did you mean black blob? That’s what products get when they’re really bad at something. A refrigerator that uses a lot of electricity will get a black blob for efficiency, while a paint that goes on thin will get a black blob for hiding. There are no black swans here.

If you plan to shop this weekend for a new TV for your Oscar party, check out our latest buying advice.

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