Expensive Smelly Water! (Comfort Vaporesse Original)

Member Name: Lucille

Product:	Comfort Vaporesse Original
Date:	27/07/01 (133 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Contains no limescale, so will help the iron work for longer

Disadvantages: Smells horrible, Costs too much, Didn't seem to make any difference to the clothes

I’ll admit I’m a sucker for a half price deal. So when I was shopping in Sainsburys last week and saw Comfort Vaporesse at half price there was no way I wasn’t going to buy it. I had seen the adverts that promise longer lasting freshness for clothes, and as I already use Comfort fabric softener I thought this was worth a try.

When I brought it home my husband said; “why have you brought a bottle of smelly water? The non-smelly type comes free out of the tap” Yes it does, but it doesn’t ‘infuse your clothes with a delicate fragrance’ does it. “Waste of money” was his reply, and how right he turned out to be.

Vaporesse is very easy to use. You simply fill the water reservoir of your steam iron with it. You don’t have to dilute or measure anything out. It says it’s suitable for all steam irons. You then iron normally, using steam at whatever level you would have done before.

When I first opened the bottle the smell seemed quite nice. It’s the same smell as Comfort fabric softener, just a little stronger. The first time I used it I only ironed a couple of items. I really didn’t notice the smell at all, although I was using steam. When the clothes were ironed I couldn’t notice anything different about their smell. This could have been because I had used Comfort softener when they were washed, so they just smelled ‘clean’.

The next time I did the ironing I had a normal load to do, (in other words a mountain!). I started ironing, and after a few items I noticed a terrible smell of burning. I turned the iron off thinking it was going wrong, but the smell continued. After some sniffing about I realised that it was the steam coming out of the iron that smelled of burning Comfort, not pleasant at all. I continued with the ironing, thinking it might improve, but it got worse. Each item of clothing was ironed through clouds of disgusting smell
ing steam. By the end of the pile of ironing I felt quite sick and had a headache. The clothes then went into the airing cupboard, but when I took them out the next day I really couldn’t notice any difference in their smell of freshness to anything I had ironed before.

Another disadvantage to Vaporesse is that it’s not very good value for money. I paid 59p for the 1 litre bottle, so that means when it goes back to full price they will charge £1.18 for it. Filling my iron’s water reservoir took nearly half the bottle, and if I have a lot of items that need steam I have to fill the reservoir for each load of ironing. So a bottle would only cover two loads of ironing, or about a week and a half in my house.

The main advantage to Vaporesse as far as I can see it that it contains no limescale. We do live in a hard water area, and limescale was the reason I had to replace my iron recently. So in theory Vaporesse would make my iron ‘live’ longer. However the smell of the stuff and the price means I won’t be buying it again, and would rather replace my iron.

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