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Does It Really Do That: Shamwow

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) ― "You'll say wow everytime you use Shamwow."
 
That's what the commercial says.

One thing's for sure, Shamwow looks great. It claims to hold twenty times its weight in liquid and if you look at the commercial, it doesn't drip.

That's just the kind of product busy mom Janell Butorac of Allison Park says she could use.

"Yes, yes in a house with two kids and spilling drinks," said Janell. "If it works, it looks like a good deal."

But does it really do that? To find out, we partially fill a glass pie dish with water -- just like the infomercial and use a large Shamwow, folded over twice.

"It doesn't seem to be getting it all," said Janell.

It didn't get it all and when you hold it up, does it drip? Yes it does.

We ring it out to try it again but watch out.

Shamwow isn't colorfast. The water's turning yellow.

We try again with less water in the pie dish, and this time it did soak up all the water.

"Pretty good this time," said Janell.

Although it didn't drip right away, it still dripped, but you had time to get to a sink or garbage can by then.

So far so good.

Now on to test two -- the carpet and the cola.

The infomercial claims that when you spill cola on a carpet, you damage not only the top of the carpet, but it soaks through underneath the carpet and can cause mildew.

The infomercial claims to get fifty percent of the cola on the first round.

The second time out comes the stain.

We pour cola onto the carpet. We have stain resistant carpet, so it takes a while to soak through.

After it does soak through, Janell soaks and rolls the Shamwow.

It's working. It gets a lot of cola out the first time.

But is it absorbing enough to get that puddle of cola underneath the carpet.

No, it doesn't touch the puddle underneath and if you watch the infomercial, you can see them switch carpet pieces.

We suspect the commercial fudged a bit here, but we move on to one last test.

For busy moms and kitchen spills, five year old Brad spills milk on the floor and works hard to soak it up.

The Shamwow didn't soak up milk as well as it soaks up water, but it did do the job and saved about 20 sheets of paper towels but it left the floor way too sticky for Janell.

"That might have been one of my least favorite things, was how it did here on the floor," said Janell.

Overall, would Janell spend $20 plus $8 shipping and handling for Shamwow?

"I wasn't thinking 'wow' like I was when we watched the infomercial," said Janell. "I don't think it worked as well as the infomercial, but I do think it works better than paper towels. I would still be inclined to buy them just to have around for a big spill because I do think it would save some money on the paper towels.

Thumbs up?

All in all, maybe a single thumbs up.

We agree it would save some money on paper towels and as a shammy works well.

But when it comes to the promises made on the internet, did it really do that?

No, it didn't.

It didn't do the job on the carpet and it left a film when you cleaned up spills.

We say it's not a bad product, but not all the infomercial claims.

(© MMVIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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