The Accidental Locavore Gives Scrub Daddy a Try

While the Accidental Locavore is waiting for GIR to get it right with sponges and scrubbies, I decided to take the Scrub Daddy for a spin around stacks of dirty pots and pans. If you’ve never seen it, it’s a smiley face emoji turned into a scrubby sponge. It is also the most successful Shark Tank product to date.

What’s interesting about it, is that it changes its scrubbing ability depending on the water temperature. In cold water it’s much firmer, and in warm water it gets softer. Depending on your squeamish factor, you can thrust your fingers through the “eyes” and use the smile for cleaning both sides of spoons (something you never thought about, right?).

All kidding aside, this is actually works much better than the traditional scrubby sponges. It’s not quite as hard-core as the stainless steel scrubber I resurrected recently, but it’s close and can be used on non-stick cookware. It easily zipped through two of my messiest jobs—the grill from my smoker and the container I boil milk in for yogurt, winning itself a spot sink-side.

It was only after I bought a couple more to give as Christmas gifts, that the Scrub Daddy’s shortcomings showed up. Although the packaging says dishwasher safe, it was a Sad Daddy that came out. Slack of jaw and looking more like a Pac-Man relic than a cheerful emoji, Scrub Daddy had met his match in the dishwasher.

Since it was only a few weeks old, I thought that its demise was a little premature. I sent the photo to Scrub Daddy, who got right back to me. They said that the life-span was supposed to be 4-8 weeks, depending on usage. That seemed a little lame to me, as most sponges last at least a couple of months, and while I cook a lot, I don’t think I generate an excessive amount of scrubbable cookware. Anyway, they offered to send me the Heavy Duty version to try.

Not as cute as the original, the Heavy Duty Scrub Daddy is a big yellow block. With my small hands, it’s a little awkward for day-to-day kitchen duty. However, when I made a huge mess on my butcher block, it’s size shape and flexibility cut through all the sticky bits of flour and dough in no time! So it gets a space on the kitchen counter, making a good base for its smiley-faced side-kick.