You know what? You might not believe it, but IT works. The Flowbee. Works.
(An aside here -- everytime I think of the word Flowbee, my brain switches it to Furby. Maybe because it rhymes with Kirby, which is part of the story of the Flowbee... )
The box didn't have time to rest once it entered the house. Oh, and imagine being our UPS man, delivering a box marked FLOWBEE in huge letters. They could have at least shipped it in plain brown wrapping. But no. Soon we'll be the laughingstocks of the street.
"Hey, you know what they got the other day?.... Is it true?... Bwaaaahaaahaa!"
Can't wait til the neighborhood picnic.
So, my husband (who's not the Flowbee Man shown here) unpacked the box and set up the Kirby vacuum cleaner. Yep. If you're not familiar with the Flowbee, let me explain. You see, it's a haircutting system that attaches to your vacuum cleaner. Oh. Yes. For real. The cutting mechanism is inside a tube, which you attach to your vacuum cleaner hose. And
to achieve different lengths or tapers, you attach various guides over the clippers. Everything's enclosed, so you can't cut yourself. But ladies, I'd remove the earrings before using this thing if I were you! Holy Hoover! (And no, I do not intend to use it!) Anyway, with the vaccum suction, the Flowbee sucks the hair in and cuts it to the desired length, based on the guide you've attached to the clipper. And of course there's no mess, since the hair just gets sucked into the vacuum.
Long overdue for a haircut, Hubby couldn't wait to give it a test run. I came out of my office to see how it was going, and our son was running from the noisy kitchen, ears covered, yelling "Run, Mommy! Run!!" It's loud alright. The Flowbee makes its own buzzing sound, and with our Kirby workhouse howling along too, it's not a peaceful haircut. I watched, and yeah this sucker works! I did a little cleanup on his neck with a razor, but otherwise it did the job.
If you missed my husband's testimonial in the comments on the last post, here's an excerpt:
Yes, they still sell them, about 9000 a year! And I am pleased with the quality of construction and smoothness of operation. These Flowbee things are well made.
The Flowbee works great and I was able to produce very good results on the first use... on myself. In fact, it looks better than most of the Cuts Plus and barber shop cuts I've ever had. (Except for Daryll. He's an artist. But he's vanished into the ether.) Last time I went to Cuts Plus, I had to go to Marie's hair dresser to repair the damage they did.
Never again... and I just saved 1/3 the cost of the Flowbee with my first cut. (Cut + tip + gas. Not to mention travel and waiting time.) I've read testimonials that claim they've saved 10s of thousands of dollars on haircuts over the childhood timespan of their kids.
It helps that I don't have much hair, so the cut I need is short short short and simple. But I think anyone can get good results with it with very little practice. Practice first, on someone who's going to have short hair! ; ) But it's really pretty foolproof. You can even do a nice taper with it.
So there you have it. My husband, who is extremely particular about his haircuts, is pleased with the results of the Flowbee cut. He mentioned Daryll, my former hair dresser, who very meticulously cut Hubby's hair now and then; Daryll apparently fell off the face of the earth leaving us both without a hair dresser!! I, too, am very particular about my cuts, and with my thick curly short hair, I've had many bad cuts in my day. When I find someone who's good with my hair, I stick with them and follow them around town when they move to a new salon.
My husband hasn't recovered from our loss of Daryll, so he turned to the Flowbee.
I've recovered. I found a fantastic hair dresser, right around the corner. And she doesn't use a vacuum cleaner on my head.
I guess it'll be a few years before Dad can fulfill his dream of Flowbee-ing his son's hair. Unless we get a muffler for the Kirby.
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There are some great Flowbee testimonials here... Oh, and Hubby doesn't want his head on the Internet, so I don't have before and after shots! And the Flowbee Man above is from the web site...