With most consumer items, generic brands will do just fine. Store-brand tissues are pretty much the same thing you get from Puffs or Kleenex, minus the “with added nonsene you don’t need!” gimmicks. Same goes with store-brand toilet paper, paper plates, napkins, and mouthwash. But the one brand that has yet to be matched by its lower-priced brethren: Q-Tips.
Generic cotton swabs, or even the Johnson & Johnson brand cotton swabs can’t match up with Chesebrough-Pond’s Q-Tips. Q-Tips use more cotton than their competition: using a generic brand often results in poking yourself in the ear through the cotton with the flexible handle.
The handle… that’s the other place where Q-Tips have every other brand of cotton swab beat: Q-Tips flex just enough. Other brands can’t withstand any sort of force and don’t allow proper maneuvering in and around the ear.
I would point you to the “official” Q-Tip web site, but there is none. There was a great fan site, but unfortunately, the no-web-presence Chesebrough-Ponde shut ’em down.
Just remember: don’t puncture your ear drum with a Q-Tip.
Posted in Everyday Life
HWCH June 21, 2008, 11:43 pm
I have been a loyal customer to the q-tip since I can remember. Brands such as Johnson & Johnson does not compare. When I think of items that are so
ubiquitous to our culture things like kleenex, windex, q-tips are a part of this.
I am very upset to see that the q-tip has changed. The stick is now mushy and bends when cleaning my ear, the cotton on the tips have been reduced and feel like third world “q-tips!” Why screw up something that is perfect –
to save a copy of pennies and compromise the brand and what use to be
the best quality out there.
What was Chesebrough-Pond’s thinking – that the customer is stupid, and
they could pull the wool over us without the customer realizing the switch?