I Think We've Been Floamed!
Written: Jan 09 '06
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Product Rating:
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Pros: None.
Cons: Does not work at all!
The Bottom Line: You've seen the commercials for Floam, now do yourself a favor and ignore them completely!
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| Staceys1's Full Review: Floam |
Last Spring, it seems that we saw commercials for Floam on television on a daily, if not an hourly basis. Each time my daughter saw such an advertisement, she begged me to buy it, and though I was not sure what it actually was or if I wanted it in the house, I thought that maybe it would be something to get her for sometime in the future, if she kept asking for it.
As school came to an end in June, I plotted out each week of the summer as far as which weeks we would be on vacation as a family and which weeks my children would be attending various camps. There was going to be one week near the end of August where my son would be at basketball camp and my daughter would be home with me, and I thought that if she had Floam to play with, she would not be so bored.
I ordered the Floam from their website (www.floam.com), which is very sparse and a bit confusing, and I ended up ordering two sets, though I really only intended to order one. The price was advertised on the website for $19.95 (plus a ridiculous shipping and handling fee of $7.95), and as I was checking out, a cutting tool set was offered to me at an additional price. I do not recall exactly what that price was since I never received an email confirmation, there was no packing slip with my order, and you cannot view any options on the website until you have chosen to purchase Floam and entered in your credit card information.
Though I did not receive any email confirmation, I sort of held my breath that I would actually receive the product. I did not need it for about six weeks, which seemed to me to be plenty of time to allow for shipping. All in all, it took more than three months to receive my two packages, and they arrived a few days apart, leaving me at first to wonder if the second one would actually arrive.
So, after much anticipation, my children eventually were able to actually play with their Floam. We had two sets of cutting and shaping tools and nineteen tubs of this sticky gooey gunk in white, light blue, pink, green, purple and white. The containers look like the pint-sized containers you get from the deli counter. I do not know for sure if I was short-changed or given extra containers, since the two shipments, which should have been the same, obviously did not have the same amount of containers in them. Additionally, some of the containers had the "Floam" logo on them, while others did not, and some were sealed, while others were not.
I had hoped that this activity was going to occupy my children for a few hours, but no such luck. The consistency of this product is difficult to explain, but can be best described as small balls of styrofoam in a gel-like goo. Fortunately for the rug and upholstery, it does not really stick to anything, but the problem with that is that is supposed to stick to things.
The website advertises a "Free Bonus" of a "Step-by-Step Floam Model-Making Guide." This is a small folded piece of paper with colorful pictures of floamed objects and a few ideas of where you can stick your floam (though I would like to tell the Floam company where to stick the floam!) It indicates which colors can be mixed to make orange, green and purple (even though green and purple are in the set), so my daughter mixed the blue and pink to see if she could make an additional shade of purple. No such luck. It did not blend and it looks like pink and blue mixed together, though some of the little balls lost their color and became white.
To start using your Floam you are supposed to mix it up to make it more pliable. After that, you should be able to stick it to just about anything you want to decorate: a ball, a pencil, shoes, a window, a wooden shape, etc. Additionally, the guidebook shows us cute animals that were made by sticking the Floam to shaped wire. A giraffe and zebra are shown, but nowhere does it suggest how to make brown or black Floam.
My children tried first shaping the Floam and using the tools, which include a rolling pin, a plastic knife, a wheel cutter and a heart, butterfly, train, tree, star, duck, fish and bear shaped cutters. With a tremendous amount of pressure applied, my children were able to create shapes, but each time they tried to create something that required the Floam to stick to itself (such as a snowman), it just did not work. We then tried to cover a pencil with this stuff, and it just kept falling off.
By now, my son (age 8) was completely bored and left my daughter (age 7) and I with this arts and crafts project. We then attempted to Floam a small ball (about the size of a softball), and though it took more than half an hour, we eventually got the majority of it covered, though as we worked, pieces continued to fall off. We left our finished product to show others, and each time my daughter picked it up, more pieces would fall off. On the commercial, they are able to completely cover a bicycle - I do not know how that would be possible, unless you covered it in glue first.
Our first use of Floam was about three months ago, and not once since then have my children wanted to use this stuff again, and I do not blame them.
The only good thing about this product is that it is not very messy. It is water soluble, so even if by chance it sticks to something you do not want it to, applying water to it should remove it with no problem.
Something else to note about dealing with the Floam company is that they apparently are a very small company, keep poor records, and their telephone operators do not consider their customer's privacy very important. During the time that I was waiting for my shipment, unbeknownst to me, my brother in law attempted to order Floam through their automated telephone system. As he was not sure if his order had been completed, he called customer service and all he was asked was his last name. To "verify" who he was, the operator then read off my name and address, since we have the same last name. This is my brother in law whom I get along with just fine, but if he had been a stranger and not stopped the operator, I do not know for sure if possibly my credit card information would have been divulged as well.
The total charge for nineteen tubs, two sets of tools, the brochures about the product and shipping was a whopping $79.23! Quite a bit of money to spend on a product that absolutely does not work in the way that it was advertised. There is no way that I would recommend Floam to anybody for any reason.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 79.23 total
Type of Toy: Arts and Crafts
Age Range of Child: Kids to Teens
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