What the hell... isn't this supposed to remove the wrinkles?

I admit it, I like many other people, hate ironing. In fact, I don't even own an iron. The last time I even touched an iron was when I was in Basic Training for the Air Force and I am pretty sure that I only touched an iron once even while I was there.

I think the reason for me hating the iron or the process of ironing is because it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. For me, the simple act of throwing what I want to wear into the dryer with a wet rag is perfect. It gets out all of the wrinkles and looks virtually the same as a shirt that I might spend 10 minutes ironing. So to me, I am going to go with the care free approach to ironing. The problem is that I can't simply throw a suit in the dryer because they tend to shrink when you do that and for the nicer suits, they just melt into a suit ball.

So in order to solve my hate for ironing, my lack of free time to go to the dry cleaners, and the fear of suit shrinkage I decided that I would purchase a steaming press in order to resolve the problem. With this idea in mind, I found myself at Wal Mart purchasing one by Conair.

How to Operate
Basically, this unit is relatively simple to work. You just plug it into the wall, fill up a small water tray and plug the water tray into the press unit. On the iron itself you can change the dial to signify what you are pressing. You can also lock the press as well so that it holds the item you are pressing in place. Outside of those features there really isn't much else to it.

Basic Complaints
While I would love to say that this is the greatest product ever made, it simply isn't. I understand that the press wasn't meant to replace the dry cleaner and it isn't a perfect replacement to the standard iron. The problem I have is that it is substantially more expensive than an iron, so it should operate like something that is more expensive.

In order to press an item with this press, it is going to require that you take a good chunk of time in order to get it right. The big problem is that the press is so small that my 3 year old's clothes barely fit on it all at once. So, just the fact that it is a tiny workspace you know that you are going to have to put a little extra effort into it. Unfortunately, the problem is much larger than that. While the press does put off a decent amount of steam and does seem as if it should work, for some reason it really doesn't. You have to hold the press in place for a very long period of time, which is probably the reason for the locking mechanism. I figure it takes several minutes at a time for each press. So by the time you are done with a single piece of clothing you are so exhausted that you really just wish that you took it to the dry cleaners or threw it in the dryer and took your chances.

Another problem is that because it is so small and you have to do small sections at a time and it takes so long, you have to be very careful how you lay your items out. If you just slightly lay something out with it folded over a bit, then you are going to have a crease that you will never get out. You pretty much have to wet it and try to start over completely at that point in time.

Final Thoughts
While the product is great in theory, the amount of time that it takes to truly take the wrinkles out and make clothing items look like they came from the dry cleaners just isn't worth it. If you are pressing a suit you can pretty much expect to spend over 30 minutes trying to get it right.

I would say that the only real benefit about this product is that you can use it to iron out ties. For this, it actually works pretty well because you can do the entire tie at one time. Other than that, it is for the most part a worthless product, unless you enjoy wasting your time or have someone that you pay to do it for you.