Here’s a little roundup of products I’ve tried out recently. In each case, the product was sent to me by the company that makes or promotes it for the sake of a review.

No Sweat

For some of us, exercise always leads to perspiration, flowing in rivulets down our faces from the pores in our foreheads. It ain’t pretty but it’s true, and sometimes you just don’t want the sweat getting into your eyes. Enter No Sweat, a sweat absorbing, disposable hat liner that will fit easily into your favorite baseball cap.

The Minnetonka, Minnesota based company makes liners for hats, helmets and hard hats, using their patented design and Dri-LID technology. They call it “game changing,” which may be true. Based on my experience, using No Sweat liner in the baseball cap I wear for my morning walk, it works. It absorbs the water, it stays in place, and there’s no smell as sometimes occurs when sweaty bacteria gets together with other sweaty bacteria. It’s easy to install, and easy to remove – its peel and stick – and does not seem to make me any hotter than normal while walking.

And it’s unobtrusive. No one will see it unless you want them too, and you will barely even notice it on your own head. At least, that’s my experience. No Sweat comes in multipacks in resealable plastic bags. I recommend it. Learn more at https://nosweatco.com/

Invroheat

We’ve had weirdly inconsistent weather where I live, with cold and hot days sharing the same weeks for much of what we technically call Winter and Spring. So testing Invroheat’s wildly-inventive space heater has not been a linear experience.

Still, it’s way too interesting to ignore. Invroheat created a space heater that doubles as wall art. It’s basically a 40 inch by22 inch rectangular picture that plugs into the wall socket and makes the wall radiate heat into the room.

It comes rolled up like a cylinder, and when you look at it, one side is the image you selected (they have benign decor scenes as varied as plants and landscapes – a detail of mine is the featured image of this particular edition of Velleity), and the other side is shiny foil. You unroll it – the one I was sent took a while to go flat, so I stretched it out on a table for a few days. And there are cord minders (the company calls it a power cord clamb) that you can stick to the wall to hold the power cord straight and presumably do the same for the heater. For my purposes, I didn’t use the “clamb” because I might move the heater out of the room it’s in.

Once the Invroheat is plugged in, its a simple matter of switching it on and waiting for it to heat up. It heats up pretty fast, creating a radiant heat reflected off the back toward the wall which makes the wall hot enough to raise the temperature nearby.

As far as how effective Invroheat is, your mileage may vary. I used it in our kitchen, a pretty open space, and while it appears that it slightly elevates the room temperature, I could only feel significant heat while standing or sitting very near the heater. It does not project well – although it might work best in a smallish, enclosed room. The company says the 430w model will heat a 12×12 room. Like I said – your mileage may vary.

And that brings me to the company warning. Invroheat generates heat from the foil side, so the company advises against hanging it too near flammable materials. That seems to rule out hanging the picture near curtains, decorations made of paper or fabric and perhaps some other items I can’t think of at the moment. Positioning it on a brick wall is probably optimum, with a painted wall coming in second – although the company does warn that the radiant heat might discolor certain walls.

I hung mine on a wall with wallpaper, but with the warning about flammable materials top-of-mind, I don’t generally leave it on very long. That said, I once left it on for 2 days without any problem. Part of the reason I left it on so long is, perhaps, a selling point: Invroheat makes no noise (not even an electric hum, and generates no odor so it’s easy to just forget about it and walk by it the same way we routinely ignore the art we hang in our houses for decor.

This is where I might tell you to “Learn more at http://www.invroheatusacom,” but right now, that site appears to be not public. However, at invroheat.com, (based in the Netherlands), I found this: “The founder and co-owner of Invroheat BV, Bastiaan Roest, presented himself successfully on May 10th to five Sharks during the television program “Shark tank”. With a bid of 1,000,000 euros, Roest is the absolute star of the program with the highest bid ever made in the 19 years history of the program.”

And the product does appear to remain available for sale online.

Gloves in a Bottle

Imagine if you had to expose your hands to soap or hand sanitizer repeatedly during the day. What? You can relate?

Whether you work in healthcare, or live in a pandemic – or both – hand hygiene has become critically important, more so than ever, in the age of coronavirus. But all that washing can be hard on your skin – even if its necessary.

And that’s where the product called Gloves in a Bottle comes in. The company describes it as an all-in-one “shielding lotion,” and touts its ability to protect hands for hours.

It’s a thick, creamy lotion that disappears quickly when rubbed in.

According to the company, Gloves in a Bottle “actually bonds to the outer layer of skin, filling in any gaps and protecting skin for up to four hours while washing and sanitizing until it needs to be reapplied. Hospital workers have said that it is the only thing that helps heal their bleeding hands after a shift where they are constantly washing them, and it is approved for them to use in all areas of the hospital including operating rooms. Glove In A Bottle is now sending product to any health care worker who contacts them asking for it.“

That’s all good. But, it is only fair to point out to you that you have to reapply the lotion every four hours for maximum protection. Nothing wrong with that, but there are plenty of lotions that make claims of long lasting efficacy – Neutrogena Norwegian Formula claims to provide “24-hour moisturization for dry rough skin;” Nivea Men Maximum Hydration makes similar claims, and etc. The point is that there are many, many lotions and hand creams out there which may be of similar quality. My wife and I have tried a lot of them and what I find is that it just depends on your preference.

Although I can’t say that Gloves in a Bottle is the best of the lot, I can say it works well and seems to be a high quality lotion which holds up to the competition. I also appreciate the company’s honesty in saying that you have to replace it every four hours for maximum benefit. Not every company puts that fact – which no doubt applies to many competing products – out there.

And frankly, you’ve got to give Gloves in a Bottle credit for giving product away to healthcare workers who are on the front lines in dealing with this unprecedented crisis.

Learn more at http://www.glovesinabottle.com