Expensive items bought that disappointed/didn’t live up to the hype?

[Theroadnottravelled]

Mine is a cordless Dyson vacuum. Cost loads, has a poor battery, doesn’t pick up well, so overrated. Gets rave reviews - why?? My next one will be a Henry ;-) My other is overpriced, average pub/cafe grub when out as a family. Such a waste of time, money and effort. Sorry, I’m usually more upbeat…

Elizabeth Arden 8 hour products. Read the ingredients, it’s just petroleum jelly (Vaseline) with a bit of scent.

Oh no. Eufy has just been purchase on a deal… to keep it or return ?

Eufy robot vacuum. I loved it till it managed to pick up an end of my bedroom carpet and totally chewed up a whole edge! By the time I realised, it was too late. Ok for wooden floors but I would never trust one with carpet

I went through a few vacuums during the pandemic. Dh joked that every lockdown I bought a new one. Henry (local company) I hated. Big, heavy and only effective on hard floors. Couldn’t cope with hair (3dds and mine). Shark was okay until is broke - plug in type. Gtech good but can’t do edges. I ended up going back to Dyson and bought a cordless / it’s by far the most superior I’ve bought. I love it.

also the home laser hair remover - I haven’t needed to shave my armpits or legs for a month. Bikini line needs a few more treatments. I have dark hair and light skin.

my air fryer I could live without. I use it to justify it but for a family of 5 it doesn’t work for me. My oven works well and is very energy efficient so I’m not seeing the love for them. Wish I’d saved the money.

Anything set on fire or goes down the plug hole.

E.g posh candles, always a disappointment and posh/overpriced shower gel from Lush, Molton Brown etc.

We've had ours for 18 years and it's sooooo comfy,it's ruined us for any other mattress. Ours hasn't sunk at all,I reckon you ended up with a dud !

Glad I’ve seen this - been looking into getting one!

Buy a Shark. Better than Dyson

Apple Watch.

Dyson Airwrap - Babyliss is better.

Someone once told me that Dyson is a brilliant marketing company attached to a duff manufacturer.

Which? Best buys aren't always best buys: I made some very expensive mistakes just going on their recommendation, though some have been good....I always look at multiple sources before picking now.
Which? think Dyson are the dog's bllcks, but reading here, they plainly aren't!

Dyson, fell over once, main body cracked. Taped it back but cheap shit, shockingly poor.
Never again.
Furious at the waste.

Dyson vacuum - rubbish

Shark vacuum - great 👍

Any Apple product - every single iPod I owned broke or malfunctioned (and couldnt be fixed - including one which after a few months inexplicably would start reading the titles of songs and artists over the top of songs I was listening to - even though the accessibility settings were turned off). A Macbook laptop stopped loading the OS after 3 years. Conversely, I have a PC laptop that still boots even though I bought it in December 2000 (obviously unusable otherwise but you get the jist). Never had an iPhone but a friend told me that her screen broke when it fell 20 cm off a handbag onto a fluffy carpet. Contrast my Samsung Galaxy which I accidentally threw out of the window from the 3rd floor of a mediaeval castle into a field of sheep and it was completely fine.

Gaggia coffee machine - lasted about 18 months. Dualit, Smeg and Ascaso all lasted longer (though was disappointed in the Ascaso which cost the equivalent of 600 quid in 2025 prices and gave up the ghost after 5 years.)

Saie cosmetics are generally not worth the price. Milk cosmetics are a bit wishy washy. Medik8 night cream stinks of patchouli (though I use 3 of their other products which are great). Dcypher foundation oxidises like buggery and the different formulations are terrible: the dry skin formulation disappears in nano seconds like water evaporating off a hot pavement. The combination skin formulation cracks like clay and adheres forever like you're a victim of Pompeii encased in igneous rock. Estee Lauder concealer - claimed not to crease, cake, settle and last all day. All those claims are bollocks. Plus, when you write a review it has a section headed 'less details'. It should be 'fewer details', E.L. you illiterate fucknuts.

A stupid milk bottle locking top for using on milk in shared fridges that I bought from Amazon that didn't work.

HSBC phone app. I didn't pay for it but it's useless.

I'm clearly warming to a theme of not just things that weren't worth the money but also things that are profoundly annoying so I think I'll stop there 🙂.

Dyson x 2. The second cordless one was so bad I wanted to smash it into tiny pieces and burn it in the garden.
I too have just bought a robot vac in the prime sale... we'll see I guess!
I also paid a lot for a Bosch all-in-one stand mixer/food processor/juicer etc etc. You need a PhD in engineering to work it I think. I just cba with it.

Raybans

Treated myself at the airport, the frame bent within a month. Got a free replacement but no better than the high street sunnies I have bought in the past

My first robot vacuum was a heap of shit.
Wouldn't stay connected, wouldn’t stay in the boundaries of the map, wouldn’t obey the “no go zones” I’d set on the map. Would get stuck on the tiniest of obstacle - once had a full blown freak out because it encountered a tiny piece of plastic film that hadn’t quite made it into the bin.
Got rid of it and bought the Roomba I should have spent the money on in the first place.

I got a great dupe airwrap too!

Not sure what brand it is off the top of my head, but it works just as well as when I used my sister’s Dyson, and was less than half the price.

Do it! We love ours. I also regularly see them mentioned on the ‘name one thing you’ve bought that’s life-changing’ type threads!

A Thermomix!! Massively expensive bit of kit. Just gathers dust!

i don’t love my shark vac, got it because my sebo wasn’t doing well on new carpets, was too heavy, shark was great for a few months, and I’ve replaced a few parts but it just doesn’t have the power it had when new.

I will say though that my laser hair remover has been life changing, I’ve got lots of very dark hair, lots of which breaks when waxed, so was taking a long time to shave my legs with no long term alternative. Laser hasn’t completely got rid, but so much easier to manage now.

A very expensive wooden structured play park for the garden. (Swings, slides, monkey bars etc) Children loved it on day one and have barely played with it since… takes up more than half of our garden space!

Miele heat pump tumble dryer. Stopped drying clothes properly after about a year and broke down completely when just out of warranty… It was a Which? Best Buy.

Same, we've had our Eufy for about 6 years and it's one of the best things we've ever spent money on, my Airwrap being another.

Worst by a country mile was a Shark cordless vacuum. It had one decent outing then was utter crap and everything ended up clogged in the head, had to be unclogged multiple times on each use. I got angry and threw it in the bin in the end.

The latest upgrade on my phone has made it utterly shit, not sure if it's a Samsung thing or all androids but it's doing my nut.

I love my big hair, I have a spare one for when this one dies, as I cannot be without one.

Dyson airwrap. I use none of the attachments except occasionally the hot brush. I mainly use it as an overpriced hairdryer