Inform if Your Scrub Daddy Sponge is a Counterfeit

After housesitting for me a number of months in the past, my mother gifted me a pack of Scrub Daddies — these basic sponges within the form of a smiley face which are identified for his or her potential to scour nearly something — or at the very least she thought she did. 

What she truly gave me was a pack of knockoff sponges with a frustratingly stiff texture that disintegrated after a single run within the dishwasher. And it seems I’m not the one one with this expertise.

Like many different common kitchen merchandise, the Scrub Daddy has impressed numerous dupes. However not all Scrub Daddy duplicates are the identical. These recreations will be divided into two classes: the extra benign knockoffs and the counterfeits which are deceiving shoppers.

Like a pretend Louis Vuitton bag with a distorted brand throughout it, knockoffs are pretty simple to establish. Food market-brand scrubbers, for instance, could change the form of the eyes or mouth on the signature smiley face. Some knockoffs could seem stunned (like this sponge from Publix) as a substitute of glad, whereas others have enjoyable shapes for eyes as a substitute of circles. Briefly, it’s simple to differentiate the distinction and decide out of buying the merchandise should you don’t need a knockoff.

Whereas these rivals are irritating, Scrub Daddy has found a far greater subject: counterfeiters who’re manufacturing Scrub Daddy merchandise and packaging with a virtually an identical look. To many shopper eyes, these sponges can appear precisely like a real Scrub Daddy till they fail to carry out whereas washing dishes.

On-line retailers could fail to differentiate between genuine and counterfeit Scrub Daddies, and many purchasers stay unaware that they’re shopping for off-brand merchandise when ordering from a web site. The result’s dissatisfied customers who consider they’ve bought the true deal and that the product is flawed.

A short dive into Reddit reveals a lot of first-hand accounts from upset clients, a few of whom have despatched their inferior merchandise to Scrub Daddy solely to study that they’re fakes. One consumer posed the query “Is there a purpose my model new Scrub Daddy disintegrated after one use?” together with a photograph of remnants of the sponge. One other shared a side-by-side video evaluating two totally different Scrub Daddy purchases and questioning why the supplies didn’t appear to be the identical in each sponges.

Chief government officer of Scrub Daddy Aaron Krause says he’s issued authentic Scrub Daddy merchandise to duped clients without charge. Up to now, he estimates replacements have solely price the corporate a whole lot of {dollars}, however Krause is extra involved with injury to the model’s fame than the value of changing merchandise — particularly when so many purchasers aren’t conscious they’ve purchased a pretend. 

It was buyer complaints like these and rising worries over injury to the product’s good identify that alerted Scrub Daddy to the presence of counterfeit producers.

“We have been seeing cases on-line and listening to from clients that they thought they purchased a pretend,” Krause recollects. “We used the knowledge from the place they bought to ship in a non-public investigator with a hidden digicam and caught them red-handed.”

Scrub Daddy was in a position to raid the producer, a manufacturing unit positioned in Southern China, and confiscate the counterfeit sponges on-site. “All infringing supplies… will now be proof and we have now initiated a lawsuit towards the corporate and its homeowners,” Krause says. However that is solely the tip of the iceberg, and the model is already conscious of at the very least two extra counterfeit operations in China. 

The merchandise seized from the Shenzhen producer underscore simply how near the unique Scrub Daddy a counterfeit can seem.

The recovered sponges’ brand is almost an identical to Scrub Daddy’s, with an alteration so delicate it’s not perceptible to most shoppers. On this case, it’s the kerning — spacing between particular person letters — across the capital “S” in “Scrub” and lowercase “a” in “Daddy.” 

For somebody who isn’t a typography skilled, the strongest giveaway for the counterfeit producer in query is the field. Real containers keep a brilliant citrus shade referred to as 804 orange, whereas the counterfeiter’s containers have a barely diluted hue compared.

Counterfeit merchandise vary from roughly half of Scrub Daddy’s advised retail value to a precise match in price. The problem, in fact, is that clients are paying for considerably decrease high quality. 

“There’s just one firm on the earth that may make Scrub Daddy materials and it’s proper right here in the US,” Krause emphasizes.

Inner analysis evaluating real and counterfeit Scrub Daddies highlights a number of the frequent points clients are dealing with. Some issues are minor however nonetheless irritating, corresponding to product longevity. A pretend sponge will begin falling aside if it goes by way of just some rounds in a dishwasher — and sure, you need to be capable to wash a Scrub Daddy within the dishwasher — whereas the true factor, with correct care, can final upwards of 10 runs.

Different points are much more regarding, just like the composition of those pretend sponges. “Primarily based on the descriptions utilized by the counterfeiters on their itemizing, the frequent supplies that they’re utilizing are polyurethane and polyether,” a consultant from Scrub Daddy explains in an e-mail. “There’s a big threat of contamination and publicity to many hazards, some being biohazards, resulting from unregulated producer amenities.” 

Krause and Scrub Daddy’s chief of technique, Will Augmenbraun, are taking measures to thwart present and future counterfeiters, beginning with suing the counterfeit producer they’ve recognized so far. Nevertheless, for now, their finest plan of action is to make sure that shoppers are knowledgeable in regards to the subject.

Krause says the one solution to know you’re buying a real Scrub Daddy product on-line is to get one straight from the supply: the corporate’s Smileshop. “In the end we’re about our clients and so they received screwed,” Krause says. “And in the long run, if we make them conscious of that, they’ll be smarter, they’ll be extra educated shoppers, and so they’ll be extra cautious about the place they store.”