Flowbee demand surges as coronavirus quarantines stretch

By Chris MorrisFormer Contributing Writer

For years, a lot of people joked about the Flowbee. Today they’re clamoring to get one.

The hair-cutting device that combines your home vacuum with hair clippers has been an infomercial staple since the late 1980s. But as salons and barber shops remain closed and may not reopen for weeks or months because of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, demand for the product has exploded.

The Flowbee is sold out on both Walmart’s website and Amazon. (Amazon, at this point, says it doesn’t know when the item will be back in stock.) The company’s official website is offline, seemingly unable to handle the influx of consumer inquiries.

Company officials could not be reached for comment, so while it’s not a sure thing that sales are spiking, interest in the product certainly has been.

While people are fine dressing down, skipping makeup, and bypassing contact lenses for glasses during social isolation, they still want their hair to look good.

Is it just me, or is anyone else thinking the Flowbee is an idea whose time has come? pic.twitter.com/CNTx2S3d8W— Kristine Ziwica (@KZiwica) March 27, 2020

I know the photos all look like they were taken in the 80s, but I've heard from a credible source that the #FlowBee works well for those of you getting desperate. pic.twitter.com/m2iYorJXWu— Christine Larade (@christinelarade) March 27, 2020

https://twitter.com/asthehosptuRNs/status/1243244186687528960

OK, truth time:

I quietly bought a Flowbee years ago. Deeply uncool. Very useful. Nobody's ever seen my hair & said "Was that a vacuum cut?"

They've said a lot of other insulting things, but not that.

Who's laughing now?

You've got a bowl & scissors, America — get to it. https://t.co/7HbxSHaGIt— Dan Amrich (@DanAmrich) March 20, 2020

The Flowbee is the brainchild of Rick Hunts. A onetime carpenter in Southern California, he got the idea for his product when vacuuming sawdust from his hair. The product uses your own home vacuum to suck your hair up, then trims it with clippers and disposes of the hair via the vacuum. It can cut hair anywhere from half an inch to six inches long (in quarter-inch measurements).

It didn’t do well when it launched in 1980, but in 1988, Hunts bet the farm on a 30-minute infomercial. The gamble paid off.

The product was a punch line in films like Wayne’s World and among skeptics, but today, with no stylists available, buyers seem to be paying a lot more attention to the user reviews, which are overwhelmingly positive. The product has 4.3 and 4.4 stars—out of 5—on Walmart and Amazon, respectively.

Flowbee demand surges as coronavirus quarantines stretch

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