Shower Infusion starter kit product reviews

OK, I am a male, with all the style sense of a grapefruit... so frankly I was worried as to how I was going to assess this. Thankfully, I had a contributing viewpoint from a female of the species, which helped clarify matters a lot.

Firstly, the male perspective: This unit was well packed, with everything needed and well explained in the manual... which was promptly discarded in favour of the "Well, I'm a male so if it's been properly designed I should be able to work it out myself..." approach which has served me well in the past. Mostly. Thankfully, in this case, I was right. Yes, there is a beautifully printed hardcopy manual, and even a stylish interactive DVD, for those who are 'MacGyveristically challenged'... but it really was a cynch to work out the obvious connections. There was a slight hiccup with the DVD... the 'highlight' colour makes it hard to see your selected option. Using a darker colour such as burnt orange or deep red may have been a better colour choice than white.

My only gripe during installation is that the current fittings have two small flattened flanges on them to make a secure grip for flat-faced spanners, meaning no damage to the chrome. These fittings are smooth and shiny all around, meaning my poor polygrips left a couple of nasty scratches on the short hose fittings. A slight rethink of the practicality there may be in order. However, even so, it took longer for me to locate my tools than it took for me to install the entire unit, so major kudos for an excellent 'easy fit' design.

Installing and using the scent pods was also a snap, with the removal of a rubber bung - which you should retain for storage reasons if you decide to swap out a partially-used pod for later re-insertion - and then you just shove the pod into place and give it a good push and a slight twist to ensure a firm lock and a good perforation of the seal membrane. To remove, give a slight twist and a firm pull up, and out it pops. Just make sure you have the shower off and the unit adjustment slider set to zero first, to avoid any accidents.

Now, when inserting a fresh pod, I found it good practice to ramp the adjustment slider to maximum-on for a few seconds until the smell of the previous pod is replaced by the current one, then set it back down to somewhere below half way. This gives a good scent, yet prevents excessive waste of the pods. Using this method, I got just over 5 good long showers from a single pod, but if your nose is a little more sensitive, you could easily extend that by careful management of the adjuster.

From the female perspective: the scents that come with the unit were really pleasant, but they appear to vary at random, if the product images are to be believed. This pack contained a nice 'soothing' one that smelled of green tea, and a 'wake up' one that says it's grapefruit, but smelled more like mandarins. Both were very effective in the shower, but it would be good to see a little more variety.

The unit looked very sleek and stylish, and would fit in well with any 'semi-executive' lifestyle bathroom, but may look a little out of place in a generic suburban home. However, if you are thinking of bathroom renovations, chrome is the flavour to aim for, and this is a very affordable accessory.

The downside was that when using this unit, the water temperature dropped considerably the more 'open' we had the adjuster. At 'full open' the hot water simply wasn't. 75 degrees Celsius coming out of the tank, but about 35 degrees out of the nozzle. As soon as the adjuster was set to 'full off' the water temp climbed right back up in less than a second. It may be best to ensure your system can push plenty of piping hot water through at a good water flow rate. Optimum specs are included in the manual.

Overall, this was a wonderful unit to take for a test drive, and if your house has the plumbing to put it to best effect, by all means consider getting one. Some in-home pampering and style for under $150 is hard to beat. If you are at all unsure, seek the advice of your favoured plumber, or better yet, talk to the experts at Methven as they have the ultimate product knowledge to steer you towards the best products for your needs.