There are countless sponges out there. The normal kitchen sponges have a soft side and a rougher side. You use the latter to tackle coarse dirt, and the former to get the dishes really clean. At least, that’s the idea. The Scrub Daddy doesn’t have two sides, but it still claims to master two types of cleaning.

I’ve noticed the sponge in drugstores over the past few years, mainly because of its appearance. It smiles at you from the shelf, being round with two eyes and a mouth. The packaging, however, strongly reminds me of products from infomercial channels, which doesn’t inspire much confidence in me. I now know that the Scrub Daddy comes from the USA, where such designs are more common. It’s also interesting that the sponge is one of the most successful products from their version of Shark Tank. But for me, that’s not exactly a guarantee of high product quality either.

Then last week, a colleague at work described what’s actually special about the Scrub Daddy. It’s not, as I thought, the smiling face for easily cleaning spoons (the eyes for the handle, the mouth for the spoon part), but its flexibility. Apparently, the sponge is hard and rough in cold water, but soft and sudsy in warm water. This promise had completely passed me by over the years. But I’m a nerd, and I find that kind of thing cool, if only out of scientific curiosity. And just like that, on my next trip to the drugstore, the Scrub Daddy was in my shopping cart, much to my girlfriend’s amusement.

As mentioned before, the marketing is definitely not a reason to buy this thing. Both physically in the store and on Amazon, the product presentation is very cheap. As I said, infomercial-level. My girlfriend and I were correspondingly skeptical, especially with a price of €3.99 for one sponge. You can get the store-brand sponges for under a euro for a pack of three. So, can the sponge at least keep its promises, given that it costs as much as twelve other sponges?

Once I got home, I unpacked the thing right away. Unfortunately, there was nothing in our kitchen that I needed to scrub. Since we have a dishwasher, I don’t scrub things that often anyway. But the first promise was its behavior at different temperatures. When dry, the sponge is quite firm and scratchy. So, I turned on the cold water and held the sponge under the stream. It largely remained in the same state as when it was dry. Time to heat up the water, or rather, turn the tap to hot. At first, nothing happened; the sponge was still firm. After squeezing it a few times, it suddenly became soft. The warm water had to get into the sponge first. Not quite as soft as a regular sponge, but certainly soft enough for a Teflon pan.

So, that promise was kept. But how well does it clean? I got to test that the next day on the final boss: a cheese fondue pot. We still eat fondue from a cast-iron pot over a real flame. Over time, the cheese burns and sticks to the bottom. That’s why the pot is filled with water and dish soap after the meal. Normally, the next day, I painstakingly scrape the crust off by hand and then put the pot in the dishwasher. The latter, however, rarely manages to get the pot clean on the first wash. The alternative with a sponge was even more annoying. A steel wool pad isn’t a good idea because of the enamel. So, it was the perfect test for the Scrub Daddy.

The water in the pot had cooled down overnight, making it perfect for keeping the sponge hard. I stuck my fingers in the eyeholes and scrubbed the pot with a bit of pressure. I immediately felt the cheese coming off the pot. Surprisingly easy, surprisingly fast. After 30 seconds, I emptied the pot and saw that all the burnt-on stuff was pretty much gone. Turned on the warm water, added dish soap, and went at it again with the Scrub Daddy. The leftovers and grease were quickly scrubbed away as it became soft. A sparkling clean pot in under two minutes, where I would normally spend several minutes picking off the burnt-on crust by hand. Without any (new) scratches.

To be honest, the sponge exceeded all my expectations. I had thought it was a gimmick, popular simply because it changes its consistency depending on the temperature. I would not have expected it to handle even burnt-on fondue cheese. So, function fully fulfilled. That leaves the price. Four euros is a statement. But according to the manufacturer, the sponge is dishwasher-safe. I can’t say anything about that yet, but the reviews on Amazon seem to confirm it. I give the sponge a clear recommendation, at least if it’s truly durable. If it’s not, then the price would keep me from giving it an unconditional recommendation.