The Pollenex Shower Head

Our plastic, generic shower head finally bit the dust the other day. The large retaining screw that attaches the flexible hose to the hand-held unit cracked. When we turned the faucet on, water came spurting out through that screw. My husband tried supergluing it, and that did work, briefly. My only recourse was to break down and buy a new shower head. This is the third one we’ve had here in eight years. Since shower heads are in the $20 to $30 range, I dread having to buy another one.

I bought the Pollenex Hand Held model, at $25. It was wrapped perfectly- all you could see in the package was the beautiful chrome shower head. The hose and fittings were well-concealed in the plastic box. I had no idea if they were metal or plastic. I spent a long time at Wal-Mart, weighing my choices and carefully comparing the models. All the others in the $25 to $35 price range looked metal. I say “looked” because they were so encapsulated with plastic that it was really hard to tell what I was buying. Packaging is now so crazy that you don’t know what you’re buying?!

My husband installed the new shower head and, guess what, it’s PLASTIC. The screws, the flexible hose, etc. I’m more than a little disappointed. The head itself is- I think- of metal. It’s a rough, brushed chrome look.

The one thing I like about the showerhead- and the main reason why I chose it over the others- is that it has a tab to change the spray settings. I have small hands, as do the younger kids. It has been high impossible for us to get our hands around those other showerheads to turn the nozzle to a setting we like. Don’t ask me why the companies make them so large; I was thrilled to see someone smart invent a tab. The sprays are OK. Two are excellent, one is moderate, and the other two are useless (there is not enough water pressure in my home to get the pulsing action going, so it just trickles out).

So, so far, the shower head works well. I just don’t like the plastic parts; plastic wears too quickly. We’ll see how long this one lasts. I’ll be sure to holler long and loud if it dies young!