After writing a draft of a review for 3M’s “Command” series of wall-adhesive strips and the things you can mount with them, I couldn’t quite bring myself to post it (you can now find it over here). Recommending and reviewing products is still new to me, and even though these are all heartfelt and unpaid reviews, it feels a little like sales, which I really don’t want to be doing. So I thought I’d move on to something more familiar, something everyone needs once in a while: bandages (i.e. “band-aids”). Maybe that’ll feel less like I’m trying to sell you something you don’t need? I sure hoped so. Ironically, though, as I was looking into my preferred bandages, what should I come to learn but that they, too, are manufactured by 3M! Two of the first products I choose to review and they’re made by the same company. Talk about schilling. ????
Why are you talking about bandages?
One of my goals with product recommendation here is to help people discover the everyday useful things that make my life easier and that I wish I’d known about sooner. Sometimes these are whole new categories of thing, like the Command products, but mostly they’re just more clever or well engineered versions of familiar products. So while it seems a little banal to be talking about bandages, I can honestly say that discovering the Nexcare designs has changed the way I think about and use bandages, and how I take care of injuries to my body. That seems pretty fundamental and worth talking about, ultimately.
Why Nexcare, why now?
We all use bandages – I’m making effort here to avoid the “generic trademark” band-aid, but it does feel awkward – from time to time. In the past I honestly avoided them as much as possible because they were not very versatile. I couldn’t wash dishes with one on, much less take a shower. If I put some kind of medicine on a wound and covered it with a band-aid (appropriate use!), it might ooze out the sides, or get dirt under it, or I might suffer from some other minor inconvenience. The Nexcare Waterpoof Bandages literally solve almost every problem I ever had with Band-Aids.
They’re waterproof, I mean it’s in the name, but they really are. You can take a shower with them, go swimming, wash dishes, whatever you want. They don’t last forever or stand up to unlimited use in water, but they’re damn good. And because they’re waterproof, they also form a tight seal, keeping medication in, and dirt out. They’re flexible and adhere tightly to the skin, so while no bandage will work that well on certain parts of the body, I’ve had them on many joints on my hands with only minor inconvenience.
Overall they’re just really excellent bandages. They do everything you’d want them to, as far as I’m concerned. And in the grand scheme of things they’re relatively cheap (around $8 for an assorted pack of 100). Of course like most people you probably already have a box of something else that you haven’t finished at home. But when you do finish it, or if you end up needing a different size/shape, check out Nexcare, and I hope you find them as quietly, commonly useful as I have.
