ShamWow: The Towel That Was Fine, Sold by a Man Who Was Unforgettable, Remembered for the Pitch and Not the Product
Vince Offer's aggressive pitch became more famous than the German chamois it was selling — the towel was decent, the marketing was legendary, and the legal troubles were... something
"Hi, it's Vince with ShamWow. You followin' me, camera guy?"
With that opening — the headset, the direct address, the casual instruction to his own cameraman — Vince Offer introduced America to the ShamWow and simultaneously to Vince Offer, a person so charismatic, so relentless, and so incapable of speaking at a normal volume that the towel he was selling became secondary to the experience of watching him sell it.
The ShamWow is a German chamois — a pressed rayon and polypropylene cloth that absorbs liquid. When Vince soaks up a full cola spill with one wipe, it looks like a miracle. When Vince wrings out the ShamWow and the cola pours out, it looks like the towel has performed magic. It is not magic. It is a chamois. Chamois cloths have existed for centuries. The ShamWow is a chamois with a name and a man who won't stop yelling about it.
The towel is... fine. It absorbs liquid. It's more absorbent than a paper towel. It's less durable than a quality microfiber cloth. It works well for the first few uses and degrades with washing — the pressed fibers loosen, the absorbency decreases, and by the tenth wash, the ShamWow is a thin, stiff, mediocre rag that absorbs slightly more than your confidence in As-Seen-On-TV products.
Nobody talks about the towel. Nobody has ever recommended the ShamWow based on its performance as a cloth. The ShamWow is a delivery vehicle for Vince Offer, and Vince Offer is the product. The towel is the merch. You bought the towel because you watched Vince, and watching Vince was an experience that made you believe a German chamois was the most important object in your kitchen.
"You're gonna spend $20 a month on paper towels anyway. You're THROWIN' your money away." This sentence, delivered at approximately 1.5x human speaking speed, with a hand gesture suggesting the money is physically leaving your body, convinced millions of Americans that their paper towel expenditure was a crisis requiring a chamois solution. It was not a crisis. Paper towels work. But Vince made paper towels feel like a character flaw.
The Glorious User Experience
America, 2008-Present — ★★★★★
“When Vince wrings out the ShamWow and the cola pours out, it looks like the towel has performed magic”
Click to Tweet"We don't remember the towel. We remember Vince. We remember 'You followin' me, camera guy?' We remember 'Made in Germany — you know the Germans always make good stuff.' We remember the headset and the speed and the cola demo and the hand gestures. The towel was the thing we bought. Vince was the thing we experienced. Five stars for Vince. Two stars for the towel."
Actual Towel Review — ★★☆☆☆
"The ShamWow absorbs well out of the package. The first use is impressive. The second use is good. By the fifth wash, it's a regular cloth. By the tenth wash, it's a stiff, thin rectangle that absorbs disappointment better than it absorbs liquid. Two stars because the first use genuinely delivers and every subsequent use is a gentle letdown."
Karen from Denver, CO — ★☆☆☆☆
"I bought a 4-pack of ShamWow for $19.95. I used them for a month. They degraded. I replaced them with a 24-pack of Zwipes microfiber cloths for $14 that have lasted three years. The ShamWow cost more, lasted less, and was inferior to a product I found by searching Amazon for 'microfiber cloths.' The ShamWow was a $20 audition for the product I should have bought in the first place. One star."
The Verdict
The ShamWow is a chamois that absorbs liquid, degrades with washing, and was sold by the most entertaining infomercial pitch man in television history. The towel is a 2 out of 5. The pitch is a 5 out of 5. Together, they average to a product that nobody bought for the towel and everybody bought for Vince.
Vince Offer also sold the Slap Chop ("You're gonna love my nuts"), the InVinceable cleaner, and approximately forty-seven other products that you've forgotten because they weren't the ShamWow and they didn't have the cola demo. The ShamWow is Vince's masterpiece — not because the towel is good, but because the pitch made you BELIEVE the towel was good for long enough to buy it, and by the time you realized it was a $20 chamois, you'd already gotten $20 worth of entertainment from watching the commercial.
We rate it 1 out of 5 lasting towels (and 5 out of 5 infomercial performances).
What to Buy Instead
Tried-and-tested alternatives that actually deliver on their promises. We may earn a small commission on purchases.
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