What do butterflies, brown sugar, and earmuffs have in common? In this review, I’m putting three very different gadgets to the test to see if they actually deliver on their promises. From Bluetooth earmuffs to terracotta brown sugar savers to rubber-band powered flying butterflies, I’ll find out which ones are worth picking up.
Where to Purchase
Below are links to products mentioned in this review, including items mentioned from past reviews:
- Bluetooth Earmuffs: Amazon
- Brown Sugar Savers: Amazon
- Butterflies: Temu
- Bluetooth Beanie: Amazon | Review
- Music Hat: Amazon | Review
- Shokz Headphones: Amazon | Review
- Paper Towel Topper: Amazon | Review
- Blending Fork: Amazon | Review
Bluetooth Earmuffs
I paid $19.99 for this pair. They currently have a 4.3-star rating among over 2,300 reviews on Amazon. In the box you get the earmuffs, some instructions, a charging cable, and a carry case.
The listing says you’ll stay warm with an “unprecedented surround sound experience.” That’s their wording, not mine. They also claim a 33-ft Bluetooth range, a built-in microphone, and control buttons right on the earmuffs, with a 14-hour battery life.
Underneath the control panel there is a USB port that is easy to access for charging. The controls are basic: you’ve got plus and minus buttons where a short tap does the volume and a long tap does previous or next track. The power button with a long press turns them on or off, and a short tap will pause or answer phone calls.
Pairing with my phone was simple. I turned them on, they went into pairing mode, and I connected right away. For the first use, I put them on and noticed how soft they felt. I even wondered how soft they would feel if you actually had hair. Without hair, they feel nice.
I fired up some music and didn’t have to listen very long to realize these have really good bass, which I found a bit surprising. I’ve tried other products along these lines that weren’t so bassy and were kind of bass-less. There is legitimately good bass on these. The sound quality is pretty good overall.
In a real world situation, I started with no music playing, just wearing them and observing fit and comfort. They’re comfortable, but they are huge. One thing I do like is that you can wear them with a hat comfortably; it doesn’t seem like it interferes. I could also wear sunglasses with them without a problem. That fur lining feels really nice, and I could still hear ambient sounds pretty well.
It was a little chilly out, so I took a walk to put them through a real world test. One thing worth pointing out: when I tested the Bluetooth beanie and the music hat (which are kind of similar products, listed at the top of this article), I had a hard time finding the buttons on the side. With these, without even looking, I could feel the three distinct buttons. That makes navigation a lot easier compared to fumbling around.
They were nice and warm and did not slip off during my walk. I turned on some music and again the bass sounded really nice and rich. I tapped the button to pause the music without looking and it worked easily. That was something the music hat and Bluetooth beanie could not do, at least not easily.
I was impressed with how good these sound, especially the bass. Usually cheap headphones fall short in the bass department. Here, the bass is really good. I could still hear outside sounds; not 100%, but it wasn’t like wearing full-on earbuds either. Compared to something like Shokz open-ear headphones (see above), which don’t have this level of bass, these felt like a nice compromise, and they keep your ears warm.
Next I tested the Bluetooth range. I walked away from my phone to see when it would cut out. The range was much better than I expected, and even far better than their stated range of 33 feet. This was closer to 100 feet.
I also compared them to a cheap pair of regular earmuffs. I took the Bluetooth pair off (my ears were nice and warm, almost sweaty) and put the cheap ones on. The cheap earmuffs blocked more sound but weren’t as comfortable, didn’t cover as much of my head, and didn’t feel as warm. After that comparison, the cheap pair paled in comparison. I quickly switched back to the Bluetooth ones because they felt better and I could hear better while still staying warm.
Next up I wanted to test their ability to handle phone calls. I decided to call my friend Brian, who I befriended after reviewing his Paper Towel Topper a few years ago. I called him on my phone first, then switched over to the earmuffs. I told him I was switching and asked him how it sounded. He said he could hear me very clearly and it sounded like there was almost noise cancellation because he didn’t hear anything in the background.
That was impressive because I was actually near the freeway. You’d think it would be louder with a microphone picking up my voice from farther away. I was walking around with my phone in my pocket and the earmuffs on, and Brian still said it sounded very clear with no noticeable background noise.
We did a few comparisons: earmuffs vs phone speaker vs regular phone. The regular phone alone sounded best, but the earmuffs sounded much better than using the speakerphone. Brian said the earmuffs sounded like I was in a quiet room, even though I wasn’t. He said if he had to choose between frozen hands or using those earmuffs with a slight difference in quality compared to the phone itself, he’d definitely give the earmuffs a thumbs up.
In the end, I’m a fan of these. They’re comfortable, the sound quality is good, the bass is excellent, the range is solid, and the call clarity was better than I expected. I really have nothing bad to say about them other than their size and that you probably shouldn’t expect to wash them easily. If you’re looking for some earmuffs this winter that can also handle music and phone calls, this might be a good choice.
Brown Sugar Savers
Next up, I have a product that supposedly combats clumpy brown sugar: terracotta brown sugar savers. I paid $7.39 for a two-pack. They currently have a 4.6-star rating among almost 6,000 reviews on Amazon.
The discs are fairly small. The claims are that it’s a food-safe terracotta brown sugar keeper that will soften hard brown sugar. You just soak the disc, pat it dry, and store it in your brown sugar container. They say it saves money and can also be used for other baked goods. They also say you can put it in the oven to dry it and then use it to keep items dry instead of moist. Amazon’s listing also points out that customers usually keep this item, which bodes well.
According to the directions, you soak the brown sugar saver in clean water for 20 minutes (which I did), pat it dry, and submerge it into brown sugar in an airtight container. That’s about it.
I decided to run a couple of tests. First, I took a bag of brown sugar that wasn’t expired but was hard as a rock. This stuff was basically brown sugar rocks. I broke it up a bit and poured it into a container. This is not the kind of brown sugar you want to use for a recipe in its current state.
I took one of the discs that had been soaking, patted it dry, and stuck it in the brown sugar. I sealed it in an airtight container and left it on a table. I wasn’t sure how long it would take, so I planned to check back in a day, a week, or however long it took.
For test number two, I used a brand new bag of brown sugar I had just purchased. It was soft and fresh. I put equal amounts into two identical containers. One container got another soaked and patted-dry terracotta saver, submerged halfway into the sugar; the other container was left as a control with no saver. Both were sealed airtight. I wanted to see if the saver could prevent clumping over time, not just fix it.
I left the containers untouched for 3 days. When I opened the container with the previously hard sugar, it had really changed. The brick had mostly fallen apart. There were still a few chunks in there, but a lot of it had turned back into usable brown sugar. I’d say around 80%-90% of it was pretty usable. There were some hard clumps, but considering it started as a solid brick, that’s a big improvement. You could probably get your money’s worth after rescuing a couple of bags this way.
Next I checked the new brown sugar tests. First up was the control container with no saver, which had been untouched for about three days. There were already some small chunks forming. The chunks could be broken up, but they were definitely there.
Then I checked the container with the terracotta saver. When I pulled the saver out, I noticed something interesting: the sugar around the saver had turned white and formed some clumps. Everywhere else seemed fairly soft, but the area directly around the saver had white, crusty chunks. I used my beloved blending fork to break up the clumps. (Side note: if you’ve never used a blending fork, I highly recommend them.)
After breaking up the clumps in both containers, I sealed them again to see what would happen over more time.
Fast-forward to about 10 days in, and I checked everything again. First, the batch that had been hard from the beginning: when I removed the terracotta disc and dug around, it was mostly soft, with a few small hard chunks. I’d say 80–90% of it was soft and usable, with about 10% still hard. Not perfect, but considering it started as a brick, I felt like getting 90% of it back was acceptable. Some people might not be okay with any hard chunks, but I was fine with it.
Before checking the fresh sugar containers, I had looked up why the sugar had turned white around the saver in the earlier check. The explanation I found is that the moisture from the terracotta leaches the molasses out of the sugar and turns it white, and that moisture can cause small clumps to form. When I went back to the Amazon listing, I noticed that even some people who liked the product mentioned white clumps or crusty sugar near the disc. So it appears to be a normal side effect, not necessarily a defect.
At the 10-day mark, the container with the saver had generally soft sugar with a few chunks, especially around where the disc had been. The control container with no saver actually seemed to have fewer chunks at that point. That was interesting and a bit counterintuitive.
Some people use a slice of bread to soften brown sugar instead of a terracotta disc. The downside is that a slice of bread only lasts a few days, while these terracotta savers are supposed to last a few months between soakings. On the other hand, the terracotta savers can leach the molasses and cause some clumps, which is what I observed.
So where do I land on these? For reviving already dried-out, rock-hard brown sugar, they definitely work and can bring most of it back to life. For preventing fresh brown sugar from clumping, I’m less convinced. In my test, the new sugar with the saver seemed to have more clumps than the control over time, likely due to the extra moisture right around the disc.
My conclusion is that these are best used when your brown sugar starts to dry out or has already hardened, rather than in brand new brown sugar. If you’re okay with a few clumps and you want to rescue older sugar, they’re useful. If you’re hoping to keep brand new sugar perfectly clump-free, your mileage may vary, and in some cases you might actually create more clumps than you prevent.
Flying Butterflies
Finally, we’re wrapping things up with a fun item: flying butterflies that you wind up and stick in a greeting card so they fly out when it’s opened.
These came from Temu, where I paid $6.29 for the set. They were significantly larger than I expected. They’re billed as “magic flying butterflies,” ideal for pranks, birthday cards, or Christmas cards. They’re rubber band powered, so no batteries required. You just rotate the top part 30 to 50 times and either let it go to watch it fly or place it inside a greeting card.
My first test inside didn’t go very far, so I tried again with more winding and it flew around the corner. That was better, but I decided it would be easier to see what’s going on outside where there’s more room.
Outside, these things are fast. Sometimes they shot behind me before I could really see them. There isn’t much precise aim when you’re launching them by hand; they just kind of shoot off in whichever direction they go. After a few launches, I also noticed they seemed a bit fragile. The wings started getting bent fairly quickly.
So the real test is how they work in a greeting card, because that’s what people are most likely to use them for. For the card test, I wound one up as tight as I could, put it inside a greeting card, and opened it like a normal “Happy Birthday” card. The first time, it flew into my chest and that was it. Very anticlimactic. I realized I needed to pay more attention to how it was oriented in the card.
On subsequent attempts, when I positioned it more carefully, I got a much better effect. One flew up and out in a way that actually looked pretty cool and surprising. I also tried putting three of them in the same card at once. That made the card pretty thick, but when I opened it, all three flying out together was a neat effect. It was low-tech, but it did look fun and memorable.
The butterflies are definitely not a necessity, and they can be a bit flimsy, but they do add a memorable touch to a greeting card when they work correctly. You just have to be mindful of which way they’re pointing when you close the card, and accept that each one is just a couple of seconds of entertainment.
Overall, I’d say they’re a fun little add-on for pranks or for making a card stand out. Just don’t expect them to last forever, and be prepared for trial and error to get the best effect.
Well, that’s it for this trio of products. If you’ve tried any of these – the Bluetooth earmuffs, the brown sugar savers, or the flying butterflies – let me know what you think in the comments.
Video Review
For a closer look at all three of these products in action, watch the video review below.