I first heard of Quirky from Tania at MauiShopGirl. Quirky is a company that helps new and experienced inventors get their products out there in the world. Some of the inventions are new and others are just a reinvention of an already invented product.Everything was purchased by me with my own money. I am not getting paid to do this post, I have no affiliation with this company. These are all my honest opinions. Even if I was getting paid (which I’m not), I would still tell my whole honest truth. That’s my promise to you.
I bought the STEM Citrus Spritzer ($5) from Target a couple months ago. This little gadget was invented by Timothy Houle. It’s simply a device that you add to any citric fruit and turn it into a spray. This is great for add flavor to your water, salads, and food.
The back of the product. There is a picture of the inventor.
The directions of the spritzer was simple enough. Wash fruit, then insert.
I used a cross bred fruit. It’s half lemon and half lime. The fruit was rather small about a golf ball size (maybe a tad bigger, but not by much).
The bottom of the spritzer
At the end of the spritzer, there are tiny little hole where the juices will be pumped through. Also, the rim of the spritzer has these slightly sharp plastic for puncturing. The sharp edges won’t cut your skin or anything, but it’s sharp enough to puncture ripe skin from a fruit.
Doesn’t that look so nifty? I must admit, it’s kinda cool to make a fruit into a spray bottle. I found the spritzer to be made out of sturdy plastic. The spritzer attached to the fruit was easy to hold and I like the sprayer a lot. Now the million dollar question is….does it work?
Yes and no. If the fruit is not big enough, you aren’t going to get full sprays of lime/lemon juice. Since I used something that fit “just right”, I only got one or two full sprays. After that, the fruit started to drip and instead of getting nice sprays, I was getting drop full of juices on my fish.
Take 2: I got a bigger lemon and it worked well enough. Don’t expect 10 or more sprays on one puncture. I was lucky enough to get about 6 full sprays. Try to buy lemons/limes that are round and big. I also used a grapefruit and orange to flavor my water and fish and that worked well.
When ever I’m done with a fruit, I just stick the whole thing in the fridge. Clean up was a breeze. I’m not too sure if it’s dishwasher safe, because I don’t have a dishwasher.
Basically, if the fruit is too small, it won’t work as well. So, limes are kinda out of the question. Unless, you can find really big limes. In order to use up the whole fruit, I had to re-puncture the fruit a couple of times. In the end, the fruit looked like swiss cheese. Not the prettiest thing, but it’s quite wasteful if you don’t do that.
I don’t regret getting this product. It’s a nifty little thing. It does what it’s supposed to, but the product is too big to use on a typical lime.
I'm giving this products a:
B
I’ve seen those things around. I was never convinced though!
Wonder if they’d work any better with unwaxed lemons?
@Jaina: Good question. I never thought about using unwaxed lemons. I have to go figure that out.
Cool that Quirky products are available at big retailers like Target! And good for you for supporting it! Great review and advice on what size of fruit to use. Nice to know it does work, as long as you have the right size of fruit
. Oh, and great new layout!
@Lisa: Thanks. I felt like I needed a grown up layout. I like it this far, but there are some flaws that I don’t like about it. I need to get better at coding to change it.
That’s kinda cool! But, like so many other kitchen gadgets in my drawers at home, idk if I would actually make use of it haha.
But… Did you think it really got a lot of juice out of the fruit? Or when you were pau spritzing, was there still a lot of juice inside?
@Tiera: I totally know what you mean. I have a whole drawer in my kitchen designated with kitchen gadgets. It’s embarrassing, but I’m such a sucker. I have random things like apple core extractor and a cupcake hole maker…crazy things like that. I should stop. LOL
If I only poke the fruit once, it doesn’t get all the juices from the fruit. Now that I think about it, even when I used it a couple of times, it didn’t get all the juices. I mean, it wasn’t bone try after I used it, but it was pretty close.
If you roll the fruit on the counter and then puncture it, it should make more juice.
@Elyssa: Thanks for the advice. I’m going to try it. Hopefully, that works out! Thanks for stopping by and commenting. Hope to see you again!