So my wife brings home an ingenious invention that was to solve all the problems of washing our son’s hair and make it a snap. The Shampoo Rinse Cup seems like a good idea. It is a plastic container with flexible rubber on one side that can mold around your child’s forehead as you poor the water through his hair. It is supposed to shield water from your child’s face and eyes. Maybe it’s just because I have already perfected my own method using a simple cup, but I found the Shampoo Rinse Cup to be a just another patent-pending waste of money.

Like many children, my son simply cannot stand to get water in his eyes. I have to lean him back and keep his head tilted way back (like they do at the barber shop when they wash your hair) so the water always runs away from his face. In this position, gravity is working in your favor and there is no need for a “shield” to keep the water from running into the child’s face. So, like the picture shows, I assume the supposed benefit to this device is that you don’t have to lean them back to rinse their hair.

The problem is that the shield only works while you have it pressed against the forehead. As soon as you remove it, the water drips down his face. Of course, that throws everything into a panic. To make matters worse, the Shampoo Rinse Cup all but pours water directly into your child’s ear canals, which my son also hates. I found myself going back to a regular cup real quick just to spare my child so much trauma. In my opinion, the Shampoo Rinse Cup is a cool idea that doesn’t really work.