Flowbee

The Flowbee is an electrically powered vacuum cleaner attachment made for cutting hair. It was developed and filed for patent in 1986[1] by Rick E. Hunts, a San Diego, California carpenter. US patent 4679322 was granted in 1987[1] and the product marketed since 1988. Hunt initially sold the Flowbees out of his garage before finding success with live demonstrations at a county fair. The product was advertised as being capable of performing "hundreds of precision layered haircuts" in frequently aired late-night television infomercials.[2][3] By 2000, two million Flowbees had been sold.[2]

A man uses a Flowbee, an electrically powered vacuum cleaner attachment made for cutting hair.

Hair cutting devices like the Flowbee have found continued use by astronauts during spaceflight missions, including on the ISS, because of its convenience. Hair particles get collected by the vacuum instead of floating away, and becoming potentially hazardous to sensitive equipment or accumulating inside the spacecraft.

The Flowbee can also be used to groom dogs with long hair such as Maltese or Bichon Frisé with a special pet grooming attachment which is sold separately.[2] Previously, a special green-colored Flowbee Pet Groomer variant of the device was available.

Over the years, the Flowbee device saw at least three revisions which can be identified by the shape and labeling of the cutting head ("Vac-u-cut", "Flowbee Int.", "Flowbee.com"). It is still being manufactured and sold via their factory direct website and various outlets across the Internet. The Flowbee factory was located in Flour Bluff, a suburb of Corpus Christi, Texas but was later moved to Kerrville, Texas.[4]

Astronauts aboard the Skylab space station cutting hair using a vacuum device, upon which the Flowbee was based, to prevent hair particles from accumulating in the microgravity environment.

Reference to the Flowbee has been made in numerous films and television shows. It was featured on The Fourth Hour, hosted by Pat Gray and Stu Burguiere on GBTV, during the Infomercial Friday segment which aired on June 22, 2012. The Flowbee was given poor reviews by both hosts after the product was tested despite initial optimism by Burguiere. Gray quipped that "the problem seems to be that [the Flowbee] doesn't actually cut hair". It was also spoofed in the film Wayne's World as a device called the "Suck Kut".

Reference to the Flowbee was made in the American comedy series Glee. In Season 1, Episode 15 "The Power of Madonna" glee club director, Mr. Schuester told Sue Sylvester, "Oh, maybe you should try a new setting on your Flowbee, oh snap".

The band Bloodhound Gang made reference to the device in their song "Mope" from their third album Hooray for Boobies with the lyric "Givin' myself a mullet / Hook the Flowbee to the Kirby."

In The Spy Next Door, the children find a Flowbee in the spy character's drawer.

In an episode of The Nanny, CC comments on the fact that Niles is so stingy with his money that he "bought a Flowbee just so you could do your own hair!".

In an episode of Legends of Tomorrow, the Flowbee was featured as an exhibition in the Hall of Bad Ideas, later to be looted and used as a weapons by the protagonists.

References
  1. https://www.google.com/patents/US4679322
  2. Cave, Damien (January 6, 2000). "A hair-raising scheme". Salon. Archived from the original on February 7, 2012.
  3. Pond, Mimi (1998). Splitting Hairs: The Bald Truth about Bad Hair Days. New York: Simon & Schuster. p. 130. ISBN 0-684-82643-7.
  4. Rankin, Dale (October 31, 2019). "Around The Island" (PDF). The Island Moon Weekly. Retrieved December 31, 2019.
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