The Promise: Sun. sand and — status symbols? For the price of a night in a luxury hotel. Hermes. maker of the famous six-figure Birkin Bag. offers a line of $530 beach towels for those who crave the It beach accessory. Not to be confused with the label’s “yachting” towels. the beach versions come in 10 designs. each backed with Hermes’s signature orange. According to the company. the towels are screen-printed using the same technique employed on its iconic silk scarves.
The Reality: We couldn’t resist sending
The tony towel out to be poked and prodded at an accredited lab to see how it fared against a $20 competitor. Rather than soaking up the accolades. the Hermes tested the same as the cheaper model in a color-change test and lost 4 percent of its width after three washings (the $20 towel shrank just 2 percent). And considering it’s already the smaller of the two. it can hardly afford it; at just under 59 inches long. it leaves any sunbather over 5 feet with her toes hanging off the edge. The company’s printing process may add some cost. says Nancy B. Powell. a professor at North Carolina State’s College of Textiles. but not “hundreds of dollars.” Hermes didn’t return calls for comment.
Is a $2.600 Bottle of Water Hard to Swallow?
The Promise: With its founder dubbing it the Bentley of bottled waters. Bling H2O promises to quench consumers’ thirst for both “award-winning” spring water and the luxe life. Part of a wave of high-end bottled water launches in phone number library recent years. Bling’s elixir starts at $20 for a small bottle and can run as much as $2.600 — if you opt for a 750-milliliter vessel hand-encrusted with more than 10.000 Swarovski crystals. (Display case and white gloves included.)
The Reality: The bottle might scream L.A.. but the water comes from a more humble source: the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. The company that bottles the water for Bling says its water is sold under about 90 brand names in the U.S. — including one that prices its bottles at $2.49 each.
Available at Cracker Barrel Old Country Store locations
Drinkers who prefer a glass bottle. which better preserves taste. can buy the Tennessee water under yet another name. for $35 a case.) Bling’s founder. Kevin Boyd. doesn’t dispute that his company’s water comes from the Tennessee bottler but says the “couture” packaging justifies its price. especially with its hand-applied crystals and customizable designs. “I’m not just selling a water.” he says. “but a lifestyle.”
Take a Spin on an $11.000 Exercise Bike
The Promise: It’s easy to dismiss an $11.000 fitness gadget — especially when its maker touts it as “destined to become a must in the world top lead list companies: finding the best data for your business of interior design and luxury fitness.” Still. there’s no denying the cool factor of the Italian-made Ciclotte. a design-forward exercise bike made with feather-light carbon fiber. (For the coastal crowd. there’s also a humidity- and salt-resistant version. “ideal for use on yachts.”)
The Reality: Sure. it would look at home
In a billionaire’s bachelor pad. but we can’t help wonder if its real destiny is any different from that of most home fitness products — to collect dust. From angola lists a purely fitness perspective. experts say the Ciclotte’s use of magnets to create resistance doesn’t significantly improve the workout experience. Says Stephen Cain. a University of Michigan mechanical engineer who specializes in the dynamics of bicycles. the bike “is unique in its aesthetics only.” The company says the Ciclotte feels more realistic than other models and attributes its price tag to costly materials and hand-assembly.