Selling it

This article is the archived version of a report that appeared in August 2009 Consumer Reports magazine.

We're with you 62 percent

You might think these single-serve packages of Total and SunnyD deliver 100 percent of the listed nutrients, but those claims are based on a bigger serving than each provides. You actually get 62% of Total's "100% Nutrition" and 84% of SunnyD's "100% Vitamin C."

You heard it here first

News flash from a Washington state reader: The housing slump has officially bottomed out.

You do?

"This cleaning establishment," writes an Oregon reader, "has obviously found a niche market."

Far from homespun

Gingher scissors, the tag says, "were touched more than fifty times by the hands of many dedicated craftsmen at our factory in Greensboro, North Carolina." The label even names names: Mark M., Carolyn M., and Wayne N. inspect or sharpen blades. But fine print indicates the craftsman actually making the scissors is more likely to be named Marco and works about 4,500 miles from Greensboro.

Iron irony?

A letter to subscribers says that Ageless Iron Almanac, focusing on antique farm machinery, had aged out of its current format but would live on as a pullout section in another publication. The editor seemed OK with that, even enthusiastic, until the last sentence.

Barack O-buy-me

Yes, they can. They can say the figurine is "Shown smaller than approximate size of 7" tall," that is. The figure as pictured, including the base, was shown a whopping one-sixteenth-inch smaller.

But not in the store, please

More news to sneeze at

In 2006, this column noted that Kleenex tissues had shrunk from 8.6x8.4 inches to 8.4x8.4 inches. Now there's been further shrinkage, to 8.2x8.4 inches. And the box of 120 has shed 10 tissues. According to Kimberly-Clark, "The changes were made in order to standardize ourselves in the facial tissue category."