Scrub Daddy and Scrub Mommy: Is the $5 cult buy worth the hype?

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A little yellow (and slightly creepy looking) face has been following me around lately.

It keeps popping up in videos I scroll through on TikTok, smiling at me on Facebook, and just yesterday it sprung out at me from a billboard at my local Westfield.

Scrub Daddy sponges have been taking Australia by storm since they officially landed here at the end of last year, and now that its preferred partner in crime, The Pink Stuff, has also hit our shores, it seems there’s no escaping them.

The $5 sponges are the darlings of cleanfluencers, including the always-fabulous Mrs Hinch, after they first found fame as an invention on Shark Tank USA in 2012.

While at first glance they just look like comically shaped sponges, there’s a fair bit more to the Scrub Daddy than meets the eye.

What make Scrub Daddy different from other sponges

For starters, they’re made of some magical FlexTexture material that goes soft in warm water, and stays firmer for tougher scrubbing power when rinsed in cold water.

The two eyeholes serve as finger grips and the mouth is for cleaning both sides of cutlery with just one swipe. Even the grooves that make up the sponge’s hair are handy for scrubbing at the grout between your tiles or for getting into the crevices of oddly shaped containers.

They’re also touted as being very durable, odour-free and tough on stains without leaving scratches, plus the whole thing can be chucked into the dishwasher for sanitising.

It didn’t take long for TikTok to convince me that I could no longer live my life without one of these bad boys, so I picked myself up a Scrub Daddy, Scrub Mommy and Eraser Daddy and prepared to have an extremely clean house.

So, does Scrub Daddy live up to the hype?

My first impression was that the soft to firm heat-change technology wasn’t as impressive as I’d expected. I mean it’s definitely noticeable, but it doesn’t turn into a completely different sponge every time you run it under the tap.

The effect is more prominent if you submerge it in a bowl of ice water, so that's an option if you really want to firm it up for some heavy-duty scrubbing.

That slight disappointment aside, the Scrub Daddy started proving its worth when I went to deep clean the inside of my oven and the oven door, and got loads of baked-on grossness out fairly easily without any scratches.

I used it in conjunction with The Pink Stuff paste and was particularly impressed by the fact that my Scrub Daddy itself didn’t stain, even after getting all of that grime out of the oven.

The same can’t be said for my Scrub Mommy on the other hand, which I used to clean my equally filthy oven trays.

Scrub Daddy vs Scrub Mommy: Which is better?

The Scrub Mommy is the same size and shape as the original Daddy, but only half of it is made of the heat-changing FlexTexture, while the other side is ResoFoam; a more traditional type of sponge which is designed to create more soap suds with less detergent.

I found it a better choice when it comes to replacing the everyday sponge in your kitchen sink as it’s great for dishes, pots and pans, with the Daddy side really getting into hard-to-budge food stains, while the spongey side keeps everything nice and soapy.

It was the wrong choice for my oven trays however, as although it did an excellent job getting them clean, the spongey side got stained by the built-up grease so now it’s been relegated to the BBQ - which it also did an awesome job of cleaning by the way.

Overall I found the Daddy better for deep cleaning jobs, not just in the kitchen but the bathroom as well, while the Mommy is perfect for everyday dishes.

The Eraser Daddy is pure magic

Interestingly, the product I was most surprised by was actually the Scrub Daddy Eraser Daddy. It’s a rectangular sponge that’s half FlexTexture, half eraser, and it made all the scruff marks disappear from my walls using nothing but water.

All I did was wipe over the walls once with the damp Daddy side, then rub off the scuffs using the eraser side like it was pencil on paper. Very impressive, especially considering my narrow hallway is filled with scuffs from trying to jam a pram in.

The eraser can also be used to clean the white soles of sneakers without any chemicals or cleaning products, and it works really quickly too.

The only downside is that unlike after using it on my walls, after cleaning a pair of (admittedly very dirty) sneakers, the eraser was completely destroyed and unable to be reused again. But I still think it was worth the sacrifice.

Where you can buy Scrub Daddy in Australia

Online you can pick up the whole Scrub Daddy and The Pink Stuff range from Amazon Australia and Clean HQ. The latter has $10 off a seven-piece The Pink Stuff bundle with the discount code 'YAHOOVIP'.

Meanwhile Coles stocks Scrub Daddy and Scrub Mommy sponges (when they’re not selling out) but not the Eraser, and Catch.com.au sells all three sponges but not their partner in crime, The Pink Stuff.

While the Scrub Daddy products are designed to be used with water or regular detergent, most TikTokers are using them with The Pink Stuff range after Mrs Hinch paired them together.

Clean HQ tells Yahoo Lifestyle, “The Pink Stuff and Scrub Mommy are a perfect pink dynamic duo with cleaning superpowers; both brilliant on their own, but unstoppable together. Like Superman and Wonder Woman.”

“Forget scrubbing – even for really stubborn or baked-on stains, just leave a layer of the miracle pink paste on for a few minutes before sponging off with the scrubby side of your Scrub Mommy, safe in the knowledge that she bites through dirt but won’t scratch.”

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