Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This thing is a little bit fiddly, but if you really want ice balls, it's worth it. Why exactly I wanted ice balls, I don't actually know, but it's probably the same reason I wanted the silicone "perfect ice cube" makers I also bought. And you know what? High quality ice shapes do improve my life enough, in an oddly tangible intangible way, to justify their purchase, in my humble opinion. There is something so depressing about those ice trapezoids, rhomboids, whatever they are, that come from off-white plastic trays leaching pthalates into what is surely chlorinated, fluoridated tap water. No, a beverage with some dignity deserves better in form as well as in content. The way these work is with a lid, which must be held down with water before the spherical cavities are filled through their respective narrow apertures. The smart way to do it is to save the frozen top part from batch to batch. ;^) These do take a little doing to fill and get apart, which is really the only downside. If you're really seriously weak, utterly uncoordinated, or constantly busy, you might not like the time or effort required to make ice spheres. And they don't look as perfect in real life as they do in the pretty product photos that are probably actually of glass spheres or something... There's always a seam at the mold halves, and a sprue on top unless you get the level precisely right, which is impossible in any case because it changes while it freezes, although perhaps by iterations of measurement it could be done... If you really want to get them perfect, I guess you could polish them briskly with a damp lint-free cloth or something, but then you'd look batsh!t insane, polishing your ice balls like Bowie, if anyone remembers Labyrinth... Ahem. But what's the friggin point of ice spheres in the first place unless they are perfect? Ach, reality falls short of image once again. They do look pretty cool in a clear glass with a translucent drink, even if you can't use them for crystal balls. Everybody needs a few of the medium size silicone ice _cube_ trays, because real ice cubes are clearly awesome. Now, whether the ice _sphere_ is so much better than even a perfect ice cube that its making justifies the additional hassle, is a question for you, dear reader, to wrestle on your own. And if this review helped you to make a purchasing decision, then you probably have mainly first-world problems, nothing a nice icy cold drink can't fix. Cheers!