The commercials make it seem too good to be true, but is it? Inside Edition is on the case.
The popular commercial for Flex Tape seems amazing. The tape appears to be so strong it can plug a hole underwater, lift a 45-pound weight and even patch a boat that has been sawed in half.
But is it all just advertising hype?
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Inside Edition’s Chief Investigative Correspondent Lisa Guerrero bought a boat and cut it in half just like the commercial and put the tape to the test.
A team at Lakeview Marina in Lake Hopatcong, N.J., applied the tape after the boat was cut in half. Then it was inspected by Rachel Rothman and Laurie Jennings of the Good Housekeeping Institute.
"I'm feeling really confident about it," Rothman said.
Jennings echoed her sentiment while Guerrero joked: “You know why you are confident about it, because you are not getting in. I am.”
Guerrero then started cruising around a lake. Initially, when the boat went out on the water, only a little bit seeped inside. But that little bit of water started adding up, not like the air-tight seal in the commercial.
Nonetheless, the boat remained seaworthy.
“You didn't go down with the ship," Jennings told Guerrero. "We thought you might."
“The boat held up with the tape,” Rothman added.
Next stop was at Gravity Fitness in New York City, where a trainer would attempt to lift a 45-pound weight with the Flex Tape, just like the commercial.
In the commercial, the host does three reps and the tape worked for three reps, but when Inside Edition pushed it to 12, the weight fell off.
“We saw it did exactly what it did on the commercial for at least three reps,” Rothman said.
Jennings added: "However, I think the commercial is a little misleading because it gives the implication it will hold forever and obviously that's not the case."
And what about those water repairs?
Inside Edition headed to the Good Housekeeping lab to check. The tape was placed across a hole in a tank that was filled with water.
A lot of pressure built up but it held. So the overall verdict for Flex Tape?
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“I think it was over hyped on the commercial,” Rothman told Inside Edition. “They kinda exaggerated some of the claims but I do think it was very impressive and, in a pinch, it's a great substitute to being able to hold something together.”
The company behind Flex Tape told Inside Edition “Flex Tape has received an overwhelmingly positive response all across the world. When the product does not perform as expected, it’s typically because the product was not applied correctly.”
