My aversion to ironing dates back to my early teenage years. My mother, a single mum and a mature aged university student needed help around the house, and ironing, unfortunately, often became one of the chores that fell to me. (See..first born’s don’t always reap the benefits of their birth order, I can assure you!)

Twenty years later, with a young family my own, that generates enough washing in a week to bury a large african elephant, my feelings towards ironing haven’t improved. In fact, these days I have the choice of whether to iron or not, and I’ll be honest with you, I do tend to lean towards the ‘not’ option more often than not.

Some things, like shirts, school uniforms and certain jackets do require a bit of TLC from an iron to look their best though, so when I was offered the opportunity to review the Philips PerfectCare Aqua Pressurised Steam Generator I accepted. Let’s face it, if there was any possible way of making the dreaded task any less painful, I was going to grab it with both hands!

On first inspection, the Philips PerfectCare Aqua iron looks like an impressive labour-saving device, with it’s 2.2 litre capacity XXL water chamber. Okay…so it looks all fancy pants but it also makes some pretty big claims that I was dubious whether it would live up to…namely 100% safe on iron able garments.

I can’t even begin to tell you how many pairs of black pants I have ruined over the years by scorching them with an iron that is too hot, leaving unsightly shiny triangular marks on them. If anyone was up to the job of proving this statement to be otherwise, trust me, it’s me! (Picture Mr Bean with an iron in his hand, and you’re probably halfway there!)

Well, amazingly, I didn’t manage to ruin a thing – in fact I am convinced that it is actually impossible to do so with this iron. Thanks to something called OptimalTemp there is no adjustment dial to change temperature settings, meaning that you can go straight from ironing delicates like silk to tougher fabrics like jeans without batting an eyelid. Don’t ask me how it works, I have no idea…I’m just happy to believe in the magic! Somehow it manages to be both super powerful (I’m talking ‘let-out-the-double-steam-and-only-have-to-iron-one-side-of-the-jeans’ kind of powerful) and super gentle and it glides over the fabric like a dream.

Don’t get me wrong, you’ll never catch me saying something ridiculous like “I actually enjoy ironing now.” That ain’t ever gonna happen, but it certainly makes light of an unpleasant job. I tried very hard not to like it, trust me I don’t need much of an excuse to avoid the ironing pile for as long as humanly possible) but really it is hard to find fault with such an amazing product.

It took me a while to get my head around being able to lie the iron down flat on the ironing board between garments instead of standing it on it’s side as you do with regular irons. My instincts told me that it would burn a hole in the ironing board cover and possibly burn the house down (there is nothing quite like an overactive imagination)…but guess what? It doesn’t and didn’t, and would no doubt be great for avoiding repeatative strain injuries to the wrist.

The only minor gripe I have is that although the spout on the water chamber is large enough to be filled at the tap, I found it a little bit heavy and awkward to do it that way. But as I said, no biggie – I found it easier to fill it with a jug and the large water chamber opening made it equally as easy and mess free to fill this way.

At RRP $399.95 the Philips PerfectCare Aqua Pressurised Steam Generator comes with a fairly hefty price tag, although after just a few weeks of using it, I can see that it would be an investment. (I am sure I have ruined more than $400 worth of black pants in my time! lol) There is absolutely no doubt that it saves an awful amount of time, and I am sure we can all find better things to do with our families with the time we’d save on ironing!

You can find out more about the Philips PerfectCare Steam Generator iron here.

Disclaimer: I was provided with this product for the purpose of this review. All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.