It's Not Hype to Call the OXO Salad Spinner Revolutionary

Twenty-five years ago this month, a revolutionary new machine for the home appeared, capable of generating an impressive 1,100 revolutions per minute. Absent any other details, one might venture it’s an exercise bike. Or perhaps a washing machine or a DVD player. It’s none of those things, actually, though the washing machine comes closest. In July 1998, American shoppers first laid eyes on the OXO salad spinner. Hang on. Weren’t salad spinners in stores before then? Indeed, they were, starting with the Moulinex Salad Dryer. But as we know, invention and innovation are two different things. Or, as OXO vp of marketing Nicole Rivera explained to Adweek: “The salad spinner has been around since the early 1970s—but no one ever really got it perfect.” Plenty have tried: Mueller, Cuisinart and KitchenAid all have salad spinners on the market. But OXO’s spinner seems to wear the most ribbons, having been fêted by Good Housekeeping, The New York Times, America’s Test Kitchen, Food Network and Ina “Barefoot Contessa” Garten, among others. Rivera estimates that OXO sells a salad spinner somewhere in the world every minute or so. But what’s so "perfect" about it? All salad spinners rely on the centrifugal force of a whirling basket to push water off of washed greens. And a quick visit to Amazon will show you that most of these spinners look and cost roughly the same. OXO’s preeminence owes itself largely to the big black button in the center of the top. While salad spinners use any number of methods to get the colander to spin—including cranks, levers and even lawn mower-style pull cords—OXO’s button requires only a finger and a bit of downward pressure to get things moving. Since the outer bowl has rubber on the bottom, the device will stay put on the countertop. These features, developed with an assist from consultancy Smart Design, put OXO’s 1,700 products into the realm of universal design that unites maximum accessibility with a clean, simple look. How Timberland Went From Dirty Work Boots to Hip-Hop Drip “I have an aunt who actually is missing a hand,” Rivera said, by way of illustration. “She doesn't have to worry about trying to stabilize the salad spinner. She can push the button and know that it’s not going to skip anywhere.” The spinner’s design, she added, stemmed from “thinking about all the possible scenarios and pitfalls, but steeping all of that engineering into something that is beautiful.” Aesthetes may not readily use the word "beautiful" to describe OXO’s salad spinner but, for the record, the OXO Good Grips Peeler is in the collection of New York's Museum of Modern Art. Since its debut 25 years ago, the basic $29.99 spinner has (sorry) spun off a number of variants, including a mini spinner, a steel model and, last year, a model with a glass bowl. And while the spinner falls into the category of a product that essentially sells itself, a bit of publicity never hurts. In this regard, OXO is very lucky that people seem to enjoy pressing that button so much: Nearly 27 million people have watched TikTok videos of home cooks using it. Embracing universal design Copco cookware founder Samuel Farber and wife Betsey (left); universal design (UD) champion Ronald L. Mace. When the OXO brand debuted in 1990, universal design (UD) was a newfangled concept that emerged in tandem with the Americans With Disabilities Act. Championed by the late architect Ronald L. Mace, UD is the approach of making products accessible to everybody, regardless of ability, age or status. Over the last three decades, UD has come to influence products sold by giants including Microsoft, Google, Unilever and Nike—and for a simple reason: Products that can be used by more people will lure more buyers. But OXO was an early adopter and (in the kitchen, at least) is still the standard bearer. Its pioneering Good Grips Peeler, developed with Smart Design, uses a soft polymer called Santoprene, which makes it nonslip and easy to hold. It started with an apple The OXO Good Grips Peeler is in the collection of New York's Museum of Modern Art. In late 1980s, Copco cookware founder Samuel Farber was already retired when the idea for a new company was, literally, right there on the countertop. His wife, Betsey, who suffered from arthritis, was trying to take the skin off an apple using one of the workaday peelers sold in stores. Watching her struggle, Farber thought, "There has to be a way to make kitchen tools that are easier to use than this." Seeing nothing on the market, Farber created his own. He called his company OXO, an ambigram that conveys the same easy utility that the products do. And the products won an immediate following. (Appliance giant Helen of Troy purchased OXO in 2004 for $273.2 million.) “It’s hard to think of a vegetable peeler as radical,” Farber (who died in 2013) told the Los Angeles Times. “But I guess it was.” Spin doctors Simple as the spinner looks, it's a precisely engineered tool (1). "Early in our process," reads Oxo's literature, "we calculated the surface tension of water droplets on lettuce to find the exact amount of centrifugal force required to dislodge water." Oxo's spinner has many famous fans, but none more influential than Martha Stewart (2), who's used one on her show.