#hotangle

You never know what surprises await you, when something wonderful happens to you. Probably, if not expected at all. But when the time comes, you must not hesitate for a moment to enjoy it. As print available! redbubble.com/de/shop/ap/47938837

HoTangle Tangle Jr Knock-Off - Better Home, $2.50 AUD.

One of my local dollar shops is now stocking knock-off Tangle Jrs for a pretty affordable price. Yes, you can get many a Tangle knock-off for $1-2 USD on eBay, and K-Mart has started stocking Zuru Tangles again for $4 AUD, but $2.50 AUD for an in-store buy is decent, and, unlike most eBay versions, this is a really good knock-off Tangle Jr. I’d absolutely recommend it to folks who want spare or secondary Tangles but can’t afford the higher prices for the Zuru Tangles--if you can find them.

(I will observe that these are breaking all manner of copyright and intellectual property laws with their packaging and branding, never mind the product itself.)

The HoTangle is much lighter than a Tangle Creations or Zuru Tangle. It’s a little creakier, too, like the Slinky Tangle Glo--in fact, it feels very much like a Jr version of the Glo, minus the glow-in-the-dark capability. Bright neon colours made from a more matte plastic, creakiness: it feels like old Slinky Tangle stock!

(I remember an ask some months ago about matte Tangles: the HoTangle is the most matte Tangle I’ve ever seen. It does shine some, and the photos above were taken with flash, but it’s nowhere near as glossy as a branded Tangle.)

It’s usable straight from the package, no lubrication needed. It turns and rotates with ease. Unlike most knock-offs, it holds a coil, meaning you can do The Thing and tuck it neatly into a pocket or bag. The pieces fit together tightly, unlike many fakes.

The one downside to my mind is that the HoTangle pieces do not connect with other knock-off Tangles or branded Tangles, making it useless as a source of spare pieces. It is much lighter, which may make it feel wrong in the hand, but I’ve actually come to like the lighter weight on higher pain days.

There’s several colour options available, most of them mimicking colour patterns used in the Tangle Creations Tangle Jr and Tangle Jr Textured ranges. This one is a very close match for my Twiddle, as shown in the second photo, and since I’ve discussed here on how to use a Tangle Jr with a Twiddle for stimming, I’m thrilled to have a matching set.

I struggled to find an online listing for these. eBay has a lot of Tangle knock-offs, of course, but in this case you want the specific HoTangle version, not any generic knock-off. I do not recommend Google-searching the term “HoTangle”, as Google gave me responses which were pornographic in nature (by assuming I wanted to search for “hot angel” instead). Even with some search trickery to get around Google’s ridiculousness, I was still getting hits for “angle”, random message sites and very adult personal items; eBay just gave me results for no-tangle dog leads.

I would check your local dollar shops, if that option is available to you. Better Home in Australia is the more expensive kind of dollar shop, with more glassware and home decor items, and I’ve seen stores with similar styling under this name at different shopping centres.

If you can find these, I really do recommend them, but it may not be worth the effort to find them if you can more easily get a branded Tangle instead.

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