PORTAGE, Mich - It's a problem a lot of us have during the winter: wet, soggy gloves that never seem to dry. FOX 17 talked to a couple who is selling a product they believe will solve that problem, and their product is made right here in West Michigan.
Like many kids, Karen Smoots' boys like to play outside in the snow and when they come inside their wet gloves come with them.
"I was at my wit's end with wet gloves..... I would throw them in the dryer and they would never get dry all the way up here." says Smoots, a co-founder of The Green Glove Dryer.
Fed up with frozen fingertips, Karen took action and sent her husband Ryan to the hardware store to find a solution.
"I just wondered around bought a lot plumbing, a lot of plumbing pieces and came home got in the garage and put things together," Ryan said.
Together they came up with a rough prototype. They knew they had a hit on their hands when other parents wanted one. So they took it to a local molding company and created a final product which consists of six nozzles and a base. The product is then place over your heat vent.
Ryan says, "You place the base over your register and it traps the heat and it forces it through the nozzles and into the gloves".
No longer are they making is just for their friends. They took it to WL Molding in Kalamazoo County to have it manufactured. The couple assembles, packages and ships The Green Glove Dryer right from their basement. They are also in 40 stores. "I knew I was not the only mom who struggled with wet, smelly gloves, I thought if I fixed my problem overnight, think of how many houses it can fix their problems over night," says Karen.
