Cosmo Faucets Review & Rating Updated: December 2, 2024
542 Monterey Pass Rd.
Monterey, Park, CA 91754
(626) 216-4730
(626) 618-6108
(888) 298-8144
Footnotes:1. In pull-out and pull-down kitchen faucets the spray assembly replaces the spout. If it breaks the faucet is typically useless until the spray is fixed.2. Components required for the "essential performance" of the faucet.3. Any part of the faucet that is not critical to the "essential performance" of the faucet; "cosmetic" parts.4. "Lifetime of the buyer". No additional definition or explanation is provided.
- Download/Read/Print the the Cosmo faucet warranty.
- Learn more about faucet warranties.
This Company In Brief
Cosmo Products, LLC is a Nevada company with its principal place of business in California. Its primary business is the sale over the internet of cooking appliances; primarily wall ovens, ranges, cooktops, and vent hoods imported from China. It also sells inexpensive Chinese-made kitchen faucets.
The company does not sell legal faucets. It sells only untested, uncertified, contraband faucets through its U.S./Canadian website.
None of its faucets has been confirmed to be safe, reliable, or free from unsafe levels of lead, cadmium, arsenic, mercury, or other toxins common in Chinese-made faucets.
The faucets are faucets, long on style and polish but short on reliability and robustness.
The company falsely claims to offer a lifetime warranty, but it actually guarantees the functional parts of the faucet for just 1 to 3 years and is rated "far below" the North American standard faucet warranty.
Its faucet warranty does not comply with even the minimum requirements of the federal Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act (15 U.S.C. § 2301 et seq).
The basic business of Cosmo Products is the importation and sale of cooking appliances of all sorts including wall ovens, ranges, cooktops, and vent hoods over the internet. Most if not all of these are made in China.
It also sells kitchen faucets and protective kitchen gloves.
The Company
Cosmo Products, LLC is a Nevada limited liability company formed by Steven and Irene Law in 2014.
The company trades as Cosmo Appliances, Cosmo Kitchen Appliances, and Premium Appliances. None of these are trademarks registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. It has registered the Cosmo logo (see above) as it applies to
"[a]pparatus for cooking, namely, cooktops; Cooking ovens; Electric stoves; Exhaust hoods for kitchens; [and] Gas stoves,"
but not as it applies to plumbing fixtures or fittings, such as sink faucets.
Manufacturing Sources
Its appliances are supplied by an assortment of Chinese companies, including
- Arda Electric Co. (Built-in Ovens),
- Baili Imp. Export Co. (Range Hoods).
- Dimple HK Limited (Range Hoods),
- Hai Chu Bao Industrial Ltd. (Gas Ranges),
- Kingbrand Trading Co. (Gas Ranges),
- Rishun Kitchen & Bath Co (Range Hoods),
- Rongsheng Electric Holding Co. (Range Hoods),
- Seng Electronic Appliance Co. (Range Hoods), and
- Tianmei Electrical Export (Range Hoods, Gas Ranges).
None of these are mainline appliance companies and none have the infrastructure in North America necessary to support major appliance servicing.
No service companies are trained in the appliances and there is no North American source for any but the most basic repair parts.
Cosmo maintains two websites:
The former is its wholesale site, directed toward dealers. Premium Appliances is its retail site, selling to the public.
It also sells on sites that host third-party sellers including Amazon, Houzz, Overstock, Wayfair, BuildDirect.com, Walmart.com, and HomeDepot.com.
All of the company's sales venues are internet-based. We have found no brick-and-mortar retail sources.
The faucets are Chinese, imported through a broker, Li Seng Household Product Limited, based in Guangdong that deals primarily in sanitary ware and lighting exports from China.
They are manufactured in Kaiping by Haoju Sanitary Ware Industrial Co., Ltd.
Haoju is both an manufacturer and a company selling its own brand of Gubid faucets and other plumbing fittings throughout Asia.
Haoju faucets are also sold in North America as brand faucets by Home Product America, Inc., a Canadian internet retailer of imported kitchen appliances and inexpensive Chinese faucets.
Faucet Designs
Cosmo faucets are, for the most part, indistinguishable in design, quality, or price from the hordes of largely unexceptional sink faucets flooded into the U.S. and Canada from China.
Cosmo products exhibit no particular design originality.
The faucets are selected from the Haoju They are not custom designs or made especially for Cosmo.
Chinese designs tend to be middle-of-the-road and to follow the pack rather than lead it.
The goal of Asian faucet manufacturers is to sell as many faucets as possible, which means keeping their designs well within the mainstream to appeal to as many potential buyers as possible. Few design adventures take place in China.
Designs are often adopted from Europe and North America. A design that sells well in these major markets will often be imitated by Asian factories. The lag time is usually 3 to 5 years, so by the time a design appears in a Chinese faucet, it is no longer new.
Cosmo Faucet Finishes
The faucets are available in polished chrome and brushed nickel.
The finishes are electroplated and not the more durable (PVD) finishes. Plated finishes, however, are robust enough for most kitchens.
Although Chinese finishes sometimes get a bum rap, it has been many years since "China chrome" could be scraped off with a fingernail. Chinese electroplated finishes are now as durable as those produced in any other country.
Cosmo Website
The Premium Appliances website is well-designed with intuitive navigation based on the traditional drop-down menu format. Information about Cosmo faucets is fairly complete. The site lists the faucets' base material (brass or stainless steel), finish (chrome or brushed nickel), flow rate (1.5 gallons per minute), and other important metrics.
Descriptions are not always consistent, however. For example, on the Amazon site, Cosmo describes its COS-KF501C Pull-Down Kitchen faucet as chrome-plated stainless steel. On the company's proprietary websites, it is identified as a chrome-plated brass faucet. It is almost certainly one or the other but it would be nice to know which.
Cosmo does not identify the material from which its spray heads are made but our inspection disclosed that they are plastic. Plastic spray heads have, unfortunately, become more or less the norm, found on even upscale brands like because plastic does not transmit heat like metal and therefore does not get too hot to handle, and it's inexpensive. However, plastic spray heads seem to experience a lot of failures.
The "Additional Information" tab does not link to much of any Additional Information. This is where we would expect to see links to downloadable .pdf specification sheets, parts diagrams, dimensioned drawings, and installation instructions. The "Additional Information" shows none of these.
The "Warranty" link displays a warranty, but it does not seem to be the actual Cosmo faucet warranty. (See more below)
The website describes the faucets' cartridges as "ceramic" but does not identify the source of the cartridges – information useful in determining whether the cartridge is one of the better brands on the market.
The ceramic cartridges in the Cosmo faucets we examined were clearly Asian but there are no markings on the cartridges identifying the actual manufacturer. In our experience, Asian manufacturers that have gained an international reputation for good quality ceramic cartridges generally mark their products. The absence of identification marks usually suggests a lower-quality component.
Cosmo Faucet Warranty
The rules of some of the company's sales venues such as Amazon require a 30-day no-questions-asked return policy. Otherwise, the company offers a 14-day return provided the product has not been installed and is in its original packaging. The buyer pays shipping unless the faucet was received damaged. The company charges a 15% re-stocking fee.
After the return period, defects in the faucets are covered by the company's written warranty. And, Cosmo's written warranty has many problems.
The first major problem with the Cosmo warranty is that there are two of them. That's one warranty too many.
The Premium Appliances website repeatedly identifies each faucet as protected by a "limited lifetime warranty", but the warranty displayed on the website is for just one year (unless the 2-year extended warranty is purchased). The word "lifetime" is not even mentioned in the text of the warranty itself.
The limited lifetime warranty included with Cosmo faucets is different. It is no longer available on the Cosmo website which shows three different warranties for its various appliances, but nothing for its faucets.
When a company covers the same consumer product with two or more differing warranties, the consumer is always going to get the benefit of the more generous warranty.
This prevents companies from engaging in the "warranty shuffle" – a form of "bait and switch" – in which the more generous warranty is advertised but when a warranty claim is made, the restrictive warranty is suddenly the "official" warranty. This is one of the abuses that the federal Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act (15 U.S.C. § 2301 et seq) is intended to prevent.
The Cosmo paper warranty provides slightly more protection, so we have selected this warranty for analysis. (Download and read the Cosmo faucet warranty.)
It is an excellent example of why you should always read any warranty before making a purchase. It is boldly entitled a "lifetime warranty", but very little of a faucet is actually guaranteed for a lifetime.
Valve cartridges are guaranteed for just three years and spray assemblies and "other functional components" for one year. A "functional component" is defined by the warranty as one that is "critical to the faucet's essential performance." The functional components are the ones most likely to fail.
Cosmo's Violations of the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act
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The Cosmo warranty has no explanation of what Cosmo will do to remedy a defect or failure of the non-functional parts of the faucet.According to its warranty, Cosmo will replace the "cartridge component, spray assembly, and other functional components if found to be defective". It is silent, however, about what it will do if the failure involves the "knobs, other metal bodies/surfaces or other cosmetic parts" of the faucet.FTC regulations found at 16 C.F.R. §701.3(a)(3) mandate an explanation that must include every part or component of the faucet covered by the warranty, not just some of the parts and components.
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Cosmo's explanation of how the buyer is to make a claim under the warranty is grossly inadequateA faucet warranty is required by 16 C.F.R. § 701.3(a)(5) to provide a
"step-by-step explanation of the procedure which the consumer should follow in order to obtain performance of any warranty obligation … . This includes the name(s) of the warrantor(s), together with: The mailing address(es) of the warrantor(s), … and/or a telephone number which consumers may use without charge to obtain information on warranty performance."
All the Cosmo warranty says about the subject is the following."The customer must contact Cosmo and provide a description of the defective part, including digital pictures if requested, along with the original proof of purchase. Defective components must be returned to Cosmo Appliances shipping prepaid."
The statement does not provide a mailing address or other contact information that consumers may use without charge to obtain information on warranty performance. -
Cosmo denies liability for
"incidental, consequential or special damages associated with the return, replacement, installation or use of your product. This includes shipping costs, labor, home damages and other contingent liabilities and costings"
Let's say your Cosmo faucet leaks and damages your kitchen cabinets. The leak is a "direct damage" to the faucet. The damage to the cabinets is a "consequential damage". If you need to hire an appraiser to assess your loss due to the damage to the kitchen, the appraiser's fees are an "incidental damage." Both are considered "special" or "indrect damages".
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Magnuson-Moss permits a disclaimer of special or indirect damages in a product warranty if, and only if, the warranty also includes the following qualifying statement (16 C.F.R. § 701.3(a)(8)):
"Some States do not allow the exclusion or limitation of incidental or consequential damages, so the above limitation or exclusion may not apply to you."
Without the qualifying statement, the attempted disclaimer is completely null, void, and without effect. -
The warranty does not include the statement required by 16 C.F.R. § 701.3(a)(9) that reads:
"This warranty gives you specific legal rights, and you may also have other rights which vary from State to State."
This omission alone probably invalidates the entire warranty.
The "lifetime" part of the warranty applies only to the "structure of the product", a term that includes "knobs, other metal bodies/surfaces, etc." We presume that the "etc." part encompasses finishes (although the warranty is not clear on that point).
So, if it's a moving functional part that is necessary for the faucet to function, the warranty is one year (unless it's the cartridge, which is guaranteed for three years).
If it's a non-moving, non-functional, cosmetic part that is most unlikely to ever fail (and if it does fail would have no effect on the operation of the faucet), it is guaranteed for the "lifetime of the original owner".
The warranty
"does not apply unless this product was installed by a fully insured, licensed professional."
Our attorneys who reviewed the warranty language for us pointed out that a "fully insured, licensed professional" does not have to be a plumber.
The warranty would be valid if a faucet were to be installed by a "fully insured, licensed" insurance salesman, hairdresser, CPA, stockbroker, or clinical psychologist.
Probably not what Cosmo had in mind but that's how the warranty reads. Aside from the incongruous wording, however, this provision is a trap for the DIYer who installs the faucet him- or herself.
Customer Service and Repair Parts
Getting parts under warranty can be trying and time-consuming.
You have to pack up the defective parts and pay to ship them to the company before it will send you replacement parts. After the first year, you also have to pay the company to ship the new parts back to you.
The likelihood that the company will stock the parts required to repair faucets into the future is very slim. Shoestring operations like this one do not, as a rule, stock any parts inventory at all.
The ad hoc solution to the spare parts problem is to scavenge parts from other faucets as needed, or, if the faucet is no longer being made, to replace a defective faucet during the warranty period with a "comparable" faucet – with the company having sole discretion over what is and is not "comparable".
After the very short Cosmo warranty period, you can forget about parts unless the company happens to have a left-over faucet from which it can scrounge. In consequence, the odds are very good that if your Cosmo faucet breaks there will be no parts to fix it.
All of this process takes quite a bit of time. How long can you do without a working kitchen or bathroom faucet?
This is what we call a "cotton candy" warranty. At a glance, it looks big and solid. But on closer inspection, it has very little substance.
Warranty Scoring
We rate the warranty "far below" the U.S./Canadian standard lifetime faucet warranty in which all parts of a faucet are included in the guaranteed for the lifetime of the original buyer. We would rate it "far, far below" but unfortunately we do not have such a rating. Perhaps we should, just for warranties like this one.
For lack of compliance with the basic minimum requirements of Magnuson-Moss, our attorneys doubt that the Cosmo warranty would survive even the most trivial lawsuit brought by a dissatisfied customer.
Interpreting the Cosno Warranty
Its warranty is a faucet company's honest appraisal of how much confidence it truly has in its products.
It can go on and on, ad infinitum in its catalog and full-color, glossy brochures about how its faucets are the world's best and most reliable sink faucets. But this is all puffery that costs the company nothing but the price of the ink on the page.
Only when the company is forced to stand behind the faucets with actual dollars does its true opinion of its products emerge, and that true opinion is contained in the company's warranty.
We have to figure that a company that goes to such extremes to protect itself against warranty liability does not have much faith in the durability or longevity of its faucets.
It does not want to bet its own dollars that it is selling good, robust faucets; but it is more than willing to bet yours.
If the company has such little faith in its faucets, perhaps that's a warning that you should heed.
Testing & Certification
As part of the description provided for every faucet on its proprietary websites and on the hosting websites where its faucets are sold is the claim that the faucets are UPC and cUPC certified. We can find absolutely no evidence that this claim is true.
IAPMO-RT, the testing service of the International Association of Plumbing and Mechanical Officials that owns the UPC and cUPC marks, has never heard of Cosmo faucets, does not list the Cosmo brand as certified in its database of certified products, and, according to an IAPMO spokesperson, has not approved Cosmo's use of the trademarked UPC imprint.
Cosmo hopes to shield itself from any problem with lack of basic safety and reliability certifications by disclaiming in its warranty document as follows:
"Cosmo appliances makes no implication that products comply with any or all local building or plumbing codes. It is the consumer's responsibility to determine local code compliance."
This is a tactic that has been tried over and over again to shift responsibility for a contraband product to the consumer. The disclaimer might work if Cosmo was completely silent regarding whether its faucets are certified. But it does not work to shield a faucet company from liability where it has intentionally misrepresented the certification status of its faucets. We don't expect it to work for Cosmo.
The fact that Cosmo faucets are made in China, where safety standards, in general, are very loose, and where safety standards for toxic materials such as lead, mercury, cadmium, and arsenic exist not at all, heightens the concern over the potential hazards of these products. No one, not even the most experienced expert, can determine whether a faucet contains dangerous amounts of hazardous substances just by looking at it. Only extensive testing can do that – the very testing that Cosmo has not done.
The California Energy Commission cited Cosmo Products, LLC for illegally selling unapproved faucets in California from July 2015 to August 2018. The company paid a penalty of $20,000.00 to settle the suit in 2021.
Comparable Faucets
Comparable faucets made in China that are fully tested and certified, legal to sell in the U.S., and legal to install in a drinking water system include:
If you are in the market for an inexpensive Asian-made faucet, one of these suppliers would be a better choice than Cosmo's products.
Conclusions
There is absolutely no reason to buy a Cosmo faucet.
The faucets are average off-the-shelf Chinese faucets of no particular design distinction and with no unique characteristics. They are not certified safe, reliable or lead-free. The Cosmo warranty is grossly deficient, ambiguous and deceptive, providing only a minimum level of protection to the faucet buyer.
Similar, if not identical faucets known to be certified safe, reliable and lead-free through independent testing and authorized for use in U.S. and Canadian water supplies with warranties that are stronger and more straightforward than the warranty provided by Cosmo – often a lifetime warranty on all the parts of its faucets, functional and cosmetic, are imported by many other companies.
Continuing Research
We are continuing to research the company. If you have experience with Cosmo faucets, good, bad or indifferent, we would like to hear about it, so please starcraftreviews@yahoo.com or post a comment below.