WOWOW Faucets Review & Rating Updated: October 14, 2024
Law Requirements
This company claims a five-year warranty on products sold in the U.S. and Canada, but was unable to provide a copy of the warranty document. In the U.S., a warranty must be in writing and contained in a single document.
Learn more about faucet warranties.
This Company In Brief
WOWOW is a brand name under which Kaiping City Xiang Fei Sanitaryware Co. sells faucets through online through its proprietary website and retail sites that host third-party sellers such as Amazon, Home Depot, and Lowes.
The faucets are of average quality and no particular design distinction. The styles are typical of Chinese faucets and may be found in the inventories of dozens of Chinese faucet companies.
Kai Ping City Xiang Fei Sanitaryware Co. sells faucets in the U.S. and Canada under the unregistered WOWOW brand.
According to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the company has registered the WOWOW name and logo (shown above) as a trademark in the U.S.. It has also registered the name WOWOW name in Canada as a character mark.
In addition to faucets, Xiang Fei sells other plumbing fixtures such as showers, tub fillers, and various accessories such as glass washers and even a restaurant-style glass filler.
The company apparently plans to sell other products in the U.S.
Its U. S. trade mark filing identifies the scope of its business to include sales of
"Faucets; Electric kettles; Faucets for pipes and pipelines being parts of sanitary installations; Kitchen sinks; Mixer faucets for water pipes; Plumbing fittings, namely, faucet filters; Plumbing fittings, namely, shower control valves; Shower faucet extensions; Tap water faucets; Water conservation plumbing fixtures, namely, faucets, aerators, showerheads, water saving toilets; Water control valves for faucets, bath brushes; Containers for household or kitchen use; Dishwashing brushes; Garden hose sprayers; Laundry baskets; Shower racks; Soap boxes; Toilet paper dispensers; Towel bars; Wash basins in the nature of bowls; Water troughs "
North American Facilities
Xiang Fei has created a U.S.-based entity, Wowow Faucet, Inc., formed in 2020 by Peter Kuang as a Delaware corporation that also sells WOWOW faucets on a proprietary website.
Wowow Faucet, Inc. is not an operating company that actually conducts business. It is stricktly a shell company. Itsaddress is nothing more than an , essentially a mail drop maintained by the corporation's registered agent.
The corporation has no showroom, warehouse, customer support operation, or replacement parts repository anywhere in North America.
It sells WOWOW faucets and related products only through its website, wowowfaucet.com.
It lists a telephone number, but most calls to the number are greeted with a notice that the "number is busy, please call back later."
If the call does ring through, a voice messaging system directs the caller to leave a message. We have left several but have never received a call back, leading us to conclude that the number is a sham.
Internet Retail Sources
How Common are WOWOW Designs?
The principal sales venu for WOWOW faucets is Amazon. By Amazon's count, over 10,000 WOWOW products have been sold through its website.
Amazon identifies Xiang Fei Sanitaryware, not Wowow Faucet Inc., as the owner of the storefront where it trades as WOWOW Faucet.
Xiang Fei also sells on other U.S. sites that host third-party sellers such as Walmart and Wayfair, and at Home Depot and Lowes. Sales at these big box stores are online only. WOWOW products are not sold at Lowes or Home Depot street stores.
The faucets are sold in Canada at Amazon.ca and Wayfair.ca.
Everything Xiang Fei Sanitaryware does on this side of the Pacific is virtual.
Most WOWOW sales transactions are handled in North America by the hosting websites on which it sells faucets.
WOWOW Cartridges
A ceramic stem cartridge for two-handle faucets (left) and a 35mm ceramic valve mixing cartridge made by Wanhai Cartridge Technology used in WOWOW single-handle faucets (right).Amazon in particular takes care of inventory, warehousing, sales, payment processing, and delivery.
Xiang Fei's sole role in the process is to ship faucets to Amazon warehouses from time to time, ensuring that Amazon does not run out of inventory.
It attempts to handle customer issues from China, but the attempt is less than successful. (See more below.)
WOWOW Faucet Construction & Materials
The faucets are constructed conventionally. The body and spout of the faucets, as well as being decorative, are the components that channel water within the faucet.
The primary materials from which the faucets sold by WOWOW in North America are made are brass and stainless steel.
Brass
Traditional (alpha) brass is a blend of copper and zinc with a small amount of lead (1.5% - 3.5%) added to make the material more malleable, less brittle, and easier to fabricate. Brass is the preferred material for faucets for two reasons:
- Brass is strong but easy to work with. It casts, forges, and machines with relative ease.
- Brass is naturally anti-microbial. The copper in brass kills microbes including bacteria, retarding the build-up of potentially hazardous germs inside a faucet.
But, brass has one serious drawback: it may contain lead.
Lead is now all but banned in North America for use in any drinking water component due to its toxicity to humans, particularly children.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), lead, even in small amounts, causes slowed growth, learning disorders, hearing loss, anemia, hyperactivity, and behavior issues.
To comply with the restrictions on lead, today's faucet brass replaces lead with other additives to reduce brittleness without adding toxicity. The most common is bismuth.
Bismuth is similar to lead – right next to lead on the periodic table of elements – but it is not harmful to humans.
It is, however, very expensive. It is 300 times rarer than lead, even rarer than silver, which is the reason that bismuth-brass alloys are considerably more expensive than leaded brass.
In China, there is no lead limit in drinking water, and faucets made in China for the domestic market often contain large amounts of lead.
Lead is prized in Chinese manufacturing because it is plentiful, cheap, malleable, and resistant to corrosion.
Lead compounds are regularly added to plastics and vinyl to make them more resistant to high temperatures. It is added to cheap metal products to make them seem more substantial by increasing their weight.
Most faucets made in China for domestic use contain leaded brass, and the temptation, especially among Chinese companies selling low-cost faucets is to sell those lead-content faucets here.
Stainless Steel
Some of the kitchen faucets sold by WOWOW are made from stainless steel. Stainless usually does not contain lead.
The alloy used in WOWOW faucets, 304 stainless, contains up to 10% chromium and a dash of nickel. The nickel gives the steel a crystalline structure which increases its strength. The chromium helps the steel resist corrosion.
Stainless 304, also known as "food-grade" stainless, is by far the most common alloy used to make kitchen utensils, silverware, cookware, and faucets.
Steel is much harder than brass. It can be made in thinner profiles that use less material and still have more than adequate strength.
It requires processes and machinery that differ from those used to produce brass faucets. Typically a company makes either brass or stainless steel faucets but not both. Xiang Fei is one of the few to manufacture in both materials.
Why Stainless Steel Does Not Rust: Properly alloyed stainless contains at least 10% chromium (which gives stainless its slight yellowish tinge) and a dollop of nickel. These form a coating of oxides and hydroxides on the outer surface of the steel that blocks oxygen and water from reaching the underlying metal, preventing rust from forming. The coating is very thin, only a few atoms thick, so thin that it is invisible to the eye under ordinary light but thick enough to protect the faucet.
Zinc & Zinc/Aluminum Alloys
One way of reducing the material cost of a faucet is to replace expensive lead-free brass and stainless steel with lower-cost materials where practical.
The most frequent substitute is zinc or a zinc-aluminum (ZA) alloy. One of the most common is called , a composition containing 4% aluminum.
Zinc alloys are typically not as strong as brass or steel and do not resist water pressure as well as brass or steel. But, their use in non-pressurized parts of a brass faucet such as handles, base and wall plates, and is common even among manufacturers of luxury faucets.
WOWOW faucets include ancillary components manufactured from zinc. They do no harm when used in these components, and may save consumers a few dollars on the price of the faucet.
Plastics
Plastic is the other commonly used substitute material.
It may be safely used in incidental parts like base plates and has been largely trouble-free in aerators and as casings for ceramic cartridges but otherwise, its use is suspect, especially if under water pressure.
WOWOW kitchen faucet spray heads are plastic and the use of plastic for spray heads (called "wands" in the faucet industry) is one of the suspect uses of the material.
Unfortunately, plastic wands have become the standard for many manufacturers, including some that sell upscale faucets such as
Manufacturers give three reasons for their use of plastic:
- Plastic does not get uncomfortably hot in use like metal wands;
- Plastic is not as heavy and is more comfortable to hold for long periods of time; and
- Plastic is a lot cheaper than brass or stainless steel – even cheaper than zinc.
However, plastic wands also fail much more often than metal wands. And although engineers have made significant improvements to their reliability over the past decade, the problem has not been entirely solved.
Better wands are made of metal, insulated against excessive heat transmittal.
The Sure Cure for Too-Hot Spray Wands: The simple cure for spray wands that get too hot is to reduce the temperature of the water. Dishes do not need rinsing in scalding hot water.
WOWOW Faucet Design & Styling
WOWOW faucets feature contemporary styling with clean lines and angular configurations.
The designs of the company's faucets are conservative. The styles are attractive enough but exhibit no particular design originality.
The goal of Chinese 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.
The Faucet Cartridge
Its cartridge is the heart of a modern faucet and should be your very first consideration when making a buying decision.
It is the component that controls water flow and temperature.
Its finish may fail and the faucet will still work. It may be discolored, corroded, and ugly but water still flows. If the cartridge fails, however, the faucet is no longer a faucet. It is out of business until the cartridge is replaced.
It's important, therefore, that the cartridge is robust, durable, and lasts for many years.
Although some Chinese manufacturers have begun producing original designs, some of which have won awards in international design competitions, WOWOW faucets are not from one of those companies.
Designs are usually adopted from Europe and North America.
A style that sells well in these major markets will often be imitated by Asian factories (with minor changes to avoid patent infringement). 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.
WOWOW's faucet designs fit this pattern. They are pleasant and often smartly styled, but most are over a decade old, and some date to the 1980s.
WOWOW Faucet Components
The critical components used in WOWOW faucets are ceramic valve cartridges and aerators. The company does not provide any information about them. To the extent they are known, they are unremarkable.
Valve Cartridges
We inspected several WOWOW valve cartridges and determined that they are modern ceramic valves in of a type that is made by any number of Chinese manufacturers.
The manufacturer of the mixing cartridges for single=handle faucets is Ningbo Wanhai Cartridge Technology Co.,Ltd. All of Wanhai's cartridges have been tested and certified to North American standards.
The standard North American life-cycle stress test requires operating a cartridge through 500,000 cycles under 60 psi of water pressure without a single failure. At one cycle per second, the test takes six 24-hour days to complete.
The burst test involves pressurizing the cartridge to 500 pounds per square inch for one minute. This is ten times greater pressure than the average water pressure in a North American home. If the cartridge bursts or deforms, it fails the test.
If the cartridge passes both of these tests and several dozen others, it is certified for use in U.S./Canadian faucets.
Aerators
There are dozens of companies in China that manufacture and spray-head assembles. Most are a least adequate. But some, like those from the Swiss company, Neoperl®, are little marvels of precision engineering.
These are the aerators used in most WOWOW faucets.
Faucet used to be simple devices that merely added a little air to soften the water stream so it would not splash out of the sink.
Today, however, they are also used to limit water volume to the lower flows required by federal and state water conservation laws, and in some cases, to prevent back-flow that can result in the contamination of household drinking water.
It is important, therefore, that this little device, often smaller than a dime, be the best available and that almost by definition is the Neoperl aerator.
WOWOW Faucet Finishes
WOWOW offers four finishes on its faucets: Matte Black, Brushed Nickel, Chrome, and Brushed Gold. Stainless steel faucets often have no finish other than the metal of the faucet itself, buffed and polished.
Not every finish is available on every faucet. The finishes available are clearly identified for each faucet.
Two of the finishes, Chrome and Brushed Nickel, are electroplated. Black appears to be a powder coating. Gold looks to be a physical vapor deposition (PVD) finish.
WOWOW does not identify the processes used to apply its finishes, so we base our assessments solely on visual inspection, and can't know for certain.
involves immersing the faucet and the metal to be used as plating in an acid bath, then applying an electrical charge to both objects so metallic ions are drawn from the plating metal to the faucet.
Usually, multiple coats are applied, one or more undercoats and then two or more coats of the finish metal.
The process is potentially hazardous to the operator and the environment. It involves toxic and corrosive chemicals that must be disposed of safely. No other coating technology even comes close to the dangers involved in electroplating.
The top coat may be polished or brushed. Chrome, a relatively hard metal, is usually polished to a high shine. Nickel, a softer metal, is usually brushed to help hide the inevitable minor scratches.
or PVD is one of the latest space-age faucet finishing technology, rapidly replacing electroplating as the finish of choice.
Although the technology was discovered in the 19th century, it was not used in industry until the 1950s and then only rarely due to its great expense. Its first use was in nuclear reactors. Today,the technology is everywhere and the machinery required is getting smaller, faster, and cheaper all the time.
The process itself is almost out of a Star Wars movie.
Load a chamber with unfinished faucet components, remove all the air, and add back a carefully calculated mix of nitrogen or argon and reactive gases.
Add a rod of the metal to be used for the coating. Heat that rod to a temperature so high that the metal dissolves into individual atoms. The atoms mix with the various reactive gases to get the color and finish effects you want and are then deposited in a very thin layer – 2 to 5 microns – on the faucets.
Despite being just microns thick, a PVD coating is extremely dense and, in consequence, very hard and durable. By some estimates, it is up to 20 times more scratch-resistant than electroplated chrome.
From long experience, we know that PVD is nearly impossible to accidentally scratch or mar, never fades or changes color, and resists all forms of soiling.
Finish Durability
Some finishes are more durable than others. Here are the WOWOW faucet finishes and their durability from most to least durable.
- is the old standby. It is a tough finish that will stand up to most abuse. but its durability depends on the metal used.
- Chrome is durable, nickel less so because it is inherently a softer metal (the reason chrome replaced nickel as the faucet finish of choice in the early 20th century.)
- (PVD) finishes are 10 to 20 times more scratch-resistant than electroplated chrome. They are also not affected by most household chemicals. In our experience, they are largely invulnerable to harm.
- is essentially a paint applied in a powdered form and then heated in an oven to cure. It is considered semi-durable with about the same scratch resistance as the finish on your car.
It can usually be maintained with just an occasional wipe from a damp cloth to remove water spots. (And some PVD finishes are given a final chemical coating that resists water spots, so even the damp wipe is made largely unnecessary. A dry buff will do.)
is usually described as semi-durable
, not as robust as electroplated or PVD finishes, about as durable as the finish on your car, and requiring more care to maintain a like-new appearance.
It is essentially a dry paint in powder form applied using a special low-velocity spray gun that disperses the powder while giving it a positive electrical charge. The particles are drawn to the item to be finished which has been given a negative charge.
Once the powder is applied, the item being coated is baked in an oven which melts and bonds the powder and changes the structure of the coating into long, cross-linked molecular chains.
These chains are what give the coating its durability, reducing the risk of scratches, chipping, abrasions, corrosion, fading, and other wear issues.
WOWOW Warranty
WOWOW claims to offer a three- to five-year warranty on its faucets but has been unable to produce a copy of a valid written warranty.
To be valid in the U.S., a warranty must be in writing. Absent a document in writing, there is no warranty, merely an unenforceable verbal promise that is not worth the paper it is not written on.
We do not classify unwritten promises as actual warranties and neither does U.S. law.
WOWOW, by its lack of a written warranty, clearly suggests that it does not have enough confidence in the durability or longevity of its faucets to guarantee them in writing.
Faucet Warranties
To better understand faucet warranties including the federal law that governs consumer product warranties in the U.S., and how to read and interpret a faucet warranty, go to Faucet Basics, Part 5: Faucet Finishes,WOWOW Customer Service
Customer service for WOWOW products is through emails to China.
The company's stated goal of providing "perfect service" to its customers from China is largely defeated by time and distance.
The time difference between China and North Amera is between 13 and 16 hours. This means that when you send an email to Xiang Fei, its agents are asleep, and when the response arrives 8-9 hours later, you're asleep. So every exchange of emails typically takes a full 24-hour day – longer on weekends.
Getting a replacement part or faucet from China is not a trivial process. China Post is efficient but the distance the package travels is literally halfway around the world. Parcel delivery by air takes 7-15 working days, and by sea up to 70 working days.
If your WOWOW faucet is malfunctioning and you need replacement parts, that is far too long.
We rate the company's customer support as unsatisfactory. Its agents are diligent and try hard to be of service, but the service they provide is severely hampered by being from China, and unless and until post-sale service is relocated to somewhere in North America, that will always be the case.
WOWOW Website & Amazon Store
Neither WOWOW's North American website nor its Amazon storefront provides enough information about WOWOW faucets for an informed buying decision.
Most of the information they do provide is promotional, designed to sell the faucet not inform the buyer. The best place to get the information needed to make an informed buying decision is often the faucet's listing on Amazon.
The information in Amazon listings is still incomplete, but more complete than that on the WOWOW website.
It includes the faucet's dimensions, flow rate, primary material (Brass or Stainless steel, and often secondary material,) and so on, but you have to scroll far down in the listing to the section headed "Technical Detils." The intervening area is filled with illustrations that are, however, worth examining for additional nuggets of hard data.
Many of the specifications important to an informed faucet buying decision are missing. Among the most critical are:
-
Faucet Valve:
No information is provided about a faucet's valve other than the fact that it is a ceramic cartridge. In addition to this basic notice, the name of the cartridge manufacturer is needed. There are good ceramic cartridges and not-so-good ceramic cartridges. To make an informed buying decision the buyer needs to know the actual manufacturer. Otherwise, there is no way to judge the quality of the cartridge.
-
Type of Finish:
The type of finish is not disclosed. Type of finish (electroplated, powder coating, PVD, etc.) is important to the long-term durability of the finish and the type and amount of care and maintenance required.
-
Warranty:
WOWOW claims to provide a 3- to 5-year limited warranty on faucets but the actual warranty document is nowhere to be found. U.S. law requires a consumer product warranty to be in writing and made available to the buyerprior to
the sale of the product. WOWOW listings violate this law.
- For faucets sold only online, this means the warranty must be part of the online faucet listing. If not then a conspicuous link to the warranty must be provided from every place on the internet the faucet is sold. WOWOW does not comply with either requirement.
-
Installation Instructions:
Installation instructions for WOWWOW faucets are online but not linked to each faucet. They are listed under "customer service." and packaged with WOWOW faucets. Instructions online aid your plumber in identifying any potential problems that may arise while installing a WOWOW faucet before the faucet is purchased.
Minimum Website Content: To display and print a table of the minimum information about a faucet that should be provided by any faucet listing to provide the information needed by a buyer for an informed buying decision, download Minimum Content of a Website Faucet Listing.
WOWOW Testing & Certifications
Comparable Faucets
Faucets made in China comparable to WOWOW in quality with at least some sort of warranty, but not necessarily comparable for design or price, include
Conclusions
WOWOW faucets are attractively priced and of reasonable quality with adequate components. Price is not everything, however, and several factors weigh against their purchase.
- The brand does not have any North American customer service. We have tried to contact the company through e-mails and telephone calls. Its telephone numbers are "leave a message only." However, none of our messages have resulted in a call back. Emails sent to the company have been equally ineffective.
- Owners of WOWOW faucets are not protected against defects by a written warranty easily enforceable in U.S. and Canadian courts. The company claimes to offer a 3-5 year warranty on its faucets, but we did not find a warranty enclosed with any of the WOWOW faucets we obtained for inspection and testing. Nor is a written warranty posted on its website. We have asked the company for a copy of the warranty, but received no response to the request.
- The only source of replacement parts is 7,000 miles away, assuming the parts are available at all. The company does not have an effective North American-based replacement parts inventory. If you are able to contact the company and request parts, the nearest part is weeks away.
As the list above demonstrates, a great many other companies sell Chinese-made faucets for about the same price that are backed by a written warranty of some kind. Many are guaranteed for the lifetime of the buyer. Many provide North American-based customer service and replacement parts, although both may be rudimenary.
We are continuing to research the company. If you have experience with WOWOW faucets, good, bad, or indifferent, we would like to hear about it, so please contact us or post a comment below.