'Innovations' sells its last electric nose-hair clipper

After nearly 20 years offering readers thousands of items they hadn't realised they needed, from electric nose-hair clippers to rotatable sunbathing chairs, the Innovations catalogue is to close.

After nearly 20 years offering readers thousands of items they hadn't realised they needed, from electric nose-hair clippers to rotatable sunbathing chairs, the Innovations catalogue is to close.

Having first appeared in 1985, distributed free with Sunday newspapers, the catalogue became cult reading for anyone looking for unusual gifts – and for the breathless language used to describe them.

Torches could "cut through darkness", there were "solid brass" telescopes, and being able to buy a paper shredder meant "document security [is] affordable for all".

It's not known how many of the shredders were used on the catalogues themselves. Roughly 20 million abridged catalogues were distributed every year inside newspapers, and another four million full-length catalogues were produced quarterly. Naturally, the company also sells its wares over the internet.

The products came from many sources, ranging from lone inventors to giant Far Eastern corporations. They were then tested by a group of Innovations staff, who would decide whether to market them.

The excitable descriptions have been written for the past 11 years by a single employee who, the company revealed yesterday, never actually used the products before he wrote about them.

But reality has bitten hard: the mail order giant GUS, Innovations' owners since 1997, said that sales from the catalogue had been declining in the same way as other home shopping outlets.

Meanwhile, internet sales have been booming – and the Innovations brand has been buffeted by competition from online sites and new catalogues offering broadly similar wares. The last catalogue will appear in the summer.

Innovations credits itself with pioneering such technological breakthroughs as the radio-synchronised clock (accurate to millionths of a second) and a recharger for standard batteries.

The company says about itself: "We admire the amateur inventor toiling away in the garden shed, and when we come across a really clever idea that deserves a wider audience, we are happy to provide advice on how to bring it to market."

GUS insisted that the brand would not disappear but that it was considering how to incorporate it in future catalogue offerings.