My seven-year-old daughter had seen the commercial for Spin Master’s Flutterbye Flying Fairy ($24.88 at Walmart)(Opens in a new window) . It is 30 seconds of slow motion magic where two little girls control hovering electronic fairies with their outstretched hand. When I brought the fairy home from the PCMag Labs for her to test, she couldn’t wait to create the “magic” for herself. Unfortunately, fantasy wasn’t matched by reality, as what came next were frustration, confusion and physical pain—the damned thing got tangled in her hair in what was a traumatic final straw.

The Flutterbye Flying Fairy is essentially an indoor toy helicopter with a plastic fairy body. It measures about 5 by 7.5 by 11 inches (HWD). The blades of the helicopter are actually the fluttering panels of her dress. The purple and pink paint job is decent and in the box, it looks like a winner.

The Flutterbye is actually made up of two parts: the fairy and a recharging station. The first red flag went up when I discovered the recharging station takes a whopping six AA batteries. That’s a lot for any toy, let alone a little flying fairy. The fairy plugs into the station and takes about 30 minutes to charge. The charging station is also her fairy launch pad. When she’s ready to fly, unplug her power cord from under her skirt. Then turn the power switch located under her skirt to the “on” position, and press the big purple button to let loose the magic!

Spirits soared when the fairy took flight on her maiden voyage. Spirits became confused when the fairy launched into the air and shot straight up to the ceiling, where it violently hovered, desperately trying to push past the confines of the room. It reminded me of when you have a fly in the house and the thing finds a corner of the ceiling and repeatedly crashes into the walls trying to escape. The fairy crashed down to Earth in a violent spin of dress-blades. We tried again. And again. Same results. Maybe my daughter’s bedroom, about the same size of the bedroom in the commercial, was too small. Maybe this fairy needs her space. We tried it next in the larger living room, with the same outcome.

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You are instructed to hold your hand out underneath the fairy to control her flight pattern. She’s supposed to hover a few inches off your hand. My daughter tried and tried but I can’t imagine any little girl besides the ones in the commercial that could control this plastic pest. Every time I stuck out my big, daddy hand to control the fairy, it launched it in another direction, ultimately crashing into whatever piece of furniture was in its path. I was never able to get the fairy to hover over my hand.

Then came the trauma. My daughter was determined to get the Flutterbye Flying Fairy to work. She launched the fairy into the air, stuck out her hand, and the toy crashed into her head. The impact hurt her, but even worse, the blades of the toy’s dress entangled in her hair all the way down to her scalp. It wasn’t easy to untangle the two. That’s when my daughter looked at me and asked, “Could we play with something else?”

The Flutterbye Flying Fairy costs more than $35 dollars when you factor in the six AA batteries. Despite the attractiveness of the concept—look! Flying fairies!—it’s definitely not a toy I would recommend. My daughter couldn’t get it to work. I couldn’t get it to work. And if your little girl has long hair, it’s an accident waiting to happen.