Beauty dish?

Can anyone explain to me what this is and how it works? I looked it up on B&H they just look like a stainless steel bowl to me with a hole in it. Help please. Educate me.

Well, a beauty dish is essentially a big bowl (mine is 22 inches in diameter) with a hole in it,b ut it alsa has a small panel directly in front of the bulb that reflects the bare bulb light back into the bowl so that your get a large, directional source of light. It's just another type of light modifier. It makes the light source larger, but keeps some directionality to it so it's a different quality of light from a softbox, and umbrella, or an octabox.

Now I have 2 umbrella lights on stands that are constant. This is i here.
http://cowboystudio.co​m/product/c07/p0701-10.php

If I bought a beauty dish (or made one) I would just need to slide it over that and thats it? Seems pretty simple. How would you rate this on a necessary tool?

The quality is somewhere between a reflective umbrella and a bare bulb. You should be able to get a similar quality using a small reflective umbrella, though the catchlight will look different. Unfortunately, it looks like there's only one manufacturer that still makes small umbrellas...

Alzo umbrellas

A Beauty Dish outputs more contrasty light than a softbox or an umbrella. Without the diffusion sock over the front, it is a directional light source. With the sock, it has roughly the same beam spread as a softbox.

Hmmmm Maybe I should just buy a soft box then. I am not sure I need that.

A modifier with the power of a bare bulb, but with soft shadows.
I would want to say for me its the ultimate modifier, but you can't do
everything with it, so it's not entirely true.

Anyone from any 2D art/design field will like this modifier though.