Note: While we mainly tested these products on dogs, they will work just as well with cats or any other pet that sheds.
Does your dog shed hairs all over your couch and carpet? Are you tired of leaving home with your clothes covered in fur?
Dog hair is like glitter. It clings to every surface in your home and is a nightmare to clean up. Even after vacuuming, it still turns up.
That’s where a pet hair remover comes in. This product effortlessly lifts and collects dog hair. You’ll wonder how you ever got by without one.
All up we reviewed over 23 different pet hair removers. Here are just a few we tested…
We tested each for ease-of-use, durability and effectiveness at getting rid of dog hair. All to answer a simple question:
Which pet hair remover is best for you?
Want the answer? Then read on!
Our Top Choices
Contents
What is a pet hair remover and do you need one?
Have you ever tried to clean up dog hair with a regular broom or cloth? If so, you know just how hard it can be to get it all. Wiping back and forth, over and over again, and you still can’t collect all of it.
A pet hair remover is designed to solve this problem. These simple products can remove dog hair in a single swipe – drastically cutting down the time it takes to clean your home.
As for whether you need one, it all depends on your dog. Do you own a heavy shedder, such as an Akita, Chow Chow or Golden Retriever? If yes, then you’ll be all too familiar with dog hair covering every surface of your home.
But even when these dogs aren’t molting, they still leave hair everywhere. If you have ever brushed a Siberian Husky, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about – your hand can get covered in hair just by giving pats and belly rubs.
In fact, you could make a life-size version of your husky out of the hair you remove from him during brushing…
I would go so far as to say that if you have an indoor dog, then you need a pet hair remover. Dog hair is worse than glitter. Even if your dog doesn’t shed, hair still turns up everywhere…
On your clothes, your bed, your car seats. It also works its way into your carpet. Even worse, it clings to you like a magnet – you can’t cuddle your dog without getting covered in hair!
Even short-haired dogs like French Bulldogs and Beagles shed their hair. Sure, it’s less noticeable, but it will build up over time until you find yourself wondering:
Where did all this fur come from?
A pet hair remover is the perfect tool for performing touch ups in between your regular clean. Do you have guests coming over who don’t want to leave covered in fur? A quick brush of your couch with a pet hair remover will give your guests a hair-free spot to sit.
Before I started using pet hair removers, I would grab my old clunker of a vacuum, connect the “dog hair attachment,” and listen to the roaring sound as it worked overtime to clean a small area of hair.
Combine this with my dog trying to play with the vacuum every time it comes out and this chore soon gets old – especially when vacuuming every day just to keep up with your molting pup.
Now, I save the vacuum for my weekly cleaning and use a pet hair remover for spot cleans. Most commonly, I’ll use a pet hair remover to remove dog hair from where I put things, where I sit, or where my daughter plays – my furniture and floors. This way, when I set down my handbag, jacket and daughter, I’m not dropping them onto a pile of fur.
In my opinion, the only people who should skip a pet hair remover are those with a hypoallergenic dog or if you aren’t bothered by dog hair…
Like my former neighbor. She slept with three fully grown Alaskan Malamutes. You had better bet that her king-sized bed was always covered in dog hair. It disgusted me, but it didn’t bother her in the slightest. But then, she hated chores too.
Her floor always looked like this:
If that sounds like you, then I’m not sure you’ll find much value in a pet hair remover. But remember, even if dog hair doesn’t bother you, that doesn’t mean it won’t irritate your guests. And for that reason, you might want to keep a pet hair remover on hand, just in case.
But for every other doggy owner reading this, a pet hair remover is almost essential.
How we tested
Dog hair is a problem that almost every dog owner has to deal with. Because of this, there is a wide range of pet hair removers in all different shapes and sizes.
After hours of research, interviewing several maid services and speaking to countless dog owners, we narrowed down the selection to just over 23 different pet hair removers. As usual, all products in this review were purchased from amazon.com at full price.
As for who contributed the fur? The following pups were more than happy to shed everywhere to assist in our review…
Holly – Boxer Foxhound
Holly’s short, coarse hair works its way into sweaters, couches and gaps in the baseboards. While she doesn’t shed as much as our other two testers, you know it when she does. Her stubborn hair was the undoing of many of the pet hair removers we tested.
Harper – German Shepherd X Border Collie Mix.
Harper has medium-length straight hair and sheds like it’s the one thing she was put on this Earth to do. Her black and white fur is visible on both darks and lights. She is exactly what hair removers were invented for.
Norris – Mini Australian Shepherd
Norris’ long, flowing locks of hair were the most visible. Curling up on themselves in spirals, these soft strands of hair could be easily spotted from across the room on the surfaces of couches and on the floor.
These short, medium and long-haired dogs gave us a good range to test our pet hair removers on.
In addition to this, I also cleaned 12 different houses owned by people I befriended at the local dog park. The one condition? That they had indoor dogs. Who would turn down a free cleaning? This allowed me to test the pet hair removers on a wide range of different surfaces and materials.
Each pet hair remover was graded on how well it could remove pet hair from each surface.
We also considered the following when choosing the winners:
- How well the pet hair remover lifted hair of different lengths
- How easy it was to dispose of trapped hair
- How easy the pet hair remover was to clean
- Would we use this daily?
And, that’s really all there is to it. Our top picks excelled in each of these areas.
Testing observations
While testing the qualities listed above, we made some observations that are worth mentioning.
1. Regular cleaning makes pet hair removers more effective
While it may seem like a pet hair remover gets rid of dog hair like magic, they are, by no means, a miracle product – they work best with frequent cleaning.
If your dog has been sleeping on your couch for the last 6 months, then it’s going to take you significantly more effort to remove the dog hair than someone who cleans their couch every week.
This is because, over time, that dog hair has been pushed farther and farther into the fabric of your couch. And, it’s going to take a lot more effort to remove than hair that is sitting on the surface.
It’s here that many people get frustrated and claim that their pet hair remover doesn’t work. Fur removers are not magic products that make up for all those months you didn’t clean.
But there is good news. If you clean regularly, then pet hair removers work and can dramatically shorten the time it takes to rid your home of hair!
2. You may need more than one pet hair remover
At the time of writing, there is no single perfect pet hair remover that works on every surface in your house.
A pet hair remover you throw in with your laundry isn’t going to clean your couch. Similarly, smaller pet hair removers that are great for the small gaps in your car are too time-consuming to use on large blankets and sheets.
Because of this, you may need to buy a specific pet hair remover for each area of your home that you want to clean. I rotated between 4 different pet hair removers – laundry, furniture, car and floors.
This isn’t really a downside… I mean we already buy specific cleaning products for different areas of our home. After all, you don’t use the sponge from your kitchen to wipe down your toilet, do you?
3. There are two different types of pet hair removers
Typically, pet hair removers fall into one of two categories:
1. Lint brush-style hair removers
These pet hair removers use a microfiber fabric to trap dog hair. They only work when swiped in one direction. They lift and catch pet hair and require you to remove the dog hair from the brush manually.
These are best used for touchup cleans because hair clings to the brush.
2. Rubber hair removers
These are essentially a rubber-bristled broom. This pet hair remover causes dog hair to clump together in large wads, allowing them to be picked up or vacuumed easily.
These are best used prior to vacuuming as they accumulate hair for easy collection.
4. Sticky lint rollers are wasteful
I’m sure most of you have used a Scotch-Brite lint roller before. These sticky rollers are great for removing fluff, lint and small amounts of fur from clothes.
But for removing pet hair, they sure are wasteful. I went through a roller and a half trying to make my sofa 100% hair-free. While they are no doubt effective, they are bad for the environment and need to be repurchased when they run out. While they may be affordable, that cost can add up quickly.
For this reason, this review focuses on reusable pet hair removers, which are easier on your wallet and the environment.
The best pet hair removers
In our hunt to find the best, we tested and reviewed over 23 different pet hair removers. It was a long journey, but eventually, we narrowed down the competition to 6 winners, each great in their own way.
To start, I’m going to share the best pet hair remover that worked on the widest range of surfaces. From there, I make recommendations for those looking for something a little more specialized, such as a specific pick for clothes, laundry and even your car.
1. Best all-around pet hair remover
Effortless!
Maybe you don’t need a pet hair remover for a specific occasion. Or perhaps, you want a jack-of-all-trades fur remover that works on a wide range of surfaces. Well, no other product worked on more areas of the home than the Gonzo Pet Hair Lifter.
While it may look like an ordinary block of sponge, the Gonzo Pet Hair Lifter is best when used dry. When you gently wipe, pet hair is lifted and trapped in the sponge. As you continue to wipe, this hair wads into clumps that are picked off and put into the trash.
In most instances, except where dog hair was left to build up, I was able to remove the dog hair in a single pass. It’s honestly surprisingly just how well hair clings to this sponge.
It is worth mentioning that you’ll need to work on your technique in order to see the best results. I found small circular motions to work best on most fabric surfaces, only using back-and-forth movements in tighter areas, such as where the back of my couch meets the seat – you know, that place where the remote gets lost.
Interestingly, this is one of the few pet hair removers I reviewed that excelled on hard surfaces. My wooden baseboards have these weird grooves that are forever trapping dog hair.
The soft sponge effortlessly got into these grooves. I was able to clean each baseboard with a single, long wipe. I could even clean the tight corners of my room where the edges of the molding met!
It’s this versatility that meant I could use the Gonzo Pet Hair lifter on anything from my fabric drapes and car upholstery to wooden shelves and laminate flooring. Even the base of my curtains that drag along the floor, collecting dog hair and dander…
It even worked on short carpet and rugs. Circular motions removed pet hair from the surface, even those that were visibly trapped between the fibers. However, it won’t reach hair that is hiding below the surface.
Unlike other fur removers, the Gonzo Pet Hair Lifter also traps dander and dust. This leaves each area you wipe incredibly clean. A downside to this is that the sponge will discolor over time. However, I am happy to report that this in no way affects performance.
After use, clean the sponge so that it’s ready for the next time. I found it easiest to push leftover hair into the center of the brush until it formed a clump. Any remaining hair can be rinsed off with water – just make sure you let it dry!
If you perform touchup cleans before guests arrive, keep a Gonzo Pet Hair Lifter stashed away. With its ability to wipe over nearly every surface, your guests won’t even know you keep a dog inside. Every home with a dog should have the Gonzo Pet Hair Lifter in their cleaning arsenal!
2. Best pet hair remover for furniture
Hair Magnet!
I don’t need to tell you that white dogs and black couches don’t mix. That white fur is clearly visible from across the room. Even worse, it transfers to your clothes the moment you sit down.
Does your dog relax on your couch, shedding all over it? You should keep a fur remover on hand so that you can quickly create a hair-free seat. It beats pulling out the vacuum each time you want to lounge around.
When it came to removing pet hair from furniture, the OXO FurLifter outclassed the competition. If you are familiar with those old-school lint brushes, then you know how this brush works.
Located on either side of the brush is a red pad. When you rub these pads in one direction, it collects fur, lint and even human hair. When you brush in the other direction, all the trapped dog hair comes off.
However, unlike a traditional lint brush, the OXO FurLifter has a few tricks up its sleeve.
When using a lint brush, you’ll agree that picking off fuzz every few swipes gets old. OXO came up with a clever way to effortlessly remove hair from their brush.
You see, the FurLifter comes with a base. When you slide the brush into the base and pull it back out, it removes all the dog hair that is stuck to the brush. That sure beats picking it out with your fingers!
The base can hold a generous amount of wadded hair. You’ll be able to clean an entire couch in a single session before needing to empty it.
I’ll be honest… The base took a little getting used to. It took a while for me to get into a pattern of brushing and after every few swipes, dipping the brush into the base. Now that I’m removing fur like a pro, there is no going back to the old-style lint brush.
How well does it work? It’s like a hair magnet. Swipe after swipe, I was capable of removing tufts of hair from my couch, like I was giving it a haircut.
The shape and pivoting handle meant that I could even slide the FurLifter down the back of my couch – you know, the black hole where the remote keeps disappearing into.
Curved surfaces didn’t prove to be much of an issue either. Even the rounded edges of arm chairs didn’t slow down my ability to remove dog hair.
Do you have a recliner? Be careful when using this brush. I managed to snag the red pad on a sharp piece of metal when the footrest was elevated – stick to brushing fabric only.
I noticed that the FurLifter struggled to remove short, spiky dog hairs that had worked themselves deep into the fabric.
This was particularly noticeable on synthetic couches with a looser weave. Most of the time, I could remove the hair by coming at it from a different direction. However, I needed to manually pick out a few strands that had planted themselves deep in the material.
Fortunately, this won’t be a problem for most of you. With regular cleaning, these hairs will never have a chance to deeply embed themselves in the surface of your couch – they will rest on the top, within easy reach of the OXO FurLifter.
When it comes to removing pet hair from furniture, it doesn’t get any better than the OXO FurLifter. Highly recommended!
3. Best pet hair remover for clothing
Self-Cleaning!
ChomChom boldly claims that their roller is the world’s best pet hair remover. When it comes to removing dog hair from clothes, I’ll agree!
Using the ChomChom Roller couldn’t be simpler. Grab the handle and roll it back and forth using short strokes. As you do this, hair is lifted and sticks to the roller-brush.
Despite calling itself a “roller,” the movement is better described as a rocker. One side of the roller traps pet hair on the push stroke and the other side traps on the pull – it’s this unique design that overcomes the problem of lint brushes only being usable in one direction.
Oh, and it’s self-cleaning too. On each stroke, the trapped dog hair is removed from the brush and deposited in a compartment where it accumulates into a single pile. Once full, you simply open the handle and empty it into the trash – beats pulling the fur off yourself every couple of swipes.
Out of all the pet hair removers I reviewed, only the ChomChom Roller could effectively remove fur off a broad range of fabrics. From polyester to cashmere, the ChomChom Roller effortlessly lifted dog hair, both short and long.
Simply lay your clothing flat and go over it one section at a time. The back-and-forth motion of the ChomChom Roller brought hair to the surface before whisking it away to the dust compartment.
My black acrylic sweater was the undoing of most of the pet hair removers I tested. This sweater attracts dog hair like you can’t believe. Small, coarse hairs are deeply embedded in the material. Every time I wear it, I look like a cactus with dog hairs sticking out in every direction. My nylon yoga pants are a similar story.
But this wasn’t a problem for the ChomChom Roller. It took a few minutes, but I was able to return my sweater and yoga pants to a condition not seen in years. My husband now religiously uses the ChomChom Roller on his denim jeans – now if you look at the pair of us in public, you would never guess that we own a dog. Well, unless we are walking her, of course.
As you would expect, loose-knit clothing required a bit more effort. The open weave allows small pet hairs to bury themselves deep into the fabric. My husband’s tweed jacket and my corduroy pants took the most time to clean. But the extra effort is worth it. After a ChomChom session, these difficult fabrics were hair-free.
The ChomChom Roller works well on any flat fabrics. I successfully used it to remove pet hair from my comforter, blankets, pillows and even my suede ottoman.
Where the ChomChom came undone was curved areas and tight spaces. Don’t expect it to effectively touchup your clothes while you are wearing them. It was also unsuited for the car, in particular cleaning around buckles and where the back meets the seat.
But for clothes and other flat fabric surfaces, the ChomChom Roller outclassed the competition – nothing else came close.
4. Best dog hair remover for laundry
Chemical-Free!
Yep, dog hair can be so stubborn. Even after a trip through your washer and dryer, dog hair will still cling to your laundry – especially if your pup has short, wiry hair.
I know that feeling all too well. Sometimes, I swear my clothes come out of the dryer with more hair than they went in with.
That’s now a thing of the past. And, it’s all thanks to wool. Balls of it!
Simply add these round, fluffy balls to your dryer, and they will remove almost all traces of dog hair from your clothes.
How do they work? Well, it’s actually really simple. The wool balls bounce around your dryer, bumping into your clothes and sheets. As they do, pet hair sticks to the ball before being knocked off into your dryer’s lint trap.
I was shocked by the results. I couldn’t believe the answer to my life-long dog hair problems was a few small fluffy balls. Load after load, these balls continued to banish hair to the lint trap.
For knocking the odd hairs off your clothes, these dryer balls work exceptionally well. However, if your clothes are covered in lots of fur and are more pet hair than fabric, I recommend using the ChomChom roller instead.
After the load was done, there were a few stray hairs on the ball. At first, I would brush these stray hairs off after every load. But testing with a brand new shirt, I was pleased to note that none of these hairs were deposited back onto my clothes.
At first, I was hesitant to add anything that “bounces around” inside my dryer. I worried that they would damage the fabric of my delicate clothing.
Plastic laundry fur removers rattle and clank as they tumble around inside your dryer. In comparison, the wool balls were whisper-quiet. Besides a few soft bumps, they were not obnoxiously loud or disruptive.
And best of all, they are completely natural. Made entirely from wool sourced from New Zealand sheep, these balls won’t expose you and your family to any nasty chemicals.
As if you needed another reason to grab a set, these balls reduce wrinkles and act as a natural fabric softener. Clothes that are both hair-free and wrinkle-free? What’s not to love!
Smart Sheep claims that each ball will last for over a thousand loads. I’ll be honest… I’m still a long way away from testing those claims. However, after three months of nearly daily use, I am impressed that they are still going strong.
I spoke to one user who had been using her balls for well over a year now. She stated that they still remove pet hair as good as the day she got them. She did add that every few months or so, she tosses them in the washer to remove any built-up lint.
If you are looking for a natural and effective way to remove dog hair from your laundry, grab a set of the Smart Sheep Wool Balls – they are worth every cent.
5. Best pet hair remover for floors
For Floors!
When it came to sweeping up dog hair, no broom allowed me to clean every area of my house like the Bissel Pet Hair Broom.
When it comes to sweeping up dog hair, rubber broom bristles work best. Not only do they cause hairs to clump together, but they can even lift pet hair from carpet, bringing it to the surface.
However, rubber bristles also have a downside. They are thicker and less flexible than the nylon fibers found on a traditional broom. This makes it difficult to sweep in tight spaces and around furniture legs.
The Bissel Pet Hair Broom solves this problem by combining nylon and rubber bristles in a single broom.
At first glance, it looks like a regular broom. But if you twist the knob at the bottom of the handle, a set of rubber bristles extend out.
I found myself effortlessly swapping between the two on the fly. I used the rubber bristles for wide, open floor space and switched back to the nylon bristles when I came to corners, the edges of my baseboards, and around chair legs. Once I had swept the dog hair away from these nooks and crannies, I switched back to the rubber bristles to collect it.
The nylon bristles swept up lint, dust and crumbs while the rubber bristles trapped hair, causing it to wad into clumps. In many cases, I could bend over and pick up these clumps without needing a dustpan.
If you are looking for a broom that is up to the task of regular sweeping and removing dog hair, the Bissel Pet Hair Broom is the best choice by far.
Want to see what other brooms we recommend? Check out our guide on the best pet hair brooms!
6. Best pet hair remover for cars
Hair-Free Car!
Your car is the only place that we don’t recommend a lint brush-style pet hair remover. The rigid design makes it difficult to pick up hair from around buckles and under seats.
For the car, we recommend using a rubber brush. Rubber brushes are best used in tandem with a vacuum because they cause pet hair to clump together into easy-to-remove wads.
And, no other rubber brush performed better than the Sweepa Rubber Brush. It’s a brush and squeegee in one, and that’s exactly what makes it excel at ridding your car of pet hair.
First, the brush. Made in Belgium, this single piece of rubber is very efficient at gathering hair into clumps. The pliable bristles bend and work their way into the gaps near buckles. I was even able to rid my daughter’s car seat of pet hair, something that I previously thought was impossible.
Short strokes worked best. I ended up settling on a forward stroke, lift and repeat motion. However, another tester preferred to use a half-circle sweeping motion – both resulted in effective hair removal.
If your floor mats are carpet, then you will love the squeegee side. I had no idea just how much dog hair had worked its way into my floor mats – even my vacuum cleaner couldn’t free this trapped hair. A few quick scrapes with the squeegee brought it all to the surface.
As the proud owner of a pony (well, my young daughter is), I am constantly tracking dirt, sawdust and horse hair into my car every time I visit her at the barn. The Sweepa brush was able to remove all this and even the crumbs of a biscuit my daughter scattered everywhere on the drive over – my car hasn’t been this clean in a long time!
It might just look like a simple rubber brush, but when it comes to achieving a truly hair-free car, it will be your best friend. Highly recommend. So much so, that I have claimed this pet hair remover for myself. DogLab isn’t getting it back.
The pet hair removers that didn’t make the cut
The following pet hair removers fell short in one way or another when compared to our top picks. That isn’t to say that these are bad products. To varying degrees of success, they were still capable of cleaning up dog hair. But when compared to our recommendations above, we see little reason to choose them.
While we loved OXO’s modern take on the lint brush, their On-The-Go Brush was the weakest in their line. I loved that it neatly fits into my handbag, and it is perfect for touching up clothes and even my daughter’s car seat when away from home. Unfortunately, due to being single-sided, it’s unusable for left-handed people.
The Kurgo Shed Sweeper was a modern fur remover with rubber bristles. The Kurgo Shed Sweeper could have been great for smaller areas of hair removal, such as your car seat covers. Unfortunately, the tall design meant it was difficult to squeeze into narrow areas like under your seat. The bristles are also spaced wider than other hair removers. This made it less effective at removing short, coarse dog hair.
Little more than a rectangle covered in rubber spikes, the CarPET Hair Remover failed to impress. Using the CarPET hair remover as instructed, brushing toward me, yielded lackluster results. While it was capable of getting longer pet hairs from furniture and even carpet, it took a lot of effort to remove shorter hairs, leaving many behind even after dozens of passes.
The JW GripSoft Pet Hair Magnet looks like a squeegee with three blades. Squeegees are often used to remove hair buried deep in low-pile carpets. The JW GripSoft didn’t perform any better than a squeegee. On other surfaces like couches, it required pushing and pulling in multiple directions to free the hair. Too much effort!
Here is a pet hair remover that most of you already have in your home. The Scotch-Brite lint roller is essentially a large roll of sticky tape. Whatever you roll it over clings to it. While they are no doubt useful, we needed multiple passes on certain fabrics, especially where dog hair was deeply embedded. Being a disposable product, expect to buy these regularly. If your house is covered in dog hair, this cost can soon add up.
I appreciated that the Fur-Zoff Pet Hair Remover was one of the only pet hair removers I tested that is made in the USA. It looks like a pumice stone. However, it’s only suitable for a limited range of materials because it’s coarse. I snagged the stone on my polyester clothes. The scratchiness of it means that you don’t want to use this near laminate floors, wood or plastic. That really narrows down its uses. I had the most success at removing dog hair from my car upholstery. However, I was worried about using it near the sides of the car and the console – I didn’t want that scratched up. Don’t get me wrong… It’s a great product and more than up to the task of removing dog hair, but our other recommendations work just as well without scratching and snagging.
When it came to laundry, there were not many hair removing options. The FurZapper promises to remove pet hair from both your washing machine and dryer. This was another fur remover made in the USA, but its performance disappointed. It just didn’t remove enough hair to make a noticeable difference, even adding six to a load in both my washing machine. As for the dryer, when it came to performance, wool balls were the superior choice.
I really wanted Bounce dryer sheets to work. How good would it be if a simple dryer sheet was the solution to your pet hair problems? Bounce dryer sheets claim to reduce static cling in clothes as they tumble around your dryer. Unfortunately, they cannot remove pet hair that is already clinging or embedded in the fabric of your clothing. My clothes came out just as hairy as they went in.
Due to its larger size, the Lily Brush Forever Furless Pet Hair Remover would be best suited for furniture, blankets or sheets. It only really worked on soft, long dog hair. Short, wiry hair was its undoing. I found hair much more challenging to remove from the bristles of this brush than rubber-bristled models.
Another Lily Brush, the Save Our Sweaters notably worked well on cashmere. It’s essentially a mini version of their Forever Furless brush, except with only one row of bristles instead of two. It required a lot more effort on other fabrics, such as my husband’s work pants where it would push hair around rather than gather it.
Microfiber cloths are commonly used to remove pet hair. At 24 per pack, the AmazonBasics Microfiber Cleaning Cloth offers incredible value for the money. However, they just don’t work well at cleaning pet hair from anything other than flat surfaces. When the cloth was dry, I was able to scoop up pet hair from my countertop and floors, but it was hardly practical. Short, coarse hair, in particular, was often left behind, even after multiple wipes.
Conclusion
Phew, if you made it this far, congratulations! You now know which pet hair remover is best for you.
A recap of our results…
The best pet hair removers we reviewed:
- Gonzo Pet Hair Lifter – Best all-arounder
- OXO FurLifter – Best for furniture
- ChomChom Roller – Best for clothing
- Smart Sheep Dryer Balls – Best for laundry
- Bissel Pet Hair Broom – Best for floors
- Sweepa Rubber Brush – Best for cars
What pet hair remover do you use to clean up your dog’s hair? Let me know in the comments below!
Turns out that we have had a fur remover for several years and didn’t know it. We have the Gonzo one. Our sponge was sold as a window screen cleaner. 😄 We tried it for removing cat fur and it works perfectly. That said, we won’t have to buy another item to remove cat fur from our furniture. Those with a Gonzo sponge, you have a bonus now because you can use it to clean your window screens too.
I may be late to the show here, but I just had to say thanks for all your research! It’s rare to run across a site that actually tests products from various places. As most everyone knows, links and reviews connected to ONE site have really made credibility a highly valued commodity. So, YAY!! DogLab gets a bookmark from me!
I have a Chow, so I was loving the dog hair/glitter comparison in the broom article, and we have always said we could have 19 little Chow Chows from one good brushing at the right time of year. Which is almost always. 🙂
Really enjoyed the info and the humor. Keep up the great work!
Great options , although I have a feline as a fur baby , I am definitely going to try those wool balls , and the chomchom. I love my baby but as someone who’s wardrobe is 95% black fabric ,I get overly frustrated at her hair all over the place and on my clothes. I will let you know how they work for me. I agree the sticky tape rollers are such a waste then when they run out I can never find the correct size refill so I end up getting a whole new one so I have all these plastic lint roller handles all over the place 😩
Who wants to buy stuff from China keep it american
You should take a look at the self-cleaning lint brushes by De Novo I have found them to be really good, require no sticky sheets, and their sleek and nice.
Hi Eliana,
I’m glad you liked this product. Unfortunately, our experience wasn’t the same.
The De Novo Lint Remover is identical to this generic Chinese lint remover that can be ordered direct for a fraction of the price. We have the same one and that’s exactly where we ordered it from. It is sold under a wide variety of names, including Lintec and FlashExpress.
We do not publicly publish our reviews of generic Chinese products that are sold under multiple names unless they are exceptional. This one isn’t. In contrast to the competition, it barely picks up any pet hair at all – dog or cat.
Furthermore, De Novo does not meet our 20 point checklist that we use to gauge trustworthiness of a company. De Novo failed 18/20 points such as listing a freight forwarder for an address (MyUS), has no contact number, among other concerns. In my opinion, people should avoid this company as it appears to only sell imported Chinese goods at a large markup and lacks transparency.
Oh wow! I’ve had a good experience with them. Everything came with USPS and it was fast shipping, ‘;but I guess you don’t get your affiliate credit – must use Amazon 😉
Hey Eliana,
I would normally have let this slide, but this comes off the back of spending the last 10 hours painstakingly testing stain removers with real dog urine and poop. Tomorrow I have to do it all again. I am in no mood for someone like you to trivialize the effort that goes into this website with a snarky remark implying we only recommend products for money. I’m all for criticism when it is done in good faith. But it looks like you have an ulterior motive to comment here – to promote a business.
We happily link to non-amazon products, especially where the product is superior. I linked to the original place the lint roller could be bought in China, without the markup, in the last comment. At the time of your comment, that was the only product on the De Novo website. Again, the reason we don’t recommend this product is because it is not effective at picking up pet hair. We have tested it. It sucks. It works on lint, not well on dog hair, which is the whole purpose of this review – to recommend pet hair removers that work.
Interestingly you didn’t comment on the effectiveness of the product, but instead your first response was to defend the company, a little known business that was only set up on Shopify just this year (The domain name was only purchased on the 9th of February, 2021) and at the time of your first comment, only offered a single lint brush for sale. It now sells five generic Chinese lint brushes of which we have tested 4 (directly from China again). Your original comment was left on the 21st of February, just after the store had been set up.
At the same time, you went on a comment spree promoting De Novo in the comment section of as many online articles that cover lint brushes as you could find. In my opinion this wasn’t you commenting on our article as a user of a product, this was targeted promotion across sites related to the product De Novo sells. You can be seen at the bottom in the comment sections of many other sites including here, here and here. While these other websites may not have scrutinized your recommendation, at doglab, that’s all we do, scrutinize products and businesses. I am applying the same deep dive into your comment as I would any other product I test.
Another reason I believe you are related to that site is because the address changed between my comments and yours. It changed from the freight forwarder, to an address in Florida. And it changed very recently. So recently, that I was able to find a copy of the older page with the original address in google cache. You can see the original here, listing the address of the freight forwarder. It now looks like this, which is highly unusual. A business that is just setting up wouldn’t be monitoring our comments for this concern, unless they had already commented here and were awaiting a reply. The lack of a phone number has also been addressed. I suspect if I shared the full 18 points that the site failed on, those would have been addressed too, which is why we keep our trust scoring system private. Even though these two concerns were fixed, it fails on the remaining 16 counts that we would expect to see in a trustworthy organization.
Interestingly, the new address has an Eliana linked to it, the same name as you. This information is publicly accessible.
Even if you want to say that this is a different Eliana, There is an extra piece here that links De Novo to you as the person who left this comment, again based on public information. However, I won’t be posting it here as that would be close to doxxing you. Deceptive and shameless as you have been, you do not deserve that. However, I am 100% of the opinion that you either own this company or are closely linked to it.
If this is true, then I am disgusted that you would take a swipe at our credibility and trust that we work so hard to maintain, in an effort to deceive and mislead our readers.
This is the reason why we work so hard to identify the best products for our readers. Because companies like De Novo and people like you insist on deceptively pushing poor quality products in an effort to make a quick buck.
Excellent reply and research into Chinese company! I trusted this sites assessment to start, based on article vs others. Now I trust it 100% more. Two thumbs up!!
Match-Set-Point
Very nice take down. I notice they never replied after it. Curious, no? I love a well-researched burn more than most other things I read online.
🔥🧨💣💥🌋
🌡️🥵🩹🚒🚑🏨😵💫😵💀☠️⚰️⚰️🪦🪦
👀😯🫢🙀🙊🫣🎯👊🏼🍻👏🏽👏🏻👏🫡😲🏆
🎉🥳🍾👑🪅😎😹🫶🍾🥂🎆🤟🤙🏻🖕🥇🎈
Hello, just wondering what is the best grooming tool for deshedding my dog is scared of anything sharp or scratchy
Hi M,
We plan on covering grooming tools next year, so will be able to give you details when we do an indepth analysis.
Thank you for this I recently got a second hand chair there is so much hair under the cushions and the seller told me she hadn’t had a dog for 4 years , I found the Gonzo product amazing I ordered from Amazon and when I received it , I spent 2 hours and all the hair was gone ….do remember this was jack Russel hair which is small and wiry and it had not been cleaned for 4 years so it was firmly stuck in the fabric of the couch…So happy with this product if you only buy one thing for hair removal buy this product its amazing
Hi Maureen,
I’m glad to hear you had the same positive experience with the Gonzo pet hair remover as we did! Thank you so much for sharing your experience!
Thanks for the review. Do any of you work for or take payments from Amazon?
Are these independent reviews?
Hi Stephen,
All reviews on our site have been independently chosen and tested by our team, including the pet hair removers on this page. None of our team works for Amazon and no brand can pay to have their product featured in a review. We pay full retail price for each product reviewed, just like you would. Our goal is to recommend the best product, wherever it may come from. For more information on how we work, please refer to our about page located in the footer.
I was looking for something to use in the washing machine. You didn’t make any recommendations.
While we do use a dryer to finish off drying clothes in the cooler months, we don’t during the other 7 months of the year.
Hi Majella,
Thank you for your feedback. This is something that many people want. We didn’t recommend a washing machine pick because all of the varieties we tested failed to satisfactorily remove pet hair. We refuse to recommend products that don’t work. So rather than choose a “least worst” pick, we left it out. I cover this in more detail in my reply to Ruth, below.
I have a Catahoula Leopard Dog – white with the leopard spots. She sheds like I could go in the wig business TOMORROW. Recently she got sick in her kennel/crate and my husband took the incredibly hairy blankets and mattress cover and just threw them in my top-loading washer. (when I wash heavily hairy items I put them for a few rounds in the dryer first)
Our question is: Now how do we get the hair out of the washer?
I found this article extremely helpful as I hate chores almost as much as I hate dog hair on everything in the house (including my toothbrush).
Thanks for any advice you can give.
Robin
Hi Robin,
That sounds like a nasty problem. Unfortunately I am unsure how to help here, we didn’t review any products that worked effectively in the washer.
This was helpful, but I wondered about something that could be used in the washing machine rather than a dryer. – I don’t tend to use the tumble dryer much, so was considering an in wash product like the fur grip – and wanted to know if they are any good, or what’s the best?
Like you we have horses, as well as cats.
Thank you,
Ruth DUFFY.
Hi Ruth,
Excellent question!
We went into the review with a goal of finding a “best pet hair remover for washing machines.” The best pet hair remover for laundry was originally going to be split into two with one winner for washers and another winner for dryers.
We tested a variety of candidates, such as the Furzapper (featured in the guide) and a range of generic products such as washer lint balls, lint traps and a floating pet hair collector (that was only suitable for top load washing machines.)
Unfortunately, these products failed to noticeably reduce pet hair. It didn’t matter if it was towels, sheets or clothes, we experienced the same. It appears that removing pet hair from wet fabric is a difficult task. Even the wool balls that perform well in the dryer failed to impress in the washing machine.
We do not recommend products that we wouldn’t use ourselves. At the time of writing this, we cannot suggest a product that is suitable for removing pet hair during a washing cycle. Rather than choose a “least worst” pick, we removed the “best pet hair remover for washing machines” category and instead picked a single winner for laundry – but it’s only appropriate for dryers.
Thanks for the review, it was helpful. I was wondering if there is a non wool ball remover that worked well? Ive read articles about how wool is not entirely cruelty free and I would prefer to use a product that doesn’t come from animals.
Hi Holly,
While we graded the pet hair removers on performance, given your concerns, I can see why our recommendation for the dryer may not be appropriate for everyone. The FurZapper was the only other comparable product (as long as you use it in the dryer only). However, it didn’t perform as well as the wool dryer balls.
Recently, my dog has been losing a lot of hair, and the dog’s hair often falls all over the floor. I want to buy a lightweight dog hair remover with good quality. The seller is in China. Has anyone ever bought one? How about the quality? Can you give me some advice?
Hi Candy,
Our top pick for floors, the bissel broom, is currently discontinued. We are currently testing the Evriholder FURemover and are very happy with it. The rubber bristles slide across wood, tiles and similar hard flooring without issue and fur gets trapped like a magnet.
I have used the FURemover broom and one pretty identical from the PawSafe site and been very happy. It works well on various types of carpet with different pile heights. I’ve found that if you push down too hard and “scrub” at the floor with it, the rubber bristles will wear out much faster and start to come off. When I stopped over muscling it and just used light pressure shorter strokes, it worker much better and more effectively. Using it on any of your floors BEFORE you vacuum (and with the light-pressure short strokes it actually goes quite fast) means not having to stop and empty your vacuum of dust and hair halfway through the job. The vacuum can do a better deeper clean when it’s not fighting a top layer of pet hair. I’ve used it on upholstery on occasion (I usually use covers on my couch and chairs) and it works pretty well – it just can’t maneuver into smaller spaces on furniture. There are times when the sheets and blankets on the bed get too much hair on them to shake off before washing. I use the broom on the fitted sheet while it’s still in place on the bed – BEFORE taking it off. We have short thick-nap cotton blankets by Sferra that are amazingly warm for cotton, but are pet hair magnets. I lay them out flat on the bed and tuck one end under the mattress so it will stay put. Do one side and untuck the end you tucked under and while it’s still lying there, broom it off. Then I take it someplace I can hang it from to do the flip side. It’s sometimes a juggling game to get hair off one side without adding hair from the other side to a surface you’ve already cleaned. If your pets sleep with you, the hair will get into everything. I’ve tried using a king-size sheet over the bedding but it never stays in place for long and didn’t help. Using a duvet over a fitted bottom sheet seems to be the easiest setup. The broom is easy to clean with soapy water and a rinse. They are not pricey and you could have one for floors and one for bedding and upholstery. The look alike I bought I think let’s you order the broom head separately as that will wear out first. It jus screws onto the handle.