Consumer Reports Chooses Best Pet Hair Remover

Published: Jan. 08, 2011
Subject: Fur Fighters
Category: Dog People's Choice

If you have a dog, there's a good chance you have fur issues. And if your dog is longhaired or you share your home with a cat too, it's a given. The fur appears everywhere: it's on your clothing, it forms tumbleweeds that line your hallway, and you even transport it to your car seats and office chair. It’s actually quite extraordinary.

This is where research findings on pet hair removal products from Consumer Reports’ independent testing and research center come in. This past September, Bernie Deitrick, a program leader at Consumer Reports, along with his mixed-breed dog Jade and tabby cats Rexy and Precious, tested various products to learn which could make fur management just a bit little easier.

The goal of the research was to test the claims of the Pledge Fabric Sweeper for Pet Hair. The product has two fabric-covered rollers that pick up and collect the fur into a small container, and product information states that one Pledge Fabric Sweeper picks up as much pet hair as 145 sticky roller sheets! Deitrick tested the Pledge product against three other products: Scotch’s Lint Roller, Scotch's Pet Hair Roller and the Scotch Fur Fighter Hair Remover. The first two are adhesive rollers and the last product is similar, but uses sheets of a rubber fiber textured pad to collect fur. According to Deitrick, and as many people have experienced, the three products all work well in removing hair, but require users to pause to peel off a sheet once it’s become covered in fur (often very quickly) in order to get to the next sheet to use.

In Deitrick's test, more fur was collected and for longer periods of time with the Pledge Fabric Sweeper, and he chose it as the best hair removal product. While Pledge says the product is to be disposed of once the container is full of fur, Deitrick mentioned it was easy to clean and reuse. These sentiments were echoed in reviews at amazon.com and other websites where users provided tips on removing the fur. Suggestions ranged from removing one end of the roller to empty the container to cutting a slit into the container and also using a vacuum attachment to remove the fur. Leave it to industrious pet people to improve upon a product and take the time to share their ideas! Love it.

Feel free to share your tips on pet hair removal products in the Comments section below.

The Scoop:

Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites