Between Bag Lady and Shopping Siren, we have three hairy pets, two little black dresses and one burning question: What the %$!@ is wrong with this lint roller?
Seriously. We’re pretty sure it adds fur when it’s supposed to be taking it away.
After years of silently cursing and aggressively rolling ourselves, we finally decided to do something about it.
This week, we put five lint rollers and one lint brush to the test, deploying the glitter and feathers we shopped for a few weeks ago to simulate sand and pet fur. And we were good retail scientists about it all: Each test involved the same amount of glitter, same number of feathers, same surface space on a T-shirt-like cotton sheet and three passes of the roller or brush with the same level of force applied each time.
We know. We’re *%&!@$ serious about our lint.
We judged each on a scale of 1 to 5 — 5 being blissful perfection — for how well they removed glitter from the fabric in one test and feathers from the fabric in another and how easily the roller sheets tore off.
It’s product testing whose time has come. Mostly because we’d like to leave the house wearing black and not looking like yetis. For once. Just once.
Let’s roll!
Scotch-Brite, 100 sheets, Walmart, $4.94
Feather rating: 5 . Aaand we’re off to a great start!
Glitter rating: 3. Picked up a bunch but left a bunch.
Ease: 4.5. Relatively easy to tear the sticky sheet off the roll, though we did have to wrestle with it a bit at the perforation.
Know this: We ended up using this lint roller to clean up all the feathers the other lint rollers left behind. So.
Essentials lint brush, Dollar Tree, $1
Feather rating: 0. Really. It picked up nothing. We could have done better blowing at the feathers. Or maybe just wishing them away.
Glitter rating: 2. That’s being very generous. The few pieces of glitter that stuck to the brush seemed to do so by sheer force of will and a desperate sense of self- preservation.
Ease: 5. This is a fabric-covered brush, not a sticky roller like the others we tested, so there’s nothing to remove, sheet-wise. Hard to get easier than “pick up brush” and “swipe at lint.”
Know this: In our limited experience, there’s no reason to buy this brush aside from thumping your head with the plastic handle until you forget you have lint to remove. And, youch.
Evercare, 60 sheets, Walmart, $3.97
Feather rating: 4. Pretty good. It only left two of our 10 test feathers behind.
Glitter rating: 4. Picked up most, left a few. Probably needed another swipe or two. (We like to rhyme all the time.)
Ease: 5. Sticky sheets tore off easily. Paper-towel easily.*
* Peasily.
Know this: The Evercare lint roller’s handle is ginormous. Like, Chewbacca could use this and, judging by our ratings, do a decent job of defurring himself.
Essentials extra sticky, 40 sheets, Dollar Tree, $1
Feather rating: 5. We’ve used dollar store lint rollers before, always with poor results. Way to improve, Dollar Tree!
Glitter rating: 3.5. Ah, yeah, never mind.
Ease: 3. These sheets pull off in a kind of spiral, which makes them tear super easy. Unfortunately, it also means a spiral strip of whatever-you-just-picked-up stays behind on the roller. So to get a clean sheet, you need to pull off two. Not cool.
Know this: Now with 25 percent more adhesive! According to the package. We have no way to measure this, but Shopping Siren did feel like she was wrangling flypaper at one point.
Essentials easy peel, 50 sheets (w/bonus mini roller), Dollar Tree, $1
Feather rating: 5. No different than the “extra sticky version,” though that’s not a bad thing.
Glitter rating: 3. It picked up a little and then spread the rest around like a 3-year-old who doesn’t like the peas on his plate.
Ease: 3. These sheets pulled off in a spiral, too, and had the same problem — we had to tear two to get one clean.
Know this: The bonus 30-sheet mini roller is all but useless. Try once, then waste 29 sheets trying to get the first sheet off.
3M Petcare, 60 sheets, PetLife, $4.99
Feather rating: 5. Clean and clear in three swipes. It was a thing of beauty. We may have marveled.
Glitter rating: 4.5. Soooo close. But still, glitter.
Ease: 4. While other rollers’ sheets feel papery, these feel more like plastic shower curtain liners. Which makes them durable as heck, but kind of hard to tear off the roll. Perforate, 3M, perforate.
Know this: It features “adhesive technology,” per the package, and purr the package, “rouleau anti-poils d’animaux” is how you say “pet hair roller” in French. We’re all about rhyming and learning!
The winner: 3M! It was our priciest roller, yes, but worth the cost when your cat/dog/sand-covered child decides you need a hug just as you’re about to walk out the door. We’ll take 12. And then maybe we can wear black to work again.
Bag Lady and Shopping Siren’s true identities are protected by a pair of stylish, sweater-wearing Doberman pinschers (who don’t understand what all the &@$! fur fuss is about) and the Customer Service counter at the Sun Journal. You can reach them at baglady@sunjournal.com and shoppingsiren@sunjournal.com.
Our test collection of lint rollers and one lint brush. Six entered, one left victorious. And covered in feathers.
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