Best Reusable, Washable Lint Rollers

Reusable lint rollers are a great way to cut down on endless waste, especially if you have pets or other lint monsters running around the house.

Instead of buying roll after roll to replace the disposable sheets, you can instead have a single lint brush that will never run out. You'll never be left without replacements, wondering if you have an extra roll of packing tape to make do in the meantime.

Washable lint rollers come in all sorts of styles, from long-handled brushes to tiny travel-sized companions, and with different lint-removing mechanisms, too.

There are two major types of reusable lint rollers, which work rather differently, so check out the options to find what's best for you.

• Washable sticky rollers use a special adhesive surface that picks up pet hair and lint when dry, but can be washed off with soapy water. Once it's dry, it's ready to go again.
• Bristly lint brushes can look just like hair brushes, or feature a rotary design, kind of like a carpet sweeper. Rotating bristles work the best of any of these, as they trap the hair more easily, and you don't have to use soapy water unless you want it spotless. Either way, bristly lint brushes are easier to use, since all you have to do is pull out the hair, instead of manual washing.

So, do they work as well as disposable sticky tape?

Hard to say. Plenty of cheap lint rollers don't work particularly well, and many people go straight back to the disposable tape replacements, and it's hard to know until you start using one if it's a "good" one or not.

Although the as-seen-on-TV lofty promises of magic lint rollers make for good infomercials, the cleanup can be a hassle, and if you're spending money on soap and water every time you have to clean up a lint brush, you're probably not reducing waste by any significant degree, especially compared to sticky paper. While washable sticky lint rollers can work quite well to pick up pet hair, the aftermath is less fun.

Check out some of the most popular bristly reusable lint rollers below, which are about as easy to clean up as a hairbrush, and don't need messy cleanup involving soapy water to get them ready to go again.

In fact, all of the following receive universal praise:

With all due respect to the ingenious idea of a sticky-when-dry but nonsticky-when-wet lint roller, the bristly options are just better. They don't require intense cleaning sessions every time you pick up a bit of cat hair, and people are just happier with them.

Except for your cat, who will be upset you removed all the hair he or she meticulously shed to mark the throne room you call a couch.