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Doing laundry is annoying; a good laundry hamper helps. It can make the process of sorting your colors and delicates and transferring your dirty laundry to the machine as seamless as possible, whether that means walking downstairs to the basement or a trip to the laundromat. (In the latter case, may we suggest a hamper backpack?) There are almost as many ways of doing laundry as there are households, so I erred on the side of including lots of clever products that aren’t one size fits all but may work perfectly for your specific situation.
The main distinction I encountered working on this article was between laundry hampers that live out in your space full time and hampers that stay in a closet or laundry room. The difference is primarily aesthetic — you want a hamper you can see from bed to look nice and hide piles of dirty clothing, but that’s less important for something stowed in a closet. Right now, for example, I have a Steele canvas hamper in the corner of a bedroom with very small closets; in my previous one-bedroom apartment, I was short on floor space and stowed a hanging hamper in my closet. The best option will depend on your setup, and we’ve included plenty in both categories.
Update on September 20, 2024: Added testing notes for the Steele canvas laundry cart; updated prices and checked stock for all other products.
What we’re looking for
Material
Size
The dimensions of a hamper or laundry basket will determine where it lives in your home and how portable it is. I recommend figuring out where you’ll stow your hamper and the length of your trip to your washing machine or laundromat. A toteable plastic bin works best if you have laundry in the building; if you’re traveling, a hamper that converts into a carrier may be preferable. And when choosing a size, take a tip from Lauren Saltman, the owner of organizing company Living. Simplified: Look up how many pounds of laundry your washer can handle at once, then choose your laundry bin accordingly.
Best laundry hamper overall
Material: Steel, polyester | Size: 25.2” x 11.81” x 14.17”
Yamazaki is a Strategist favorite for its inexpensive, durable small-space-specific homewares. The brand’s Tower laundry hamper is an example of its thoughtful design: It works as a freestanding hamper, and it can be collapsed and toted to your laundry room (the top of the frame serves as handles) or folded up into almost nothing and stowed away when not in use. Its structure comes from a lightweight steel frame, which contains a fabric insert that Velcros into place and has a stiff bottom, which keeps the bag from deforming too much as it goes from empty to full. Plus it’s cute: It’s a hamper “that doesn’t really scream hamper,” says home organizer Caroline Solomon.
When Strategist writer Ambar Pardilla tested the Tower, she found it well made and sturdy. (She does advise against fill it to the very top, which makes it difficult to completely collapse the frame and thus harder to carry.) If you’re into sorting, Solomon suggests buying one in black and another in white to color-code your lights and darks.
Best laundry hampers to leave out
Best rolling laundry hamper
Material: Canvas, steel (with vinyl or leather trim) | Size: From 21” x 16” x 25”
Steele Canvas has been around since 1921 and is known for its heavy-duty carts for laundry rooms. Its vintage-y construction makes the carts cute enough to leave out, but they’re also “the most practical laundry baskets for busy families,” says interior designer Betsy Burnham, due their large capacity and sturdy, bump-proof wheels. (Right now, Burnham is designing a house for a family with four sons and guesses she’ll end up getting two of the carts.)
I’ve been testing a Steele canvas bin (the thin, tall 2.5 bushel size below) for about a month and can confirm Burnham’s recommendation. It’s sturdier than any laundry basket I’ve ever owned, with thick canvas and a robust steel frame — it’s industrial, but the build quality is high enough that I don’t mind keeping it out in my bedroom. I love how easy it is to wheel the entire cart over to the laundry machine, then roll it back once the clothes are cleaned and dried. Although I can’t yet speak to its long-term durability, Burnham reports that none of her clients have ever needed to replace theirs.
Best (less expensive) rolling laundry hamper
Material: Steel, polyester, cotton | Size: 24.25” x 14” x 18”
For a less-expensive rolling hamper, I like the Container Store’s Harvest. We found out about it from Rachel Winkler, founder of home-organizing service Tidyspot. You can add a removable and washable liner — which you have to buy separately for $15— that’s meant to fit through the elastic-trimmed cutout handles, ensuring that the layer remains in place. I recommend getting the lining, which will both keep laundry out of sight and prevent socks and smaller items from poking out of the metal frame. It comes in plain white or a gray-and-white stripe.
Best portable laundry basket
Material: Plastic | Size: 20.47” x 14.96” x 16.14”
If you’d rather tote around a basket, consider this version from Japanese brand Like-It. It’s about $10 cheaper than Yamazaki’s convertible hamper and is the rare plastic bin that’s cute enough to leave out. It’s a favorite of professional organizer Britnee Tanner, who says it can be full “without being too awkward or heavy to carry.” (Tanner currently owns four of them; each member of her family has their own.) Its tall and slender silhouette fits into the corner of a room or in a closet without taking up much space, and Tanner’s have held up well for years. “It’s a trusty basket that is surprisingly durable,” she says. (You can also find it in a shorter size and in white.)
Best rope hamper
Material: Cotton | Size: 16” diameter, 20” high
This hamper is made from cotton rope coiled and stitched into a cylinder — and at about $30, it’s a great deal, inexpensive enough to buy in multiples for family members. (It’s also a favorite home organization tool from our friends at the Cut.) It comes in three colors — natural brown, white, and a half-and-half colorblocked pattern.
Best stackable laundry basket
Material: Plastic | Size: 9.65” x 22.64” x 14.76” and 24.6” x 14.8” x 22.6”
Strategist writer Ambar Pardilla, who wrote a previous version of this article, loves these stackable baskets from Danish design studio Hay. (Out of the products she tested for this article, they’re are the ones she’s still using.) She loves that the two baskets nest into each other “like a set of kitchen mixing bowls.” The baskets are easy to carry separately or together — the gridded holes in the baskets align and can also serve as handles — and the gaps are sized just right to prevent rogue socks or shirts from escape. (She does report that the basket becomes unwieldy when it’s overfilled, which may be an incentive against laundry procrastination.) The baskets come in several pastel colors — butter yellow, pale blue — and neutrals like gray and army green.
Best two-compartment laundry hamper
Material: Steel, water hyacinth, cotton canvas | Size: 24” x 13” x 23”
For a natural-fiber hamper, Mary Cornetta, owner of Sort and Sweet and creator of Organized Overall, recommends Seville Classics sorter, which has two compartments for sorting laundry. She owns two of them, one for each of her bathrooms — despite their dual-compartment design, the baskets don’t take up much floor space. Each section comes with its own lid and handles on the top and side along with a machine-washable bag that attaches to loop fasteners. Cornetta can fit about a week’s worth of laundry between the two hampers, and reports that even when they’re full, they’re still light enough to move around.
Best hand-woven hamper
Material: Palm fibers | Size: 16” diameter, 20” high
If you’re open to splurging, this option from Makaua is the most beautiful hamper I encountered while researching this article. It’s handwoven by artisans in Mexico from palm fiber and has an elegant curved silhouette that reminds me of a Greek amphora. It comes in a couple colorblocked colorways (I prefer the undyed light brown) and has the same capacity as the Goodpick rope basket or the Like-It plastic hamper.
Best laundry hampers to lug around
Best hip-hugger laundry basket
Material: Plastic | Size: 11.2” x 19.9” x 21.2”
The Rubbermaid Hip-Hugger is the Platonic ideal of a laundry basket. It’s durable, hard-wearing, and is designed to be easy to lug around on laundry day with three handles that allow for multiple carrying configurations. It’s a favorite of Sara San Angelo, a.k.a. the Cleaning Lady: “The folding mesh ones are flimsy and usually break, and the ones made of fabric or cloth tend to rip,” she explains. “The Rubbermaid ones are meant to be flung around.” Since the handles are built-in, they can manage the weight of larger loads, she says, and they stack easily when not in use.
Best (less expensive) plastic laundry basket
Material: Plastic | Size: 19.38” x 19.13” x 13.88”
The “pleasing squareness” of this Sterilite basket is one of the reasons Strategist senior editor Jen Trolio has depended on it for more than a decade. She bought some of these baskets in bulk years ago (a set of four goes for about $25), and now has six around her house. They’re highly versatile — she uses them to collect dirty laundry as a hamper in her closet, hold clean laundry that’s fresh from the dryer, and sort folded linens and clothes that are headed to separate rooms to be put away. When the laundry is done, she stacks the baskets to save space (and sometimes nests them inside her Steele trolley, which is nice looking but harder to move around).
Best collapsible laundry hamper
Material: Polyester, plastic | Size: 13.25” x 15” x 23”
If you’re short on space, consider this CleverMade collapsible basket, which comes in a pack of two. Naeemah Ford Goldson, owner of Restore Order Professional Organizing, uses in her own home and appreciates its versatility. It’s large enough for two loads of laundry, but what really sets the basket apart is its handles, which allow you to carry it in a couple different ways. When flattened, the basket can also fit anywhere: inside a drawer, in between the washer and dryer, or on a shelf. Goldson prefers it to hard-sided baskets, which she says “always felt bulky, and I never knew where to put them, so they would just live on top of my dryer until the next laundry day.”
Best hanging laundry hamper
Material: Cotton, polyester | Size: 27” x 6” x 16.25”
If you don’t have enough floor space for a hamper, this hanging Household Essentials hamper is a great choice. I’ve been using it for about three years, with no complaints — it’s solid, durable, and most important, stows my dirty laundry without taking up precious floor space. For a $24 item, it has a lot of small quality-of-life features, like a zipper down the back that makes unloading laundry easier and a hook that can be reoriented to fit over a rod or doorknob. I sort my laundry into Ikea bags before going to the laundromat (a very full Household Essentials hamper equals about two loads of laundry), but the hamper does have the capacity to convert into a bag you can tote around — simply unloop it from its metal frame and cinch the cotton drawstring.
Best backpack-style laundry hamper
Material: Polyester | Size: 21.5” x 14” x 15”
If you’re someone who despises the walk to your local laundromat, prop stylist Cait Gury recommends this CleverMade hamper-slash-backpack. She likes that you can sling it over your shoulder or strap it to your back — whichever way you go, the drawstring top “ensures you won’t lose any socks along the way.” She adds, “It’s made the experience of going to the laundromat much less of a headache.”
Some more laundry supplies we like
Our experts
• Betsy Burnham, an interior designer
• Mary Cornetta, owner of Sort and Sweet and creator of Organized Overall
• Naeemah Ford Goldson, owner of Restore Order Professional Organizing
• Cait Gury, prop stylist
• Ann Lightfoot, co-founder of Done and Done Home
• Lauren Saltman, owner of organizing company Living. Simplified.
• Sara San Angelo, professional house cleaner and a.k.a. the Cleaning Lady
• Natalie Schrier, founder of Cut the Clutter
• Caroline Solomon, home organizer
• Britnee Tanner, professional organizer
• Jen Trolio, Strategist senior editor
• Rachel Winkler, founder of home-organizing service Tidyspot
• Lisa Zaslow, owner of Gotham Organizers
Additional reporting by Ambar Pardilla
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