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We've looked over this guide and stand by our picks.

Let’s face it, there’s nothing glamorous about a toilet brush—but there’s also no need for it to be an embarrassing eyesore. That’s why we like the clean, bristle-hiding design of the OXO Good Grips Compact Toilet Brush and Canister. After we spent more than 40 hours researching toilet cleaning, comparing 45 brushes, and interviewing a nationally renowned researcher of household germs, the OXO is the brush we’d choose to make scrubbing the toilet less of a chore.

The OXO has the best bristles of any brush we tested, with an attractive base that conceals the brush while still letting the head dry out. And its brush head is replaceable, reducing waste.

*At the time of publishing, the price was $16.

The OXO Good Grips Compact Toilet Brush and Canister conceals the brush head almost like magic: The canister opens and closes automatically when you pull the brush out or put it in. And there’s enough air circulation to prevent mildew buildup. In addition to looking great, this brush has the best bristles of any we tested. The OXO pairs stiff, rim-scrubbing bristles with gentle, bowl-brushing fibers, which are capable of picking up substantial grime without flicking much water. The brush heads are also replaceable, which creates less waste. We also appreciate that the OXO comes in beige, white, gray, and black, so you can better match it to your decor.

The Simplehuman brush has a sleeker look than any other we tried, and the caddy allows the replaceable brush head to air-dry quickly. But the unique brush design takes some getting used to.

May be out of stock

May be out of stock

*At the time of publishing, the price was $25.

If the OXO is not available, or if you’re looking for a more polished look, we like the Simplehuman Toilet Brush, available in white or black. The Simplehuman was clearly the most stylish toilet brush we looked at, but it also hit all the right marks on performance. The brush’s unique circular bristle pattern makes it easy to get to the underside of the toilet rim as well as down in the bottom of the bowl, but this may take a little getting used to. The Simplehuman is slightly taller than others we tried, but its caddy is very narrow, so it’s a good choice if you’re short on floor space. The caddy also has an open back that allows the brush to dry between uses. The drawback with the Simplehuman brush is that it’s on the expensive side compared with some others we tested. As with the OXO’s, the Simplehuman’s brush heads are replaceable.

The OXO has the best bristles of any brush we tested, with an attractive base that conceals the brush while still letting the head dry out. And its brush head is replaceable, reducing waste.

*At the time of publishing, the price was $16.

The Simplehuman brush has a sleeker look than any other we tried, and the caddy allows the replaceable brush head to air-dry quickly. But the unique brush design takes some getting used to.

May be out of stock

May be out of stock

*At the time of publishing, the price was $25.

There’s more to toilet brushes than most people realize. We learned this by talking to a lot of people who spend their lives thinking about toilets, germs, cleaning, and sanitation. (We also cleaned a lot of toilets.) Our experts include:

Beyond those interviews, we read through the relevant sections of medical journal articles, cleaning guides and blogs, and the book Where the Germs Are: A Scientific Safari, by science journalist Nicholas Bakalar.

In 2021 we also spoke with James Walsh, vice president of product management for toilet manufacturer American Standard.

You likely have a toilet brush already, but you shouldn’t keep it around forever. Most people probably have brush holders that are festering with hidden germs, and we’re waiting too long to replace them.

Many of the experts we talked to suggested replacing your toilet brush “every few months” or “when you can see the bristles are bent.”

Many of the experts we talked to suggested replacing your toilet brush “every few months” or “when you can see the bristles are bent.” You can sensibly extend the life of your brush if you regularly spray it, as well as its holder, with disinfectant or bleach solution. But it’s not just bacteria that should prompt a toilet-brush replacement. As you wear out and flatten your brush’s bristles, you can eventually start to scrape the handle itself against the porcelain, causing scratches—and creating new places for germs to hide.

It takes a bit more effort than a casual spray of Gatorade-colored cleaning fluid to clean a toilet.

Most people try not to think too much about what they’re doing when they clean a toilet. But when we really considered toilet cleaning for our tests, we realized that the best toilet brush must meet some key criteria. The brush has to reach all the parts of the toilet bowl and scrub the bowl effectively. The holder has to be stable, easy to clean, small enough to fit in a tight bathroom, and designed to allow the brush head to dry. The brush handle must be long enough to keep your hands clean but short enough to let you work around the bowl, and ideally be clad in a nice grippy material. And the brush should be cheap enough that you’ll replace it regularly without giving the purchase a second thought.

Applying this criteria, we began with a field of more than 45 brushes. Some were prohibitively expensive—really, a toilet brush should not be a big investment. Many could be bought at only one or two stores or online retailers, so they weren’t convenient to replace when needed. Most brushes simply had nothing to distinguish them from hundreds of other cheap, white plastic brushes. And some had terrible reviews. We looked for brushes that people liked, with some basic feature to separate them from the pack, and a combination of price and availability that would allow readers to easily buy one now and replace it each year.

After narrowing the field to eight finalists, we did the obvious thing: We used them to clean toilets. We used each of the eight brushes to clean three different toilets that are used by real humans, at an office and in two different households. To assess each one’s cleaning ability, we did visual inspections and watched for the kind of coverage and scrubbing power the bristles provided against the bowl, especially in the hard-to-reach spots like down at the outlet and up under the rim. We also judged each toilet-brush holder to see whether it was easy to clean, hard to tip over, and designed to let wet bristles dry out after use. Then, to get more feedback on our picks, we gathered 24 (surprisingly opinionated) friends and acquaintances—13 men and 11 women—who offered their judgments on the appearance, design, and features of our finalists.

In 2020, we tested four new brushes, three of which had silicone bristles. For this second round of testing, we took the same approach: having multiple people use and analyze the brushes and their holders in a real-world setting.

We tested an additional three brushes and one “toilet mop” in 2021, to see if any silicone options had improved and to see if we could find a budget brush that would make regularly replacing it less of a hassle.

The OXO has the best bristles of any brush we tested, with an attractive base that conceals the brush while still letting the head dry out. And its brush head is replaceable, reducing waste.

*At the time of publishing, the price was $16.

The affordable OXO Good Grips Compact Toilet Brush and Canister is the best-performing set we tested. Its brush has excellent bristles that cleaned better than those on any other brush we tested, and the OXO’s holder totally hides the business end from view and is immensely satisfying to use. This set isn’t the cheapest, but it is a better deal than any of the more expensive models we saw (including others made by OXO).

The OXO’s brush-hiding caddy feels almost magical in practice, opening and closing seemingly without any effort. The magic is driven by a spring-loaded, weighted hinge in the base that flips the holder open when you pull up on the brush. It stays open, then closes when you insert the brush again. There are actually two pieces inside the caddy: a strainer-like upper area that cradles the brush bristles while letting residual water drip out, and a lower basin that catches whatever comes off the brush so the brush is never sitting in its own muck. Unlike the solid reservoir caddies with cheaper brushes, this one lets the bristles completely dry between uses. The caddy’s 5-inch diameter also feels stable, like you won’t easily tip it over.

The OXO’s sleek base is its most defining feature, but its superior bristles are what won over our testers. They’re arranged on the brush head with two stiffness levels: The white bristles at the top of the head are stiffer, for under-rim cleaning, while the longer, blue bristles on the bottom provide more give as you scrub the bowl. A corrugated texture lets each bristle pick up substantial grime without flicking much water.

You can buy a replaceable head for the OXO from Amazon, and you can occasionally find the heads in stock at Target or Bed Bath & Beyond. The plastic on the replacement head we bought fit perfectly, but the color wasn’t an exact match. Be sure not to throw away the black plastic coupling on your brush when you discard the head (a female end)—you’ll need it to attach a replacement head.

With an overall length of 16½ inches, the OXO Compact is an inch or two shorter than its OXO cousins and our runner-up recommendation. This shorter length is a plus, since cleaning with the longer models at times felt somewhat punishing. The OXO’s length also means it’s easier to store the set in an undersink cabinet.

An Amazon reviewer named Kindle Customer hit several common themes: “Well-designed and good-looking (for a toilet bowl brush), small and discreet, this little guy not only melds into the bathroom scenery, but carries out its intended function spectacularly. It puts to shame all those other bowl brushes we’ve all accumulated over the years.”

The holder and brush come in white, black, gray, and “biscuit” (beige). “It’s simple (and) has great potential to go unnoticed,” one tester noted. Another said the OXO “looks like a Comic Sans exclamation point.” To each their own.

For a year and a half, an OXO toilet brush has been regularly used at the house of Wirecutter senior editor Harry Sawyers. “I just pulled it out from behind the toilet to give it a good look over (and washed my hands before returning to the keyboard),” he reports. “It’s in good shape. I haven’t treated it terribly but have hardly pampered it. I shake the brush out vigorously between uses, and while I see a few discolorations looking down deep in the crevices of the base, there’s no buildup in the part of the cradle where the brush sits. I think with a sanitizing wipe, a paper towel, a little alcohol, and an old chopstick, I could get it back to nearly new shape in a few minutes.”

Though we love the look of the OXO, that clever caddy design can be a bit tricky to clean. The hinges, especially, can trap water and muck. Air does circulate within the caddy, but you’ll experience quicker drying if you shake out the brush before stowing it.

And although replacement heads aren’t so expensive, they are hard to find on a lot of store shelves. (We get ours on Amazon.) Also, if you buy the black or biscuit brush and holder, you might be bothered by having to screw on a mismatched white replacement head.

The Simplehuman brush has a sleeker look than any other we tried, and the caddy allows the replaceable brush head to air-dry quickly. But the unique brush design takes some getting used to.

May be out of stock

May be out of stock

*At the time of publishing, the price was $25.

If the OXO is not available, or you’re willing to invest a little more for an aesthetic upgrade, we also like the Simplehuman Toilet Brush. Whereas the other brushes all sport a discreet, utilitarian look, the Simplehuman—with its stainless steel shaft, sleek caddy, and white pommel handle—is designed to be noticed. It’s also a solid cleaner with a nice, if unusual, brush and a narrow caddy that can fit in the tightest of spots.

The Simplehuman’s brush looks more like the helmet of a Spartan warrior than a toilet-cleaning tool. Like the OXO’s, the Simplehuman’s bristles walk a nice line between the stiffness needed to scrub tight angles and the flexibility required to conform to the curved sides of a toilet bowl. Protruding from a central hub in a circular pattern, the uppermost bristles point nearly straight up and are ideal for getting the underside of the toilet rim. The bristles on most brushes, like those on the OXO, stick out only horizontally, so the handle needs to be lowered to really scrub under the rim. The unusual design of the Simplehuman head takes a little getting used to. “It took a while for me to figure out how to hold it,” one tester said.

Like the brush, the Simplehuman caddy combines form with function. It has a wide, open back that freely lets air in and around the brush for quick drying. This sizable opening also allows for easy cleaning of the caddy, something we can’t say about the OXO.

The caddy also has a small magnet at the top that holds the brush in place, suspending it above the bottom of the caddy. This magnet also makes it possible to pick up both the brush and the caddy just by lifting the brush handle—a nice option to have when you’re relocating a wet brush. The downside of this is it can be tricky to get the brush out of the caddy. On the first few tries, we ended up attempting to jiggle the magnet free and even knocked the caddy over at one point. Once we figured out that you first need to tip the handle away from you to disengage the magnet, it was an easy process. (Just be aware that if someone is unfamiliar with this process, they might have a hard time.) Finally, because of the Simplehuman brush’s shape, the caddy is about 3½ inches wide, slimmer than many we found, including our main pick. So the Simplehuman is a good option if you have limited space between the toilet and wall.

The build quality of the Simplehuman is very nice, and it feels much sturdier than any other brush we tested. The metal shaft adds heft, and the handle connections and the bristles all appear to be stable and secure. Replaceable heads are also available. The overall quality combined with the caddy’s pleasant features and the brush shape’s functionality justify the relatively high price of the Simplehuman, which is typically between $20 and $25.

We tested three brushes in Spring 2021, and the IKEA Bolmen toilet brush is the cheapest of the bunch. We hoped the minimal price would make the prospect of replacing the brush often a little less onerous. While our testers found it did the job well, (with one, who cleans toilets professionally, even preferring it to our OXO pick), we think the combination of a better holder and the benefit of only replacing the head instead of the whole brush is worth the more expensive price tag. Also the IKEA brush cost adds up to at least $5 once you factor in shipping costs, so you’ll end up spending about the same amount replacing it anyway, unless you’re craving crowds and Swedish meatballs. u We also tested the Mop-it Bowl Brushes after readers commented on their love for “toilet mops.” These—they came in a pack of four—plastic handled scrubbers look a bit like an oversized q-tip, using the fluffy sponge like fibers to both soak up liquid and spread cleaner around the bowl. They were effective at evenly spreading cleaning fluid and did a decent job scrubbing, but without a holder they became an annoyance after each cleaning (I ended up using a bucket to store them while testing). Also the cheap plastic handles aren’t really great to hold.

The Boomjoy Toilet brush and holder, a silicone tip brush that we found suffered the same problems as the models we tested last year, did a poor job scrubbing due to it’s soft bristles.

In an effort to find a non-plastic option we tried out the Loho Wonderz Natural Coconut Fiber Brush but it also didn’t come with a holder and the shape of the head made it more of a hassle to use. The common u-shape head makes getting under the lip of the bowl a bit easier, but covers less area when scrubbing the rest of the bowl, meaning it’ll take more time to scrub the same area as our picks. It also lacked a replaceable head.

In 2020, we tested three brushes with silicone bristles: the Sellemer Toilet Brush and Holder Set, the Costom Silicone Toilet Brush and Holder (currently unavailable), and the TreeLen Toilet Brush Set (currently unavailable). Brushes like this have recently showed up at a variety of retailers, but unfortunately, none of them were very good at all. These brushes were much softer than regular bristle brushes we’ve tested and didn’t do a good job of scrubbing. In addition, all three suffered from design flaws, such as flimsy handles (one of which unscrewed while we were using it) and too many unnecessary nooks and crannies, where germs could hide.

The OXO Good Grips Toilet Brush and Canister in white plastic and its stainless steel variant have replaceable heads and clever opening mechanisms, and there’s even a flexible neck on the plastic model. But both models float a slotted holding cup over the wider bottom base. This does help your brush drip-dry, but you can’t get into that dark, largely closed-off bottom area for cleaning. In addition, the flexible-neck brush does not flex very far before it feels like it might break.

From the outside, the Libman Designer Bowl Brush & Caddy looked like a great contender: It’s cheap, has a replaceable brush, and features a holder that closes but has plenty of venting and cleaning access—and it’s made in the US to boot. But then we used it. The bristles on the brush were the stiffest of any we tried and arranged in spaced-out clusters. If there is any liquid on the brush when you try to slide it back into the holder, it can flick back a lot of water. Cleaning the holder involves either some pinched-finger moves or dropping the whole thing in some disinfectant and then drying it out. Pass.

We were quick to dismiss toilet brushes whose holders did not allow for airflow, as well as those that had no holder at all. In the latter category, that meant eliminating the swab-style Fuller brush and a very cheap wire-ring brush. With no place to store these brushes, even after drying, there was just too much germ spread for us to recommend that you stash them under your sink or stand them upright on your floor.

Then there were other holders (such as the Home Basics bronze brush and holder) that were too nice for their own good: made of heavy granite or other stones, reactive metals, or matte white surfaces that would never survive unstained.

When you search for toilet brushes on Amazon or just at your local store, you’re also likely to find thin wands with clamps designed to be fitted with “scrubbers” or “refills.” The pitch for using disposable or flushable toilet cleaners is seemingly obvious: Flush, or throw away, the part that touches the toilet, then hide the wand somewhere out of sight.

If you buy the Clorox ToiletWand starter kit from Amazon, you can clean your toilet six times for about $8. The price of replacement pads varies wildly on Amazon, depending on how committed you are to the system. The pads are individually wrapped, and the “wand” is not particularly strong; it’s not hard to find reviews that mention snapped heads. Some companies ask that you throw out their pads, while others claim their pads are flushable. But your wastewater treatment plant, your septic system, and likely your landlord or plumber would really rather not explain it again: Do not flush anything except waste and toilet paper.

As cleaning columnist Jolie Kerr put it: “(Disposable pads) engender lazy cleaning. They don’t do a very good job, they don’t replace an actual scrub brush, and it’s just as inconvenient to have to stash those refills as to keep a toilet brush. They’re the microwave meals of cleaning.” She went on to say, “You still have to put the pads on the wand, which means touching the top of the brush. Do you want to regularly touch the top of your toilet brush?”

We realize that our suggestion of buying a plastic toilet brush and replacing it annually is not environmentally benign. But if you are rigorous in cleaning your toilet brush and its holder, and you keep an eye on the strength of the bristles, you can extend the usable life of your brush, minimizing waste. In either case, we believe that replacing a solid brush once in a while is better than regular disposal of chemical-rich pads and their packaging. Ecological costs aside, from a personal dollars-and-cents standpoint, a basic brush is certainly a lot more affordable.

Tank additives, those tablets or discs that can turn your toilet water as blue as a sports drink, are also a bad idea. These discs seem like an easy and maintenance-free option, as they’re designed to be dropped into the tank, where they dissolve over time, spreading disinfectant around the toilet bowl with every flush. But according to James Walsh, vice president of product management for toilet manufacturer American Standard, the reality is more complicated. “We do not recommend using in-tank cleaners because they will void your warranty,” he told us during an interview. “They will attack the working tank trim in the tank itself.” Basically, these tablets turn the standing water in the tank into a caustic liquid, which can warp the rubber components required to keep the flushing mechanisms functioning. Over time this can lead to leaks and occasionally prevent the toilet from flushing entirely.

Kevin Purdy is a writer, editor, and repair advocate at iFixit. He previously reviewed products at Wirecutter, including mattresses, standing desks, and bike-commuting gear. He has also written for Lifehacker, Popular Science, Fast Company, and other publications.

Doug Mahoney is a senior staff writer at Wirecutter covering home improvement. He spent 10 years in high-end construction as a carpenter, foreman, and supervisor. He lives in a very demanding 250-year-old farmhouse and spent four years gutting and rebuilding his previous home. He also raises sheep and has a dairy cow that he milks every morning.

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