We independently review everything we recommend. When you buy through our links, we may earn a commission. Learn more›
Jackie Reeve is a writer covering all things bedding. She has also reported on towels, rugs, and chicken coops (with help from her 20 backyard pets). foldable garment steamer
The Black+Decker Iron D3030, our previous budget pick, is now our top pick. The pricier Chi iron, our previous top pick, is still a great choice for crafters.
A hot, steamy iron is an essential tool in your laundry toolkit. A steamer does a pretty good job of smoothing fabrics, but nothing creates sharp pleats or melts stubborn wrinkles like an iron.
We’ve tested dozens of irons and researched countless more, and we recommend the Black+Decker Allure Steam Iron D3030 for its powerful steam, durability, and reasonable price.
This affordable iron produces powerful steam and is great for everyday ironing. If you happen to get a lemon (which we did) the manufacturer offers a two-year warranty and great customer service.
This durable and easy-to-use iron is ideal for marathon laundry sessions. It has a convenient, retractable cord and a long auto shutoff that’s helpful for back-and-forth crafting and sewing projects. But it can be harder to find.
This is an almost identical version of the 13102 above, but without a digital display or temperature indicator light. If you can’t find the 13102, this is a suitable replacement.
We looked for irons with forceful bursts and visible clouds of steam. The bigger the puff, the better the iron.
Our iron picks all have at least 1,500 watts, which is enough to get the job done.
We looked for irons that had comfortable handles and weren’t too heavy.
Ideally the cord should be at least 8 feet long, so that you can comfortably work around the ironing board.
This affordable iron produces powerful steam and is great for everyday ironing. If you happen to get a lemon (which we did) the manufacturer offers a two-year warranty and great customer service.
The Black+Decker Allure Steam Iron D3030 creates strong whooshes of steam, its stainless steel plate glides smoothly across a variety of fabrics, and its handle is comfortable to hold and use. It’s an extremely good and affordable iron. Even though the heating element in our first test unit broke after about a year, we easily traded it in for a replacement, thanks to its two-year warranty. Since then, it’s been reliably working for us with no issues since 2016, which is impressive for any iron, but especially an iron at this price. The Black+Decker used to be our budget pick, but after performing so reliably for nearly a decade, we think it’s the best value for most people.
This durable and easy-to-use iron is ideal for marathon laundry sessions. It has a convenient, retractable cord and a long auto shutoff that’s helpful for back-and-forth crafting and sewing projects. But it can be harder to find.
This is an almost identical version of the 13102 above, but without a digital display or temperature indicator light. If you can’t find the 13102, this is a suitable replacement.
The Chi Electronic Iron with Retractable Cord 13102 is one of the best irons I’ve tested, and it’s been a reliable performer for us since 2019 on clothes, household textiles, and sewing projects (where it really shines). Its steam bursts are smooth and powerful, and its soleplate gets nice and hot for more intensive pressing. It has a retractable cord that makes it easy to store, and it has a long (30 minutes) auto-shutoff time when you leave it vertical. That’s helpful for sewists and crafters who want an iron that stays hot while they’re working on a project. We’ve noticed that the 13102 can sometimes be hard to find, in which case we recommend the almost identical 13106 model. This similar model doesn’t have the easy-to-read digital display or an indicator light (to note when it reaches temperature), but otherwise it performs exactly the same. The Chi used to be our top pick—and we still think it’s an excellent iron—but these availability issues (and its higher price) is why we now recommend the Black+Decker for more casual ironers.
I’ve covered irons and ironing boards for Wirecutter since 2015. I’ve interviewed experts, I’ve tested dozens of irons and researched many more, and in nearly a decade of writing about them I’ve logged hundreds of hours of ironing time. I’m a quilter with almost 20 years of experience, so irons are one of my most-used tools. I’ve also written our guides to sheets, quilts, and comforters (among many others)—I know a lot about textiles and how to look after them.
After years of testing irons, researching them, and talking to experts, this is what I look for in a good iron:
Whenever I test an iron, I try out all the buttons, dials, and water tank covers to see how comfortable they are to use. I weigh each iron without any water inside, I measure the length of the cord, and I measure how much water it can hold to the fill line. I time how long it takes to reach the hottest setting, and I evaluate how much steam it produces, both horizontally and vertically (most irons can also be used as vertical steamers, but I generally find this pretty awkward and prefer to just use an actual steamer).
I test each iron’s wrinkle-busting ability on a variety of materials using different heat settings, and I evaluate how comfortable that model is to use and how well-balanced it feels. I time the auto-shutoff features both horizontally (with the hot soleplate on the ironing board) and vertically (horizontal shutoff times are usually around 30 seconds or less, for safety reasons). I take notes on everything—how easy the iron is to fill, how it’s constructed, how many steam holes it has, how visible the water is inside the water tank, if it leaks, if it has a handy retractable cord. Then I recruit another tester (typically my mom, a lifelong sewist) to weigh in on irons, too.
This affordable iron produces powerful steam and is great for everyday ironing. If you happen to get a lemon (which we did) the manufacturer offers a two-year warranty and great customer service.
We’ve been recommending the Black+Decker Allure Steam Iron D3030 since 2016, and it’s still the best iron I’ve found for under $50.
It’s lightweight and powerful. This Black+Decker iron consistently produces stronger bursts of steam than more powerful irons I’ve tried. It glides smoothly across every fabric I’ve tested and has a comfortable handle, and it flattens tough wrinkles and creases. It’s not quite as powerful as our other pick, the Chi, but it’s significantly lighter—it weighs 2 pounds 13 ounces when empty, and the Chi is 3 pounds 8.6 ounces.
It heats up fast and needs fewer refills than other irons. The D3030 reaches the hottest setting and begins producing steam in about 30 seconds, which is lightning-fast compared with most irons I’ve tried. Irons typically need about a minute to get up to temp (our other pick, the Chi, needs a minute and a half). The auto-shutoff feature kicks in after 30 seconds if you leave it soleplate-down, and after 8 minutes if it’s sitting vertically, which is standard for the majority of irons I’ve tested (although the Chi, our also-great pick, stays on for 30 minutes when sitting vertically).
It has a 14-ounce water tank, the biggest of our picks (and one of the biggest I’ve ever tested). As a result, it produces steam for longer than any other iron I’ve tested. It lasts about 22 minutes before needing a refill; the iron I needed to refill the most in recent testing lasted about 11 minutes.
It’s consistently available. We’ve been recommending this iron for nearly a decade, and it’s always been in stock somewhere, which is unusual. Irons get discontinued often, but the D3030 sticks around and doesn’t seem to sell out.
These days, the Black+Decker D3030 looks and feels like a 7-year-old iron. It’s probably been through at least a hundred hours of ironing at this point. Some of the buttons make creakier noises than they used to, and if I don’t empty it completely it will occasionally leak a little water if I store it flat. It still works perfectly, though. I’ve used it on many, many different materials, including iron-on transfers and synthetic felt, and I’ve never stained the soleplate or melted anything to it.
This durable and easy-to-use iron is ideal for marathon laundry sessions. It has a convenient, retractable cord and a long auto shutoff that’s helpful for back-and-forth crafting and sewing projects. But it can be harder to find.
This is an almost identical version of the 13102 above, but without a digital display or temperature indicator light. If you can’t find the 13102, this is a suitable replacement.
The 1,700-watt Chi Electronic Iron with Retractable Cord 13102 is a fantastic steam iron. It’s more expensive than our top pick, but it’s performed so reliably since 2019 that we think it’s a worthwhile investment. If you can’t find the 13102, we recommend the almost identical 13106 model.
It glides with ease. The Chi 13102 is one of the most comfortable irons I’ve ever used. The ceramic soleplate (Chi’s marketing says it’s “titanium infused,” whatever that means) glides more easily across most fabrics than the stainless steel plates of the Black+Decker, and it gets hot enough for tasks where you need high heat, like pressing clothes.
It’s comfortable and ergonomic. The Chi is heavier than our top pick, the Black+Decker D3030 (it weighs 3 pounds 8.6 ounces, compared with 2 pounds 13 ounces for the D3030), but it’s so well-balanced that it doesn’t require as much elbow grease to push out wrinkles. One of our testers, a 70-something woman who prefers a lightweight iron, still preferred the Chi to the Black+Decker because of the comfortable handle, the way the weight is distributed through the iron, and the stability of the hot iron when you sit it vertically on its heel.
It has a retractable cord and other thoughtful features. The Chi has a retractable cord for easy storage—our top pick, by contrast, does not—and its controls offer more options for levels of steam and heat for different fabrics than most irons I’ve tested. A dial controls the fabric settings, which are shown on a light-up display at the top of the iron (instead of on the dial itself). It’s bigger, brighter, and much easier to read than on irons with the settings printed in tiny letters on the dial.
Our 70-something tester found the red-tinted plastic water tank easier to see than the Black+Decker’s dark gray-tinted tank, making it easier to read the MAX line when filling it. The water tank cover has a sliding latch instead of a flip top like most irons, which testers found was easier to open.
It whooshes powerful steam. The Chi’s steam bursts are long and smooth, applying consistent steam to the surface of fabrics. It also has many more steam holes on the soleplate than the Black+Decker, so the bursts are more powerful and abundant. I don’t have to push the steam button as often as I do with the Black+Decker, which is a thumb-saver during frequent use or long sessions at the ironing board.
It doesn’t drip. I’ve never had problems with drips from the Chi plate’s holes, which are a chronic issue with many irons I’ve tested, including our top pick. The Chi’s water tank holds 12 ounces, slightly less than the Black+Decker’s 14 ounces. But because it gives off so much steam, it does need to be refilled more often. I ran out of water after about 15 minutes of ironing, but the Black+Decker can go for about 22 minutes.
It’s excellent for crafters. I love this iron for almost every craft project, from quilts to Halloween costumes. (For messier projects that might melt onto the iron’s soleplate, however, I’d opt for the cheaper, easily replaced Black+Decker.) My favorite feature is its 30-minute auto-shutoff time, one of the longest of any iron I’ve tried (most are about eight minutes). If you’re working on a project and constantly going back and forth to the ironing board, this feature is a time-saver, keeping the iron hotter for longer so it’s ready when you are—this is especially helpful for the Chi 13102 because it’s the slowest of our picks to heat up and produce steam.
This Chi model also has the longest, narrowest tip of our picks, which helps it get into pesky tight spaces if you’re ironing, say, a complicated quilt block or working on a curved garment seam. Like the Black+Decker, it comes with a two-year limited warranty from the manufacturer (PDF).
The Chi looks almost as new as it did when I opened the box in 2019. The buttons and mechanisms all still function smoothly, with no signs that springs or screws are starting to wear down. It heats up as well as it did on day one, and the auto-shutoff feature still seems to last as long as ever.
If you want an iron under $50 (and our top pick is unavailable): The Black & Decker Elite Pro D3300C is the next-best one I’ve tested recently. It costs about the same as our top pick, but it’s 1,700 watts instead of 1,600. It’s fussier to fill, and it has a smaller water tank (11 ounces to the D3030’s 14 ounces), so it needs refills more often. But it was a solid performer, and it also has a two-year warranty.
If you’re a crafter (and the Chi 13102 is unavailable): The Rowenta Steamforce Plus DW9440 iron is the next-best high-end iron I’d recommend for anyone who irons a lot, like crafters and sewists. It has a powerful 1,800 watts, and it gets hot and steamy. Like the Chi, it’s slow to heat up to the hottest temp, and it has a smaller water tank—12 ounces—but I ironed for about 18 minutes before needing to refill it, longer than the Chi. It has an 8-foot-long cord that doesn’t get in the way while you’re working, it’s easy to fill. Still, it only has an 8-minute auto shutoff (all Rowentas are 8 minutes), compared with 30 minutes for the Chi. It’s also slightly heavier and significantly more expensive than the Chi, has only a one-year warranty (our picks are both two years), and the cord isn’t retractable.
If you want a cordless iron: The Panasonic 360 NI-WL6207 Cordless Ceramic Plate Iron is the best cordless iron I’ve tested, but there’s a big caveat: None of them were practical for everyday ironing. They constantly need to be replaced on their bases to stay up to temp (we’re talking every few seconds), they don’t hold much water, and it’s awkward to find a home for the charging base on an ironing board. The Panasonic 360 is very small—the water tank holds only 7 ounces of water—but it’s a great little iron for crafters and sewers. (It even says “For Quilters” on the side.) It has a 30-minute auto shutoff like the Chi (when it’s sitting on its base) and a retractable cord for the charging base. The entire water tank is removable for really easy filling, and it comes with a snap-on carrying case with a handle, if you want to take it on the go to a sewing class or craft circle. It’s light and steamy for mild household ironing, but it’s not as powerful as our picks—it’s only 1,500 watts. I could iron for more than 20 minutes before refilling the tank, though (which did include a lot of trips back onto the charging base).
If you prefer a simple, retro design: Singer’s SteamCraft Plus Iron was one of the best irons I tested in 2024, based on performance. The construction isn’t as good as our picks—the water tank cover is flimsy, and it’s poorly finished around the edges of the soleplate. But it costs about the same as our top pick, and it works well. It’s light and steamy.
Our former upgrade pick, the Rowenta Steamforce DW9280, was one of the best high-end irons we’ve ever tested but, unfortunately, it’s been discontinued. If you do see the DW9280 for sale, and you want to invest in a really good iron for sewing projects, we still think it’s one of the best irons we’ve ever tested.
The Panasonic 360 NI-WL600 Cordless Iron is small and not that powerful. We preferred the Panasonic 360 NI-WL6207 if you want a cordless iron.
The PurSteam Professional Grade 1800-Watt Iron was a favorite with one tester for its design and functionality, but it leaked. A lot.
The Rowenta Steamforce Pro DW9540 was heavy and not as powerful as its predecessor, our beloved (and discontinued) former upgrade pick, the Rowenta Steamforce DW9280.
The Rowenta Access DW2459 wasn’t powerful or intuitive to use, and it was uncomfortable to hold.
The OMAIGA Cordless Iron was frustrating to use, leaky, and didn’t iron well.
The Black & Decker ICL500 Cordless Iron was leaky, awkward to use, and not very powerful.
I hated the Black+Decker Vitessa Advanced Steam Iron ICR2020. It was hard to fill, it was uncomfortable to hold, and the steam was flimsy and ineffective.
The Rowenta Everlast Anticalc DW7180 leaked right away during our testing, and there’s no excuse for an iron that costs $100-plus to leak straight out of the box.
The Sunbeam Turbo Steam Iron GCSBCL-202-000 has a retractable cord, a great feature if you want easy storage. It’s one of the least-powerful irons I’ve tested, though.
This article was edited by Daniela Gorny and Christine Ryan.
Ingrid Johnson, professor, Textile Development and Marketing Department at the Fashion Institute of Technology, email interview, October 28, 2015
Tod Greenfield, co-owner of Martin Greenfield Clothiers, phone interview, October 27, 2015
Kimberly Chaveco, senior product manager at Rowenta, email interview, January 12, 2016
Members of the NYC Metro Modern Quilters Guild, online group chat, October 14, 2015
Jackie Reeve is a senior staff writer covering bedding, organization, and home goods at Wirecutter since 2015. Previously she was a school librarian, and she’s been a quilter for about 15 years. Her quilt patterns and her other written work have appeared in various publications. She moderates Wirecutter’s staff book club and makes her bed every morning.
Customized labels are a cute and convenient way to help kids keep track of their own stuff—and get things back when they’re lost.
For the second time, our favorite board is the Brabantia Ironing Board B . It’s the best we’ve tried for the price—just the right size, with a sturdy build.
An iron isn’t the only way to blast away wrinkles.
by Jackie Reeve and Zoe Vanderweide
To smooth wrinkles without an iron, try the Conair Turbo ExtremeSteam Garment Steamer . It’s light and easy to maneuver, and you can control the force of the steam.
rechargeable cordless clothes steamer Wirecutter is the product recommendation service from The New York Times. Our journalists combine independent research with (occasionally) over-the-top testing so you can make quick and confident buying decisions. Whether it’s finding great products or discovering helpful advice, we’ll help you get it right (the first time).