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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). steam iron handheld
We've removed the Rowenta SteamForce DW9280 as an upgrade pick because it appears to be mostly discontinued.
A hot, steamy iron is a crucial tool in your laundry arsenal. A steamer does a pretty good job of smoothing fabrics, but nothing creates sharp pleats or flattens stubborn wrinkles like an iron.
We’ve tested more than two dozen irons and researched countless more, and we recommend the Chi Electronic Iron with Retractable Cord 13102 for its powerful steam, durability over time, and useful features for frequent ironers.
This durable iron flattens creases in no time, and it stays hot longer than any other iron we’ve tested, so it’s ideal for marathon laundry sessions and craft projects with lots of back-and-forth trips to the ironing board.
This affordable iron produces more powerful steam than many other models we’ve tried (even pricier ones), so it removes wrinkles quickly. The company has strong customer service, too. The heating element, however, is prone to breaking.
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 durable iron flattens creases in no time, and it stays hot longer than any other iron we’ve tested, so it’s ideal for marathon laundry sessions and craft projects with lots of back-and-forth trips to the ironing board.
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 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. It does take about a minute-and-a-half to heat up to the highest temperature, which is three times longer than the Black+Decker.
This affordable iron produces more powerful steam than many other models we’ve tried (even pricier ones), so it removes wrinkles quickly. The company has strong customer service, too. The heating element, however, is prone to breaking.
The Black+Decker Allure Professional 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 a fantastic, affordable iron—as long as it works. This iron was once our top pick, but after a year, the heating element in our test unit broke. Thanks to its two-year warranty, I easily traded it in for a replacement, which I’ve been using since late 2016 with no problems. We’ve seen similar reports of mixed reliability in reviews, as well. If you don’t mind possibly replacing this iron every so often, it’s still a top performer, and it’s almost half the price of the Chi 13102.
I’m a senior staff writer at Wirecutter, and I’ve covered irons since 2015. I’ve also written our guides to ironing boards, sheets, blankets, and robes (among many others), and I’m a quilt designer with more than a decade of experience. I iron almost every day. I’ve talked about irons with Ingrid Johnson, a professor in the Textile Development and Marketing Department at the Fashion Institute of Technology; Tod Greenfield, co-owner of bespoke New York City tailor Martin Greenfield Clothiers; Kimberly Chaveco, senior product manager at Rowenta at the time of our interview; and members of the NYC Metro Modern Quilters Guild (I’m a former member myself but have since moved to the Seattle area).
In addition to testing irons for Wirecutter, as a quilter I’ve been a heavy iron user for years. I’ve also read hundreds of iron owner reviews on various major retailer sites, including Amazon, Bed Bath & Beyond, Target, and Walmart, and I’ve checked review sites like The Strategist and Good Housekeeping for their recommendations, noting how they compare to my own testing experience. These are the qualities I’ve found that make the best irons:
Strong steam bursts: The amount of steam whooshing out of an iron’s soleplate affects how quickly you can press an item, especially with heavier fabrics. I look for forceful bursts and visible clouds of steam while ironing—the bigger the puff, the better the iron. I also look for irons that strike a good balance between lots of steam and a water tank that doesn’t need constant refilling.
Enough wattage: Every iron we recommend offers at least 1,500 watts, which is enough to get the job done. In testing, I’ve found that low-wattage irons don’t produce enough heat and steam to fight tough wrinkles. Higher-priced, more powerful irons produce bigger clouds of steam and make the task faster.
Comfort: An iron that is too heavy or has an uncomfortable handle makes the chore harder on your arms and hands. Some heft can be helpful for pushing wrinkles out of fabric, but having the right combination of weight, an ergonomic handle, and powerful steam makes ironing much easier.
A good warranty and responsive customer service: Testing irons for this guide has been particularly frustrating because we’ve found so many of them—even the top performers—to have reliability problems. We’ve been reporting on irons since 2013, and almost every year we’ve changed our picks after long-term testing and reader feedback revealed problems. The best irons we’ve tried perform beautifully, but we just can’t guarantee they’ll last long. If an iron is going to fail, it seems to happen within two years of purchase (based on my experience and all the reviews I’ve read), and that’s the typical warranty length I’ve seen. And if you do have to replace your iron under warranty, you need good customer service to make the process as painless as possible.
A long cord: A cord that’s at least 8 feet long offers more mobility for you to work along the entire length of an ironing board and makes the iron easier to use if you’re tall. A long cord is also helpful if your electrical outlets aren’t conveniently located.
After evaluating models based on the above criteria, reading owner reviews, and combing our own reader comments, I came up with a list of 16 irons in 2019. We narrowed the list to 13 irons that we brought in for testing, including brand-new samples of our three current picks for retesting, new-to-us irons, and a few options that we had tested and dismissed in years prior. (These were models that other publications, including The Strategist and Good Housekeeping, recommended—I wanted to give them a fresh look.)
In 2019, I set up the irons in my home with our top-pick ironing board, the Brabantia Ironing Board B, and ran them through a series of tests. I timed how long each iron took to heat up and to automatically shut off (a safety feature that’s standard on every iron I’ve seen). I measured the water tanks to their fill lines, timed how long the steam lasted before the tank needed a refill, and noted how powerful the bursts were. I also measured the length of the cords.
I tested each iron’s wrinkle-busting ability on a variety of materials that I kept in a laundry basket for a week to make sure they were good and wrinkly: button-down shirts, cotton pillowcases, silk tops, cotton-polyester tees, and denim. I noted which irons produced weak steam or leaked water from the holes in the soleplate, causing wet spots. I also noted how comfortable each iron was to hold and use, and I recruited another tester (my mom) to weigh in on comfort, too. For 2019, the top performers turned out to be the same three irons we’d been recommending and long-term testing for several years: the Maytag M400 (now discontinued), the Rowenta DW9280, and the Black+Decker D3030. In 2023, we replaced the discontinued Maytag model with the Chi 13102, which we had been long-term testing since 2019.
This durable iron flattens creases in no time, and it stays hot longer than any other iron we’ve tested, so it’s ideal for marathon laundry sessions and craft projects with lots of back-and-forth trips to the ironing board.
The 1,700-watt Chi Electronic Iron with Retractable Cord 13102 is a fantastic steam iron that has performed reliably for three years of continued testing. It’s a new top pick for 2023, but I originally tested it in 2019 and have continued using it regularly since. We’ve had several top-pick irons over the years, and this Chi model is the most expensive iron we’ve ever recommended as a top pick, but it is so pleasant to use, and so durable compared with our past top picks, that we’ve concluded it’s a worthwhile investment. It’s an effective everyday iron for eliminating wrinkles, it’s the most comfortable of our picks to use, and it has clever features that make it my favorite iron for sewists and crafters. It’s been consistently available since it was released in 2017, and it comes with a two-year limited warranty from the manufacturer (PDF).
The Chi 13102’s steam bursts are long and smooth, so it applied consistent steam to the surface of our testing fabrics. The Chi iron also has a large water tank (12 ounces ounces), so it can produce steam for longer before needing a refill. And in three years of semi-regular use of the Chi 13102, I’ve never had problems with drips from the plate’s holes, which are a chronic issue with most irons I’ve tested, including our budget pick, the Black+Decker D3030.
Since 2019, the Chi 13102 has become my go-to iron because it’s so comfortable to use. At 3.3 pounds, it is heavier than the Black+Decker iron but lighter than other high-end irons. It feels well balanced, and its heftiness helps apply pressure to fabrics so I don’t need to push down as hard on wrinkles to eliminate them. Because of those long, smooth bursts of steam, I also don’t have to push the steam button as often, which is a thumb-saver during frequent use or long sessions at the ironing board. 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. Even little touches such as the water-tank cover, which has a sliding latch instead of a flip top as on most irons, and the retractable cord (it’s our only pick that has one) are less physically taxing to use, and they make the whole experience of ironing less of a hassle.
As someone with over 15 years of experience quilting and sewing, 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 model.) My favorite feature on this Chi iron is its 30-minute auto-shutoff time, 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 pressing, say, a complicated quilt block or working on a curved garment seam.
The Chi 13102 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’re forgetful about shutting off your iron when you’re finished, or if you have young kids or curious pets around, the Chi 13102’s 30-minute auto-shutoff time might not work for you. Both of our other picks shut off after less than 10 minutes. And, as we mentioned, this Chi iron is the priciest top pick we’ve ever had in this guide. We were reluctant to recommend it in 2019 because of the price, but after observing several years of standout performance and consistent availability, we believe it’s an investment that should pay off over time.
This affordable iron produces more powerful steam than many other models we’ve tried (even pricier ones), so it removes wrinkles quickly. The company has strong customer service, too. The heating element, however, is prone to breaking.
The Black+Decker Allure Professional Steam Iron D3030 is the best iron I’ve found for about $50. It was once a top pick, and it’s one of the most powerful irons I’ve tried. It has the most unpredictable reliability of our picks, though, which is why we no longer recommend it in the top spot. This Black+Decker iron consistently produces stronger bursts of steam than most other irons I’ve tested, even though it’s less powerful than our other picks, with only 1,600 watts. It weighs 3.1 pounds, making it the lightest of our picks (the Chi 13102 is 3.3 pounds), and it has a 14-ounce water tank, the biggest of our picks. As a result, it produces steam for longer than the Chi, lasting about 22 minutes before needing a refill. In addition, the D3030 is the fastest to heat up of the irons we recommend, producing steam in 30 seconds. I’ve also tried the Allure D3040, a very similar iron with a digital display, but I’ve found the cheaper D3030 to be the better performer.
This Black+Decker model’s reliability problems are well documented in owner reviews. I also had to replace our original review unit when the heating element suddenly stopped working after a year (I used the iron two or three times a week). The two-year warranty covered it, though, and Black+Decker’s replacement process was straightforward—I didn’t have to send back the whole iron, just the plug. I’ve now been using its replacement since 2016 with no problems. That’s more than six years of steady performance, with semi-regular use, from the replacement, although over time the Chi 13102 has surpassed the D3030 as my favorite everyday iron because it’s more comfortable to use. That length of service would make the D3030 more reliable than almost any other iron I’ve tested if it were not for the breakage of our initial test model. Irons, especially cheap irons, are unpredictable, and the D3030 is a perfect example—you could end up with one that breaks quickly or one that lasts for ages. For the price and performance, we recommend it as long as you don’t mind the possibility of replacing your iron every so often. It’s excellent—until it isn’t.
These days, the Black+Decker D3030 looks and feels like a six-year-old iron. It doesn’t look as new and shiny as it did when it came out of the box, and some of the buttons make creakier noises than they used to. The iron still works perfectly, though, and I’ve managed not to melt stuff on the soleplate or stain it with anything.
In early 2023 we’ll be testing several new irons under $100, including the Conair ExtremeSteam Pro Steam Iron GI300, the Rowenta Access Steam DW2459, and the Singer SteamCraft Plus. We’re also considering some cordless irons—a category we haven’t tested in years—as well as newer iron models from Chi. We’ll update this guide with fresh testing results soon.
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 and is hard to find anywhere. 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 Black+Decker Allure Digital Stainless Steel Soleplate Iron D3040 is a slightly upgraded version of the Black+Decker D3030, our budget pick. The main difference is this model’s digital display, which is a flashy, fun add-on but is a little less intuitive than the controls of the D3030. The main reason we didn’t pick this iron is that it didn’t perform as well as the D3030 or the Chi 13102. It also now appears to be discontinued.
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. It’s only 1,200 watts, lower than we recommend—and in our tests, using it was a good reminder of the importance of a more powerful iron.
We brought in the PurSteam Professional Grade 1700 Watt Steam Iron for testing and then discovered that it was discontinued.
The Rowenta Everlast Anticalc DW7180 leaked right away during our testing, and there’s no excuse for an iron costing $100-plus to leak straight out of the box. It also was the least effective iron in our 2017 testing for getting out wrinkles.
I used to own the Rowenta Professional DW8061 and had major problems with it leaking. The unit we tested in 2017 was no different: It gave off a good amount of steam, but the leaks became too problematic for delicate quilt work or favorite clothes.
The Shark Lightweight Professional GI435 (now discontinued) was terrible, which wasn’t a huge surprise for an iron so cheap ($25 at the time of our research). As soon as I started testing, it left a scorch mark on a T-shirt, with hardly any pressure.
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, but if you can find it for less than $20, it isn’t bad.
In past years we’ve also tested the Black+Decker Digital Advantage Professional Steam Iron D2030, as well as these now-discontinued models:
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.
cord cordless steam iron 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).