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By Cey'na Smith kitchen faucet with sprayer
Cey’na Smith is a writer focused on home improvement and emergency prep. She has updated guides to shower caddies, showerheads, fans, and more.
We have added a pick for a portable shower caddy, the Room Essentials Mesh Shower Caddy.
We were skeptical that any shower caddy could be worth spending more than about $20, but after researching over 100 shower caddies and trying over 20 of them, we’re sure the OXO Aluminum 3-Tier Shower Caddy is the only one of these things you’ll have to buy for a very long time.
This shower caddy is easier than others to install and remove, has better stability, ample capacity, high-quality materials, and a durable design that’s backed by OXO’s guarantee.
More adjustable and versatile than the OXO, this Simplehuman product is a truly excellent shower caddy, although it costs a lot and is not quite as simple to install.
Similar to the Plus, Simplehuman’s XL adds a vertical space between the shelves to accommodate a handheld showerhead hose.
If you can’t use a traditional shower caddy, this tension rod fits into the corner and extends from 5 to 9 feet. Its easy, one-step extension beat out the others we tested.
If you are a college student or use a shared shower, this portable shower caddy has ample storage, dries quickly, and has a great price point of under $10.
This shower caddy is easier than others to install and remove, has better stability, ample capacity, high-quality materials, and a durable design that’s backed by OXO’s guarantee.
The OXO Aluminum 3-tier Shower Caddy is easier than others to hook over the shower arm, and it’s more stable thanks to a grippy rubberized hook and sturdy wall-hugging suction cups along its bottom. All sizes of bottles stayed tidy and easily accessible on its durable aluminum shelves, and its lower soap dish removes easily for cleaning. These high-quality materials and features stood apart from the cheaper caddies—which can be cramped, flimsy, and prone to rust—as did OXO’s reputation and guarantee, a bit of long-term assurance we’d welcome for any home upgrade.
More adjustable and versatile than the OXO, this Simplehuman product is a truly excellent shower caddy, although it costs a lot and is not quite as simple to install.
Similar to the Plus, Simplehuman’s XL adds a vertical space between the shelves to accommodate a handheld showerhead hose.
The Simplehuman Adjustable Shower Caddy Plus and Simplehuman Adjustable Shower Caddy XL cost more than the OXO but provided added versatility, with features like adjustable-height necks and shelves to fit varying sizes of bottles, multiple hooks, and more storage options overall. The Plus is excellent for fixed showerheads, and if you have a handheld showerhead—with a dangling hose that normally interferes with a shower caddy—get the XL. It’s very similar but adds a vertical cutout between the shelves where the hose can hang and it helps with stability when using the handheld showerhead.
If you can’t use a traditional shower caddy, this tension rod fits into the corner and extends from 5 to 9 feet. Its easy, one-step extension beat out the others we tested.
A pole-style caddy in a far corner of the shower can improve your shower experience. It holds a lot, declutters the showerhead area, keeps the shower tidy, and is super-sturdy. A good one, like the OXO Good Grips Quick-Extend Aluminum Pole Caddy, is more expensive than a hanging caddy. Why spend this much money on a pole caddy when you can get a cheaper one for a fraction of the price? This model’s extendable single-pole design was easier to install than multiple-pole competitors we tested—it’s less frustrating than fitting multiple poles together, and the telescoping pole design is sturdier too. A single connection locks it in place between 5 and 9 feet, and it securely wedges between the floor (or flat tub ledge) and ceiling without shaking. Plus, its shelves can pop on and off for cleaning. On others we tried, removing the shelves meant taking down the whole pole. While cheaper pole caddies might last a couple of years before they get rusty or wobbly, this one carries OXO’s lifetime guarantee—a reassurance we appreciate given this item’s price.
If you are a college student or use a shared shower, this portable shower caddy has ample storage, dries quickly, and has a great price point of under $10.
In a shared shower space, a portable shower caddy can make a huge difference in holding and concealing personal items in one place when you’re showering and afterward. Unlike other picks in this guide, the Room Essentials Mesh Shower Caddy was the least expensive portable shower caddy we tested. However, it was the most effective, and at only $8, it surpassed our expectations. The tote design, with seven different pockets and a hook, held an abundant amount of hygiene products, and the mesh design throughout made it quick-drying and lightweight.
Prior to testing for this guide, I did not put much consideration into the have a shower caddy in my bathroom. I simply bought an inexpensive shower caddy at a big-box store and hoped for the best. This is solely because If I am spending money, I usually spend it on things I love or find essential. A shower caddy did not fall into this category because I use a vast amount of products so they always tend to fall out or the caddy becomes ridiculously crammed. The shower caddy also rusts and has soap scum buildup and causes me to buy another one. I began to find it more convenient to keep my essential products on the bathtub and window ledge for easy access, and to keep my specialty items within my bathroom cabinet and grab them when needed.
Going into this research, I was skeptical that shower caddies will truly make a positive difference in my shower experience and I also was questioning if caddies at a higher price are worth it. After pushing over 20 shower caddies to their limits, seeing the best alongside the cheap and complicated ones, I was converted. Spending a bit more money really makes a difference and now I consider a shower caddy an essential (it just has to be the right one). I wouldn’t go as far as saying I love shower caddies now, but I’d rather spend more on a nice one that does the job well and will last a long time than a cheap one that I have to constantly replace over the years.
I spent 35 hours researching 50 models, including previous picks, and tested 25. All together, myself and four writers who worked on prior versions of this guide have spent more than 70 hours researching more than 100 shower caddies.
Every shower needs a caddy—especially when multiple people share the bathroom. A good caddy lets you stay more organized, and it’s easier to take down and clean a caddy than scrub soap scum off the shelf and wall. It can also overcome the problem of rust, which plagues cheaper caddies. We tested these in a few showers and in the process convinced other skeptics—for example, my parents had never even considered a shower caddy and said they will absolutely be buying one now.
After stuffing, shaking, and dunking 23 toiletry bags, we chose five that can serve as your bathroom-in-a-bag in a variety of travel scenarios.
We scoured Amazon, Google, and even TikTok looking for every shower caddy we could find. Our initial list included contenders from well-known, reputable brands and manufacturers we’d never heard of. We mainly focused on the classic over-the-showerhead design, because it’s the most popular and easiest to install. We also looked at non-traditional caddies such as shower shelves, free standing, over-door and pole-style versions. We read lots of reviews, interviewed a few manufacturers, and narrowed down our list with the following criteria:
We eventually pared our list down to 15 finalists, including picks from earlier iterations of this guide. In 2022, with a new writer overseeing the topic, we started from scratch in a new test venue, beginning an evaluation that paired our former picks against the best competitors we could find.
Once the test models arrived, we pushed the shower caddies to their limits. I’m a product hoarder and enjoy having value-size products. I also have curly hair with a mind of its own, which means I have different types of shampoos and conditioners for different days: One (okay, two) for when I feel like I have a lot of product buildup, one for if my scalp is feeling particularly itchy, a cheap conditioner. a conditioner for color-treated hair, a tea-tree oil shampoo-conditioner pair for the ultimate salonlike experience, and two conditioning masks. I also have multiple face washes and scrubs. All together, I loaded the shower caddies with up to 150 ounces of showering products in different-size bottles—plus a bar of soap, a facial cleansing brush, a hair brush, a razor, and a loofah.
This shower caddy is easier than others to install and remove, has better stability, ample capacity, high-quality materials, and a durable design that’s backed by OXO’s guarantee.
Of the 20 shower caddies we tested, the OXO Aluminum 3-Tier Shower Caddy is the one we’d recommend if you're tired of replacing a rusted-out wire rack every 18 months. It’s easier than others to install, and it’s more stable thanks to its grippy hook and suction cups and has ample capacity for two people’s toiletries.
It has quality materials and ease of cleaning surpass cheaper models, while being more affordable than some other excellent shower caddies we saw. OXO’s reputation and guarantee provide some long-term assurance, a detail that stands out among the hordes of mystery companies on Amazon. The OXO is the easiest of our picks to install. It has a simple hook at the top and a rotating bar with two suction cups at the bottom to stick it to your shower wall. Its rubberized hook requires little effort to attach and detach—I did both while it was fully stocked with products—but it’s sturdy and won't slip down the showerhead arm, unlike others we tested.
Suction cups at the bottom stabilize the entire unit, and the short bar they’re connected to can rotate to get the best grip on a shower wall or tile. It's secure: Even loaded with products, it didn't budge after repeated smacks to its side. The only other caddies this sturdy were by Simplehuman—but you must screw-tighten their hooks onto the shower arm, a slightly annoying step that the OXO conveniently skips.
The OXO held more products in varying sizes and shapes than most caddies we tested. With two full size shelves and a large soap dish, it holds four bottles of shampoos and conditioners ranging from 8 ounces to 16 ounces, a 7-ounce tube of shaving cream, one 16-ounce face wash, an 34-ounce bottle of body wash, a 5.5 ounce of body wash, a bar of soap, one standard razor, and a shower puff. Its soap dish, which includes a couple of handy hooks for a razor and loofah, is removable for cleaning.
OXO prominently claims that the caddy, with its anodized aluminum finish, will never rust—a problem with other caddies, like for this Amazon reviewer, who bought the OXO to replace a rusted rack. We couldn’t test all the caddies long enough to check for rust, but we will look for it in long-term testing. One reason we recommend this product, though, is that OXO’s guarantee means even something like rust is not a huge concern, as the company has proven on many occasions that it's willing to honor the guarantee for any products that don’t live up to its claims.
The OXO shower caddy does not adjust up and down, unlike similar models from Simplehuman, which let you raise and lower the shelves and the central beam. A few reviewers on Amazon complained that the top shelf was too high to reach. This was a bit of a problem for me. For context, my showerhead is attached to the wall at about 85 inches from the tub floor, putting the caddy’s top shelf at just at 7 feet. I’m 5-foot-3, and I could easily reach it with a bit of stretching, however I do have long limbs.
A review also complained that the suction cups didn’t work well on tile. We haven’t seen this issue in testing on smooth tile, and we can confirm the suction cups don’t budge at all on an acrylic shower enclosure. But uneven or porous tile surfaces would likely present a problem for this or any other suction cup.
More adjustable and versatile than the OXO, this Simplehuman product is a truly excellent shower caddy, although it costs a lot and is not quite as simple to install.
Similar to the Plus, Simplehuman’s XL adds a vertical space between the shelves to accommodate a handheld showerhead hose.
The absolute best behind-the-showerhead caddies we tried were the Simplehuman Adjustable Shower Caddy Plus and (if you need to accommodate a handheld showerhead’s dangling hose) the Adjustable Shower Caddy XL.
Their quality and stability are comparable to the OXO’s, and their adjustable height and shelves add more configuration options. The extra features and adjustability add to the cost, however, and installing either Simplehuman caddy isn’t as easy as getting the OXO in place.
The Simplehuman models add a slightly annoying step to the installation. Once you loop the caddy’s hook over the shower arm, you have to use a screwdriver to tighten an integrated screw to cinch down the hook’s eyelet. Two suction cups at the bottom of the caddy secure it to the shower wall. Once you do that, this caddy doesn’t budge. A slight drawback relative to the OXO: The suction cup bar doesn’t rotate to allow for exact positioning on the shower walls (which is a problem if it falls directly over a grout line). The Simplehuman caddies include adhesive stickers to use if the suction cups don’t work in your shower, though we didn’t need them in testing.
Both Simplehuman models have more versatile configuration options than the OXO. The overall height of the caddies can adjust by nearly a foot, so you can make their placement fit best with your own height and the height of the shower arm. The Simplehuman shelves, with the help of a knob on the back, can also be adjusted up or down (and the Plus can move side to side) and to configure the caddy for your particular bottles. The OXO doesn’t do either.
The Simplehuman XL’s standout advantage over the OXO and the Simplehuman Plus is that it has space in the middle to make room for a handheld showerhead’s hose (which would interfere with basically any other caddy mounted to the shower arm).
The Simplehuman caddies held everything the OXO held, with additional room. It was able to fit a second razor, a hair mask, and a brush. The Simplehuman caddies also have holes in the shelves so you can store bottles upside down, helping you eke out the last drops of shampoos and conditioners. The bottom hook on the Simplehuman caddies is shallow compared with OXO’s design, so our shower puff fell off a few times in testing. But it has a bar along the soap dish that the OXO lacks, giving you a better place to hang a washcloth to dry.
Simplehuman’s support has helped us resolve issues. A little bin on one side, called the small item holder, tends to get grimy over time. It’s challenging to clean it in place without removing the whole caddy. Senior editor Chris Ryan, testing the XL long term, got a helpful response via Simplehuman’s support chat on a process to remove this part for cleaning. The XL’s online documentation did not mention this, but the chat support made up for it, Ryan said.
Both caddies are made of stainless steel and anodized aluminum, so Simplehuman, like OXO, claims they won’t rust. Simplehuman has a limited warranty on its products, but it’s not as comprehensive and open-ended as OXO’s lifetime guarantee.
If you can’t use a traditional shower caddy, this tension rod fits into the corner and extends from 5 to 9 feet. Its easy, one-step extension beat out the others we tested.
A pole-style caddy in a far corner of the shower can hold more than an over-the-arm rack, and it can declutter the showerhead area, making your shower feel roomier and more pleasant. But a good model, like the OXO Good Grips Quick-Extend Aluminum Pole Caddy, is far more expensive than a hanging caddy.
Compared with cheaper pole caddies, the OXO is easier to install, much sturdier, more versatile, and more attractive. It seems made to last years, but even if it doesn’t, it’s backed by OXO’s guarantee—a huge reassurance for something this expensive.
The OXO, which wedges between the floor (or bathtub ledge) and ceiling, was the best of the three pole caddies we tried because of its incredibly simple assembly and installation process. The other two models we tested came with multiple pieces and required measuring to see how many extension poles you’d need to fit in your shower. The multiple-pole design led to problems with some competitors we considered—including collapsing due to too-loose tension springs that never held the pole in place, and for some ceiling heights, creating a need to cut the extension pieces to length with a hacksaw.
The OXO handles all this with a single telescoping pole that you extend to the right height and and lock into place. A powerful internal compression spring keeps the pole wedged firmly between the ceiling and the floor or tub ledge. We installed it on a tub ledge and found it quite sturdy, even loaded with enough bottles, soap, and accessories for a family of five. In a taller ceiling height location, installed freestanding—not braced in a corner, as intended—it still didn’t shake or shimmy.
The OXO’s four shelves hold several bottles apiece, making this ideal for bathrooms shared by two or more people. You can remove each shelf for cleaning without having to remove the pole, unlike the other two pole-style caddies we tried, including our previous pick from Simplehuman. The pole extends from 5 to 9 feet, so unless your ceiling is unusually high, this model should work. It’s great for a shower stall, and we’ve also found it can work in a combination tub and shower, as long as the tub ledge has a few inches of flat area for the bottom foot to sit on. This design can be a challenge in some ready-to-assemble tub and shower surrounds, as some designs limit the placement options on the lower foot.
If you are a college student or use a shared shower, this portable shower caddy has ample storage, dries quickly, and has a great price point of under $10.
Carrying around all of your hygiene products daily is not an easy task. But a good portable shower caddy, like the Room Essentials Mesh Shower Caddy, can improve any shared shower experience.
Of the nine portable shower caddies we tested, the Room Essentials caddy was the only one that met all requirements at a low price. It holds all your everyday hygiene products, is easy to carry while concealing personal items, and is made from a quick-drying material, so the caddy and items stay dry when not in use.
The Room Essentials caddy is the cheapest we tested. Compared with every other caddy we tested, this is the cheapest one we tested, yet it was high quality in comparison. The straps and caddy withstood carrying several oversize body products that were more than 40 ounces and several 16-ounce body washes, and the caddy still had space for additional items. Also, its availability at Target makes this caddy easy to pick up in-store if needed urgently.
It has a great design. The structure of the mesh caddy is similar to a shoulder bag, allowing for easy carrying of items and keeping your shower accessories organized. The mesh design is breathable so items can quickly dry so mildew was not a concern when testing the product. The mesh is also not extremely transparent, which allows for personal items to be concealed. It has a simple hook located within one of the mesh pockets to hold any hygiene item needed, such as a loofah. It can also be useful in a dorm setting if you have to carry things, like keys, while going to a communal shower. The Room Essentials caddy is also foldable, allowing you to easily store it when not in use. And unlike most toiletry bags Wirecutter has reviewed, this one’s capacity is better suited for full-size bottles, not just compact travel sizes.
It held more products than the other portable caddies we tested. With a large open compartment and six surrounding exterior mesh pockets, this caddy fits a surprising amount of hygiene products. It holds two bottles of 16-ounce shampoos and conditioners, a 7-ounce tube of shaving cream, one 16-ounce face wash, a 40-ounce bottle of body wash, a 16.5 ounce of body wash, a bar of soap, one standard razor, and a loofah. Other caddies we have tested struggled to fit all the items or the straps felt extremely weak after use, however this was not a problem for the Room Essentials caddy.
The color selection is sparse and changes often. At the beginning of testing, there were four different colors and patterns available for purchase. However, as testing continued and at the time of writing this guide, there is only the color gray available. It seems that more colors and patterns are available seasonally, when the caddy is more sought after.
The caddy is flimsy. While the material is good quality and design fits a lot of products, the body of the caddy itself is flimsy when no products are within it. This can be a dealbreaker for people who like hard plastic traditional caddies like Mainstays Portable Shower Caddy. Yet, the flimsy body helps make the shower caddy very foldable and easy to store when not in use. It also does not feel unstable when holding products.
We were intrigued to test a newly released shower caddy from Quiet Town, The Spot. This caddy has an interesting design with a completely modular and customizable system we’ve never seen before, and it also has a steep price of $198. Our current picks had already proved that it’s worth spending more on a quality shower caddy. However, since this one is almost quadruple the price of our OXO top pick, I was extremely skeptical of whether this caddy was worth the price.
Immediately after opening The Spot, I was confused by the packing. Its box resembled a take-out pizza box, with interesting, non-traditional comparisons of what the caddy can fit, like, “your ex’s really moody but quite pretty goldfish, not your first dirty martini of the day, and a ping-pong paddle.” Yet what really was able to fit in the caddy was less than half of what our top pick can hold. The medium basket could only fit one 14-ounce bottle. After forcing products to fit, I was only able to cramp in a body wash, shampoo and conditioner, and a bar of soap. Quiet Town also sells additional add-on modular pieces, like a razor hook or single bottle basket, with prices ranging from $5 to $25. So maybe for an additional $75, we would have been able to fit all of our everyday products into this caddy, but this would have added to its already extraordinary price. While this caddy has a cool design, you’re better off saving your money.
We tested the Bukere Portable Shower Caddy, a popular caddy on Amazon. It has a clear phone compartment and a wet compartment for shower essentials and dry compartment for after-shower hygiene essentials. However, it was hard to utilize the phone compartment when showering, and the caddy did not hold as many products as the Room Essentials.
The Mainstays Portable Shower Caddy is more of a traditional caddy design, made with hard plastic. Its four compartments did not hold many products, and its bulky, transparent design made it uncomfortable to bring back and forth to a public shower and to store after showering.
The Pottery Barn Recycled Classic Shower Caddy and the EUDELE Mesh Shower Caddy have a similar design to our Room Essentials pick, however both were less spacious, so they held fewer products, and they also felt more flimsy.
OXO has released the Aluminum Caddy for Shower Doors. This 3-tiered caddy seems to be identical to our pick including the price, yet has a hook system made to accommodate shower doors. If you have a shower door or would prefer an over-the-door caddy, this might be a better choice.
We tried the ShowerGem Shower Caddy, after discovering it from the amount of traction it received from TikTok and it was an As Seen on TV product. Despite its unique design, it requires gluing a bracket to your shower wall and waiting a minimum of 24 hours before you can use the caddy. This is a step we found unusual and unnecessary to ensure the stability of a shower caddy.
The Yamazaki Free Standing Minimal Shower Caddy is another caddy we had high hopes for because it is a free standing shower shelf that is more appealing than a typical shower caddy. This caddy fell short due to the short height which made it hard to reach products while in the shower. It was also fairly flimsy which required heavier products to be on the bottom shelf, making them even harder to reach.
We tried the AquaTeak Patented Moa Teak Shower Organizer because of the high quality teak wood and 5-year warranty and 30 day satisfaction guarantee. However, the design was awkward for detachable showerheads and we found our picks were better quality, more stable, and more personalizable for the price.
We tried the Utopia Alley 2-Teak Shelves Tia Rustproof Over the Shower Caddy but the caddy was not very stable and did not hold a lot of products, it’s probably too small for more than one person.
We tried OXO’s 2-tiered version of our top pick, and it has the same durability and large soap dish that we liked, but we think it’s probably too small for most people.
The OXO Hose Keeper Shower Caddy is designed to accommodate a handheld showerhead’s dangling hose, but its overall height is not adjustable like on the Simplehuman XL. We prefer that adjustability, because with a wide range of combination handheld-and-fixed showerhead designs—many of which crowd the showerhead area—we want to be able to lower and raise shelves to make the setup function well.
Simplehuman’s Standard version has adjustable shelves, but the neck can’t extend and its soap dish is smaller. Simplehuman makes an over-the-door version that we didn’t feel was as versatile as the over-the-shower-arm design. Simplehuman’s corner model was smaller and less sturdy than the OXO Pole Caddy.
InterDesign’s Metalo and Forma over-the-door shower caddies are both fine options if you have a shower with doors, although after testing everything side by side, we’d still go for an over-the-shower-arm caddy to keep the door area visually clear. The Metalo is inexpensive and looks it but has a handy washcloth bar at the bottom. The Forma costs a bit more and looks better than the Metalo, but its razor hooks couldn’t hold our standard-size razor. Zenna Home’s highly rated Expandable Handheld Shower Head Caddy fell short for us, because its hard plastic hook slid off the shower arm repeatedly—a problem our other picks all avoided.
We had high hopes for Zenna’s Never Rust caddy. But its second shelf is short, and anything taller than the tiniest bottles on the top shelf interfere with the shower’s spray. The Zenna has two hooks, which jut out sharply and give it the appearance of being very cheaply constructed.
Starcraft Custom Builders, The Illustrated Rules of Good Bathroom Design
Joe Provey, 6 Simple Bathroom Storage Tips and Tricks, Bob Vila blog
Constance Barker, How to Remove Rust From a Stainless Steel Shower Caddie, Hunker
Jenny Harrington, How to Clean a Metal Shower Caddy, SFGate
I focus on all things home improvement and emergency preparedness. I update all guides in this category to keep them current, and I write about and test products across Wirecutter’s coverage areas.
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stainless kitchen faucet 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).