Best Clothes Steamer Review Buying Guide

Are you looking to find real information for the best clothes steamer reviews?  We have done an exhausting amount of research and trials to help sort through the many that are on the market today.    What started out as simple task of finding something that worked faster than ironing, we found that many clothing steamers were not effective, despite many reviews telling us otherwise.  We found out that there are many reviews sites on the internet that are simply taking reviews from Amazon and rewriting them to look like they have done a review.  Since we were doing the research anyway, Fashion-Ation.net was created to provide some honest clothing steamer reviews.  We actually purchased and reviewed these steamers on our site and gave our feedback on how they performed on dewrinkling clothing.

After doing many reviews of clothing steamers there are two main features to consider that will provide the biggest impact to your satisfaction.  The first is the time it takes the steamer to heat up and be ready for use.    Some take up to 15 minutes while others may take longer,  so you need to consider time factor, especially if you are impatient like we are and don’t like taking any more time than necessary to get your garments done.  We are an impatient bunch so waiting for a steamer is like waiting for a pot to boil (literally).  The other feature you want to consider is the overall temperature of steam.   This can be tricky to discover as some units are inferred as being high temperature because they are high wattage and that is not always the case.  High temperature is great as it gets stubborn creases out and has the ability to kill germs and many high wattage units are also high temperature but not always.  High wattage will however consume a lot of electricity which increases your utility bills.

There are two main styles of clothing steamers and each one has a specific purpose.

First there is the portable or compact clothing steamer that is typically great for travel or if your home doesn’t have the space for a full-size unit.  Many of the portable units were underpowered, spit water or were cheaply built.  While compact steamers have become significantly better over the last few years there is still discrepancy between their performance so be sure to do your homework.  Compact steamers can give 15 minutes per fill which may be sufficient for your needs.  There are a few good units in this category, but this is a place where spending a little extra money is typically worth it as it does not cost much more to get a portable steamer that will actually work.

Secondly there is the full-size steamer.  In this category, there is a split between consumer and professional models.  We found many of the full-size steamers were actually quite good but some that were expensive were terrible.  A good full-size clothing steamer will make short work of making your clothes look nice but don’t always expect the sharp

We put together a list of the best clothing steamers for 2014, which we felt were the best in the industry in terms of performance, design/comfort and value.  Picking the best full-size clothing steamer was difficult as there were two that stood out, but they work very differently.

The Rowenta IS6300 was the steamer we decided to keep in our home.  It is a mid-price steamer that is well-made and was able to get rid of wrinkles out of clothing that steamers that were twice as expensive.  There is a built-in, vertical surface that makes it super easy to steam clothes.

Next was the Rowenta DG8430 which is like a cross between a traditional iron and a steamer.  Where this steamer excels is the creasing ability of the iron but since we were opposed to using an iron again, had to call it a second place contender.  If perfect creases are important to you, take a look at this steamer as you will be impressed at the quick steaming ability and impressive results.

For the best compact steamer category, the Shark Press and Refresh was the clear winner.  This steamer is very innovative, and has control settings to provide the excellent results for any type of clothing. This compact steamer was actually better than some of the full-size steamers.

Since we were building this site to do the best clothes steamer reviews, we thought it would be cool to also add a price comparison chart to help find the best prices for steamers.  To offer full-disclosure, we do earn a commission from you clicking on the links but hope you find our reviews helpful enough to buy from these merchants to help keep the site online and encourage us to do more reviews.