Dustpans and Brushes

Everybody needs a good dustpan and brush set. The best ones come in nested sets for compact storage. We like big dustpans with wide mouths and rubber bumpers that smooth the transition between the floor and the pan, ensuring that more debris makes it inside. We prefer brushes with horizontal handles and long heads with lots of plastic bristles that angle forward at the tip, allowing access to tight spaces. While none of the sets we tested had all the features we like, our favorite, the Rubbermaid Dustpan and Brush Set with Comfortable Grip, came closest. It has a roomy dustpan and a long brush with plenty of sturdy plastic bristles that slant forward at the tip.

What You Need to Know

A good dustpan and brush are essential for tidying up small, dry messes in the kitchen. They’re there for those days when flour goes everywhere but the bowl, diced vegetables skitter off the cutting board, and your favorite coffee mug shatters on the floor. 

What to Look For

• Dustpan Sets: Most of the dustpans and brushes we tested came as sets, and for good reason: The brush nests in the dustpan for easy storage, ensuring that you’ll never lose one part or the other. Bought separately, a dustpan and brush may work perfectly well together, but they won’t nest, so they’ll be harder to store neatly and easier to lose track of.
• Horizontal Brush Handles: The best brushes had handles that sat horizontally, parallel to the surface being cleaned. We found them more comfortable to grip than brushes with handles that rose vertically, perpendicular to the surface being cleaned. Brushes with horizontal handles act like extensions of your hand, allowing you to reach into tight spaces (corners, the backs of cabinets, etc.) more easily. With brushes that have vertical handles, your hand always has to be directly over whatever you’re cleaning—an awkward, tiring position, and one that makes it hard to get into corners.
• A Long Brush Head with Angled Bristles or Tip: The longer the brush head, the more area it can cover in a single sweep and the more bits and pieces it can corral in one go. We especially liked brushes with either pointed heads or bristles that angled outward at the tip—both of these features also helped us reach into corners and deep into crevices more easily.
• Plastic Bristles—and Lots of Them: When it came to cleaning up different types of messes, brushes with plastic bristles performed best. Plastic bristles were flexible enough to sweep up flour, dust, and other fine particles. But they were also sturdy enough to provide some control when corralling bigger objects such as chickpeas or broken glass and tough enough to scrape up bits of food or...
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