Sweating the Details: How to remove pet hair from your car
Welcome to Sweating the Details, a limited series written by part-time auto detailer Matt Fink. In each installment, he educates you on how to maintain the visual appeal and proper condition of your ride. Want to read more? Click here.
For many pet owners, removing the animal hair attached to the seats and carpeting of their vehicle can be a major nuisance. A vacuum might seem like the perfect solution, but as you are probably well aware, it does not extract hair well—especially from the coarse, tough carpet that a lot of car manufacturers use on the back of seats and in the trunk.
As a detailer, I have tried a ton of solutions including a lint brush, packaging tape wrapped around my hand, and even special attachments on a hand drill. Finally, I decided to google “how to remove pet hair from cars” and test the top recommendations. There are a lot of products and home remedies, some of which look like they would be really great. But, as I tell myself every morning, looks aren’t everything.
To test the products, I used my 2019 Honda Odyssey, which my family and I recently used to take our cat to the vet. He’s a nervous shedder, and on the five-minute ride, a shocking amount of his fur got stuck in the coarse carpet of the truck. Here’s the back of my van after that single short ride to the vet, plus another run to pick up mulch:
The first step is to vacuum the area with as coarse of a hose attachment as you have. This pass will pick up the dirt, though it will probably leave behind most of the hair. I spent four minutes going over the van’s carpet as best I could with a good shop vacuum, and this was the result:
Even the best vacuums tend to only suck up the hair that is already loose. So, along with a vacuum, you need a tool to gather up the pet hair. Here are the seven ones I tested, ranked from last to first.
Seventh place: Balloon
Verdict: Terrible, and you look silly using it.
When you hold a balloon up to your hair, the strands will stick to it. But for this method to work in a car, the pet hair needs to be laying perfectly on top of the carpet. In that case, just use your vacuum.
If your pet’s hair is embedded deep in the carpet of the vehicle, like my cat’s was in my van, a balloon is useless: After creating some static, it may have picked up 5 percent of the hair on the section I tried.
Sixth place: Short rubber brush
Verdict: Don’t waste your time or money.
These are good for giving your pet a massage but awful for getting hair out of a vehicle. The rubber teeth just aren’t long enough to collect anything stuck in the carpet. On the section I tried, this brush removed about 10 percent of the hair. Maybe.
Fifth place: Grooming brush
Verdict: This isn’t just ineffective; it can actually cause damage to your car.
A pet hairbrush from a pet store seemed like a good idea, at first. The pointy teeth did okay when it came to removing hair in the trunk’s liner, removing about 50 percent. What hair the brush didn’t catch it actually embedded further into the carpet. Worse of all, the metal teeth pulled at the coarse fabric on the seat backs.
Fourth place: Wet rubber gloves
Verdict: At least it doesn’t cause permanent damage.
I had high hopes for the wet-rubber-glove method, and at first it seemed to work. Using the glove, I was able to clump some hair together, allowing me to vacuum it up. However, the glove didn’t remove enough hair—only about 60 percent—and what remained was wet and even more difficult to vacuum.
Third place: Lint roller
Verdict: You’ll never get it all.
Lint rollers are designed to get hair off clothes, so these hand-held devices do well with any strands that are not stuck too deep into a carpet. If you roll one back and forth—and waste a ton of tape—you will probably remove about 70 percent of the hair in your car.
Second place: Chemical Guys Pet Hair Rubber Brush
Verdict: Worth every penny.
You can buy this pet-hair removal brush from Chemical Guys today for $8.99. I have used the same one for more than 15 years and am still getting great results. By alternating the direction in which I’m brushing, I have always been able to remove 100 percent of the pet hair on a vehicle’s carpets.
However, just because I had found something that worked didn’t mean a better product wasn’t out there. So I purchased a Lilly Brush.
First place: Lilly Brush
Verdict: A new champion.
I had heard other car detailers talk about this brush, but I was skeptical that such a basic design would do anything. However, I picked one up for $14.95 and followed the instructions, using short strokes to pull the hair into piles that could be easily sucked up by a vacuum. I was blown away. I had cleaned all the hair off the back of a seat in 30 seconds—half the time I spent with the Chemical Guys brush. The Lilly Brush required less effort to use, too.
The winner is clearly the Lilly Brush, but I strongly recommend either it or the Chemical Guys brush. From now on, I will use both: the Chemical Guys brush, to dig into the carpet fibers and stir up loose dirt, and the Lilly Brush to truly get all of the pet hair.
Removing pet hair from your ride is easy—if you have the right products. Despite what you’ll read elsewhere, the best methods don’t use liquids, tapes, or static electricity. In my experience, none of the home remedies are worth the time and effort, either. I have found only two options to be worthwhile, and they are each small, simple, and affordable. With one of them and a good vacuum, you’re set. Just pack your patience.
Let us know in the comments what pet hair–removal tools or techniques have worked for you. And no, this article is not sponsored; as with every installment of Sweating the Details, it’s just free consumer advice from your local part-time auto detailer.
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We have a couple of “red” Golden Retrievers. It would seem that their real job is to shed massive amounts of long, clingy fur. They fill the carpeted cargo area with incredible amounts of hair. I was once asked by a vacuum operator at a local carwash if “we owned a Yeti?”, and he didn’t mean the cool cooler!
At SEMA, I found an incredible time saving product is from a couple that invented their own solution –
FurDozer X6 6-in-1 Pet Hair Remover
An amazing product that pulls up all of the hair into easily vacuumed piles, without hurting the carpet. Now, any suggestions on getting rid of “doggy smell” from the same carpets?
That product looks great, thanks for sharing. Here is an article about removing smells. https://www.hagerty.com/media/maintenance-and-tech/how-to-get-smell-out-of-car-lemon-law/
As far as one product, I like the Meguiar’s Whole Car Re-Fresher Odor Eliminator. It’s a misting can you let off in the car and works great.
I’d give greater consideration to getting rid of Fido.
Amen! Just bought a BMW Z3, beautiful car except… pet damage.
Nail marks in the seats, slobber, snot, and the hair, my word the hair. It took hours to un-dog that car. My wife and I have been blissfully pet free since shortly after we were married. It’s wonderful to travel and stay as long as we want, stay with family and not dump a dog on them. No shedding, pooping, barking, vet bills, letting and letting out; wonderful! No wonder they call yhem service dogs, you are always servicing them.
I’d give greater consideration to banning you for that comment.
Agree, I would never go without our St Bernard.
Even short haired still causes a mess of hair, weekly cleaning is the answer.
Amen to that! My wife & I love our Golden Retrievers and don’t care about the “mess” they leave. BTW, for his information, not all dogs are service dogs. Service dogs are just that, they provide service to their owners and are invaluable to them. This guy and his wife sound like a couple of yuppies and probably hate kids too!
Never had kids which do more damage. On our 4th Lab who loves to ride!
I don’t trust people who don’t like dogs!
Matt, very good article and one that most can relate to as that piece of hair that you go over and over and over, moving it slightly but in the end only your fingernails can pick it out. I have a rubber brush, but will definitely pick up a Lilly.
Now, perhaps this has been covered before and if so steer me to the article, but I have 2 top condition convertibles and I need to keep them that way. Best products and practices for cleaning and protecting convertible tops? ….
…. This is where I see most of my dog and cat hair, because they are not allowed in.
I use a metal fur rake. It does the same thing as the Lilly, raking into easily vacuumed piles. It’s the rake we used to groom out my Lab in the spring to get rid of the winter fur clumps
Found a link to one on Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/MPP-Grooming-Shedding-Undercoat-Dematting/dp/B07QHFM55K
Cat hair is bad, but nowhere near as bad as short dog hair. Short hair (ie: Pug, Lab, Terrier, Beagle) I have and use the short rubber bristles, and the Lilly product; both are in fact excellent. But for short hair, strong duct tape helps a lot.
Totally agree. My old Walker Coonhound’s fur was a nightmare to get out of carpet and cars. That said, I would clean that hair up 2x over if it could bring her back.
Right on! We have a Bluetick.
The best ( and cheapest) pet removal ‘tool’ for is a rubber-soled sneaker. I just use the sneaker on its side and use a scraping motion to gather the fur/hair up and vacuum it from there. It by far and away is the most effective (and cheapest) method I have found.
If you think your pet sheds hair, put 2 siberian huskys in your car.
Our St. Bernard shed a ton. It may have been easier to clean because it was usually in thick clumps, but I couldn’t say because he never really rode in the cars. Probably is similar to a Husky, though.
Two huskies are known as a “team” and if they are not pulling the car they’ll never be happy.
I use a workshop glove–leather type– worn on the hand.
Just move your hand from right to left or vice versa and it clumps up the hair ready for vacuuming
Best dog hair removal product ever: BLACK+DECKER® pet hair remover (https://www.blackanddecker.com/products/hmsct0001/pet-hair-remover)
I use the crevice tool on my vacuum for maximum suction. It gets 90% of the dog hair. For the remaining 10% I rub the carpet with my dampened or sweaty hands. Then easily vacuum up the clumps. Cheap, easy and effective.
No pets so no worries about pet hair, just spouse hair. LoL.
Make most extremely sure that it is always the same colour. Garages have been emptied over this.
I started out with a rubber-sole sneaker but switched to a damp facecloth for hair from 2 huskies.
Amen to the husky-hair problem. They’re 90-lb dogs with 30 lbs of hair that you can watch being shed. My last one passed away 5 years ago and I’m still trying to de-hair the back of my 4Runner. I will try the Lily brush- my house carpeting needs work, too. Fortunately none of mine barked; they howled, and that drove coyotes away because it sounds like a wolf, who are racial competitors.
I’m going to pick up both. Thank you. Among the solutions I’ve had some success with is the Dyson “Tangle Free Turbine Tool”. (No, I’m no big fan of Dyson: over-hyped and too expensive for the quality point. However, they are inventive.)
We just bought their “Animal Pro.” It does a great job on cat hair on every surface in our house. Haven’t tried it in the cars.