Travel Bottle Cleaners That Get the Gunk Out on the Go

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Traveling with your baby or toddler is messy enough without having to worry about how you're going to get their bottles clean. A travel bottle cleaner is the solution you're looking for. And it's not just for baby bottles: It's for your big Nalgene bottles, your Stanley cups, and your toddler's sippy cups. We're pretty much all using reusable bottles and cups these days, and anyone who has accidentally left a bottle full of milk in their diaper bag for a couple of days or left their latte in their Stanley in the car over the weekend knows how truly nasty they can get. (I also love the idea of a grandparent from out of town gifting this set with kids' suitcases for a new family to encourage them to come for a visit, but I digress.)

There are a ton of travel bottle cleaners on the market, and I tested over a dozen. All of them cleaned the bottles well, some being more useful in different scenarios than others, but overall, they got the job done. The issue lay in cleaning the cleaners; many purported to be dishwasher-safe. Readers, friends, this turned out to be total hogwash. All but a few of the cleaners melted on the top rack of the dishwasher. So take to heart when buying these that many need to be hand-washed.

My pick for Best Overall, the kit by Munchkin, did not melt, nor did the OXO bottle cleaning kit. Everything else I tested melted. The Boon kit also remained intact, but the brushes were too small to be that useful.

Another note I should make, some of the travel cleaners like the OXO are made mostly for the basin of the bottle or cup, and therefore weren't great with bottles like Dr. Browns, or for sippy cups and travel cups that need a slimmer brush to get in the straw and around the more intricate bits.

These all tested well as far as cleaning and convenience of travel; however, I will mark which ones are actually dishwasher-safe. Find your next on-the-go essential below.

Details Bottle and Cup Cleaning Brush 4 Piece Set with Key Ring

It has almost 6,000 perfect reviews on Amazon, and it's easy to see why. It is, far and away, the best travel bottle cleaner that I tested. It cleans everything from the inside of a straw to the threads of a bottle's nipple. All four pieces hang from a keyring and the whole thing can be placed on the top rack of the dishwasher, or with the silverware. Nothing gets lost or melted, and everything gets clean.

More: The Best Baby Bottles of 2023

Tot Travel Size Drying Rack with Bottle Brush

OXO makes really high-quality home goods, and the travel bottle cleaning kit is no exception. It's a cleaning rack and bottle brush combination that folds up to be about the size of a wipes carrying case. The whole thing can be placed on the top rack of the dishwasher.

I love how well this cleans the inside of bottles and cups, but I do wish that it had a straw cleaner. However, a bendable straw cleaner would fit inside if you bent it in half.

Travel Baby Bottle Brush Set

I loved everything about this set except for the fact that the top melted in the dishwasher. However, it is not hard to hand-clean at all. It comes with a bevy of useful accessories, with my favorite being the little spray bottle to hold soap or a sanitizing agent. It's compact — no bigger than a travel mug — and has everything you need to clean any bottle and most sippy cups.

The tops of the bottles are silicone, which I thought that I would hate, but I found that I really appreciated how soft it was.

7-in-1 Bottle Brush Set/Travel Brush Cleaner Kit

I love the little ring-shaped holder on the straw brush with this kit. It made cleaning almost fun? (I know, I know, but it's true.) I may have put it on my middle finger to clean an especially gross sippy cup.

It's not as compact as the OXO, but it's not a ton bigger and is every bit as useful as a drying rack. Don't put it in the dishwasher, but it does come with a little pump bottle for soap.

Baby Bottle Brush Set with Travel Bottle Brush

If the cup were just a hair more robust, this would have been my favorite travel set. What it lacks in a drying rack, it makes up for in the size of the cleaning utensils and the compactness of the kit.

It has the soap dispenser seen in other travel bottle cleaners on this list, full-size cleaning brushes, a cup that can be used for drinking or for soaking nipples, pieces of sippy cups, and more.

I want to get across to you just how compact this kit really is despite having full-size tools. It is significantly smaller than my 32-ounce Stanley cup and fits easily in a water bottle pocket in a diaper bag or backpack. For vacations, day trips, or just to have at home, this is a stellar kit.

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