10 Best Cat Grooming Tools of 2023: Reviews & Top Picks

Whether you get a short or long-haired cat, there’s no doubt that finding your cat’s hair everywhere — and we do mean everywhere — is not anyone’s favorite part of the day.

Grooming is an essential part of pet ownership. It helps us keep our homes clean and helps our cats feel comfortable and healthy. Regular grooming can help prevent gastric obstructions, like hairballs.

But with so many grooming tools on the market, which one is right for your cat? Look no further! Here are the best grooming tools you can use to improve your cat’s (and your) daily life!

A Quick Look at Our Favorites in 2023

The 10 Best Cat Grooming Tools

1. Frisco Beginner Grooming Kit – Best Overall

Frisco’s Beginner Grooming Kit is our choice for the Overall Best Cat Grooming Tool because of its versatility. It’s a perfect marriage of affordability and function since it has all the tools needed to keep your cat well-groomed packaged into it.

The real downside is that none of the tools packaged into this kit have self-cleaning ejectors. You’ll have to clean each of these tools by hand if you want to use them, but that’s not as big of a deal as it might first seem. If you keep up with keeping the tools clean, cleaning shouldn’t take more than a minute or two!

2. Frisco Cat Nail Clippers – Best Value

Frisco’s Cat Nail Clippers are the best cat grooming tool you can get for the money. They’re a sturdy, affordable, and necessary grooming tool that can improve the quality of life for any cat.

Regular nail trimming can help keep your cat comfortable when walking by preventing them from getting too long. Nail trimming also helps your cat get ahead of their claw maintenance and prevents them from trying to keep up with care using your furniture.

One of the most prominent features of nail clippers in general that make them such a great value is that you’ll need them for almost any pet you get. You can pass this tool down to as many animals as you want!

3. Furminator – Premium Choice

The best premium cat grooming tool you can get is the Furminator. Furminator makes products for dogs and cats and includes separate tools for long and short-haired animals. The Furminator is an absolute must-have if you intend to get a medium or long-haired cat since, without a deshedding tool, you’ll be neck deep in cat hair!

The Furminator is a narrow-toothed comb with long teeth that penetrate deep into the undercoat to remove fur that’s been shed. While doing so, the teeth loosen any hair that’s about to shed to help reduce the amount of shedding that occurs outside of grooming time!

The Furminator also includes a self-cleaning ejector button that allows you to clean the tool’s teeth without any hassle seamlessly.

4. Safari Self-Cleaning Slicker Brush

Slicker brushes have narrow-set metal pins that detangle, demat, and have some deshedding capabilities. Slicker pins aren’t as sturdy as deshedder teeth, and a cat with a particularly dense coat could find themselves doing more damage to the brush than the brush does to them! However, these brushes are a great in-between for pet parents who want to groom and deshed their cats with one tool.

The Safari Self-Cleaning Slicker Brush also has an auto-ejector that ejects the fur out of the pins as a small mat that you can peel off the face of the ejector and discard.

5. JW Pet Gripsoft Cat Comb

JW Pet’s Gripsoft Cat Comb is an excellent option for cat parents who need to detangle their cat’s fur. The comb’s teeth will help redistribute the skin’s oils throughout the coat and help keep the coat looking shiny and sleek. Regular combing will help keep your cat’s coat from becoming matted and reduce any hairballs that might obstruct their stomach tract.

Additionally, this comb has a comfortable grip handle that makes it easy for anyone to use without pain or discomfort. It allows you to maneuver the teeth into hard-to-reach places without bending your wrist or fingers in unusual shapes!

6. Vet’s Best Waterless Cat Bath

Vet’s Best Waterless Cat Bath is a veterinarian-formulated, all-natural foam shampoo that you can use to keep your cat smelling fresh! This is an excellent option for pet parents of indoor/outdoor cats who may come back home with the accouterments of their freedom.

It’s a leave-in shampoo. So, you don’t have to worry about rinsing a screaming cat clean while they flail suds all over the bathroom. Your cat probably won’t like the process at first, but it shouldn’t be hard to get them used to it with some treats!

7. Frisco Moisturizing Tear Stain Wipes

These wipes are an excellent pickup for any pet parents of cats who have issues with tear stains and eye gunk. They’re gentle wipes that you can use to clear out any debris or secretions in your cat’s eyes and reduce the appearance of tear stains around the eyes as well since pet parents report a reduction in tear stain appearance after using these!

These wipes come in a 60-count package. So, one purchase will last you quite a while! They also contain soothing aloe to nourish the skin while cleaning out the eye secretions. The solution is friendly and gentle, so you don’t have to worry about hurting the eyes if your cat fights you to get their eyes cleaned out.

8. Safari Complete Cat Brush

Safari’s Complete Cat Brush is an excellent option for pet parents who just need a little bit of detangling power or those looking to give their cats a quick massage without worrying too much about the grooming side of things.

It features gentle plastic pins tipped with little balls to prevent the nails from scratching at the skin. The pins redistribute the skin’s oils throughout the fur. The little balls on the pins also give your cat a pleasant massage as you brush their hair.

This brush can detangle but will likely struggle if your cat’s fur is heavily tangled or matted. It also doesn’t feature any deshedding properties, which could be a turnoff for some pet parents who want to reduce the shedding of their cats.

9.  Kong Cat ZoomGroom Multi-Use Brush

Kong Cat’s ZoomGroom Multi-Use Brush is an excellent option for pet parents looking to give their cats a massage first and groom second. It’s a perfect way to introduce grooming tools to your cat without making them feel threatened or uncomfortable since it’s made with sturdy rubber that redistributes the oils and feels great on their skin while it works.

This multi-use brush features rubber fingers blunted to provide a pleasant feeling against the skin. Because of its gentle design, it’s a great way to introduce grooming time to kittens. The soft pins will help teach them that grooming is a positive thing they shouldn’t be afraid of and get them acclimated to the process when they need more intensive grooming.

10. ConairPro Metal Slicker Cat Brush

ConairPro’s Metal Slicker Cat brush is an excellent option for pet parents of cats who are comfortable with being groomed. The metal pins penetrate deep into the undercoat to remove hair trapped in the undercoat. The narrow set pins also loosen any fur that’s about to shed into the undercoat, removing shedding at the source.

Slicker brushes are less effective at deshedding than dedicated deshedding combs. However, they’re the great in-between option for pet parents who want to deshed and groom their cats with one tool.

Buyer’s Guide: How to Choose the Best Cat Grooming Tool

Do All Cats Need to Be Groomed?

No, all cats don’t need to have their fur groomed. Cats have three coat lengths: short, medium, and long. Medium and long-haired cats will need to be groomed at least every other day to maintain good coat health and prevent their fur from becoming tangled or matted. However, short-haired cats don’t see the same tangling and matting as their longer-furred cousins.

Still, grooming your short-haired cat can have many health benefits that often get overlooked by pet parents simply because their fur won’t suffer immensely from lack of grooming. Short-haired cats don’t need to be groomed as frequently or even at all, but many situations may necessitate grooming or regular grooming.

Additionally, cats need to have their nails trimmed regularly. While cats can maintain their nails if provided with adequate scratchers, trimming their nails regularly can protect your furniture and help them keep up with their nail growth.

Health Benefits of Grooming

Grooming your cat improves their health in many ways, even if their fur isn’t tangled or matted. Firstly, when you brush your cat’s fur, it disperses the skin’s natural oils throughout the hair. This dispersal moisturizes the coat and keeps it looking sleek and shiny.

When using a slicker brush or deshedding comb, the pins penetrate the undercoat to remove fur that has shed and been trapped in the undercoat. Additionally, slicker brushes and deshedding combs loosen the coat that is about to clear into the undercoat and remove it, reducing the overall amount of shedding outside the grooming sessions.

Additionally, trimming your cat’s nails can help keep them at a manageable length. While cats preen and groom their nails, domestic cats don’t use their claws as regularly as their wild ancestors and may find that their nails can become unmanageable since they don’t have the same need to use them.

Claws that are too long can cause pain while walking or grow into the paw pads leading to infection or surgical intervention to remove the offending nail.

Types of Grooming Tools

There are several grooming tools for cats that you’ll see on the market. Understanding the difference between each tool and what they provide will help you select the best tools for your cat’s specific needs.

Bristle Brush

Bristle brushes have bristles, as you’d see on a human toothbrush. These are primarily cosmetic brushes that brush away any fur trapped in the overcoat and disperse the skin’s oil throughout the hair. They have some detangling and dematting power, but generally, the bristles aren’t rigid enough to get any real work done with them.

Bristle brushes aren’t recommended as a primary grooming tool for medium and long-haired cats because they can’t comb through any knots and demat the fur where necessary. These brushes also don’t deshed cats since they penetrate the undercoat.

However, bristle brushes can be good for getting your cat accustomed to being groomed. They’re very gentle, and most cats will tolerate them easily.

Pin Brush

Pin brushes are a step up from bristle brushes. They feature more rigid, wide-set pins or fingers like you’d see on a human hairbrush. These pins can be made of plastic or metal and might be topped with little plastic or rubber balls that shield the skin from scratching the nails. The skin guards on the pins can be very pleasant for cats since they can massage the skin while detangling the fur.

The rigid pins break up hair clumps and detangle the fur while dispersing the skin’s oils through the coat. Pin brushes with metal pins may also lightly deshed the cat if the pins are long enough to get into the undercoat. However, since the pins are so widely set, they don’t usually have enough pressure to loosen much of the shedding fur.

Slicker Brush

A slicker brush is like a cross between a pin brush and a deshedding comb. Slicker brushes have narrow set metal pins that penetrate the undercoat to remove fur trapped in the undercoat while spreading the skin’s oils through the hair.

Slicker brushes also put a lot of pressure on the fur since the pins are narrow set and will loosen hair that’s about to shed. Its deshedding power isn’t quite as strong as a deshedder comb, but it’s an excellent option for pet parents of cats who fight them when being groomed and need to have a catch-all tool for fur grooming.

Deshedding Comb

Deshedding combs feature long, narrow-set metal teeth that penetrate deep into the undercoat and pull out fur that’s trapped inside the undercoat. Since the teeth are narrowly set, the comb will also loosen and pull out any hair that’s about to shed, releasing it into the undercoat where the comb can pick it up and remove it from the body.

Flea Combs

Flea combs are gentler than de-shedding combs, featuring long, narrow pin teeth that don’t put as much pressure on the coat. The narrow teeth pick out flea eggs, dirt, and larvae. Thankfully, you probably won’t get any adult fleas with a flea comb since those little suckers can be pretty slippery.

Nail Clippers

Nail clippers are designed to help with trimming pet claws. While you can use human nail clippers, the shape and design of human nail clippers are for the flat nail plate that humans have rather than the rounded claw that pets have and using human nail clippers may cause the feet to splinter.

Pet nail clippers act like a vice or pair of scissors with a rounded opening that cleanly slices through the claw with as little splintering as possible.

Cat Shampoo

Cats don’t usually enjoy taking baths, but that doesn’t mean you can’t wash out their fur. Cat shampoos are generally foaming, leave-in shampoos that don’t require water to foam or rinse, making them a little more palatable for cats.

Cat shampoos may be designed to help keep your cat flea-free or reduce the amount of dander that they produce. At worst, they’ll make your cat smell extra good.

Final Verdict

There are lots of cat grooming tools out there for you to add to your repertoire. For the best overall experience, grab Frisco’s Beginner Grooming Kit! If you’re on a budget and need something that’ll give you a good bang for your buck, Frisco’s Cat Nail Clippers is our choice for the best cat grooming tool for the money. Lastly, if you can afford it, you can’t go wrong with our pick for the best premium cat grooming tool: the Furminator!