5 Best Umbrellas, Tested by Our Experts
We tested options from Blunt Exec, GustBuster, and other brands—these models were very durable and offered great rain coverage
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We take umbrellas for granted. In good weather, we don’t think twice about them, but at the first sign of rain, we’re scrambling to find one. My last umbrella cost $10 and worked for just 15 minutes before it inverted, breaking a rib in the process (the umbrella, not me). I was holding on to one side of the canopy to keep myself dry the rest of the way home.
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One note about testing wind-speed claims: Some brands claim their umbrellas can withstand certain wind speeds. GustBuster, for example, says its Pro Series umbrellas can withstand winds up to 55 mph. Mother Nature’s wind speed varies day to day, so we didn’t test the umbrellas in real-life windy conditions because we wanted each umbrella to get the same treatment. Instead, we put them through the same tough strength test to determine how much force it takes to invert the canopy. Ideally, you would be able to correct an inversion easily, but some umbrellas didn’t survive. Watch our testing below, and check out our full methodology at the end of this article.
Umbrella Testing at CR
I spent several dozen hours testing these umbrellas, and according to my mom, I’ll never get married thanks to the number of times I stood under an open umbrella indoors for this project. Enjoy the fruits of my forever bad luck.
