Best Cat Litter From Our Tests

We didn’t use any cats in our evaluation because they’re generally not fans of change.

Most companies that make cat litter recommend introducing cats to a new product slowly because frequent changes can stress out cats and cause them to go outside of their litter box—a mess that’s way less pleasant to clean up than loose litter.

To save Frank and the other resident CR cats and cat parents the hassle of a messy at-home evaluation, we developed a set of lab tests that assessed each litter’s ability to mask odors, its ease of pouring and scooping, and more in our lab. Watch the video above and learn details of our testing.

There were a lot of reasons to like this cat litter from Arm & Hammer. It masked the smell of onion immediately upon contact and maintained a pleasant, clean scent for 24 hours. On its own, the litter’s scent wasn’t overpowering and reminded me of the light scent that lingers on freshly laundered sheets. The clumps from liquid messes stayed together as I shook the scooper, and this product formed the most uniform layer of litter around solid waste in the litter box. 

The granules were smaller than the other tested cat litters, but they were harder. After rubbing them together in my hands, they remained intact. There were no clouds of dust at any point during the evaluation process, but there was a significant amount of litter around the counter as granules flew out of the box as I scooped and buried the faux pet messes (to mimic what cats do).

The compact packaging, with a convenient handle at the top, made this the easiest litter to pour even though the box contained 18 pounds of litter. There’s a small opening on one side, and you tip the box to spread the contents. This helped distribute the weight so it didn’t feel like I was lifting 18 pounds. Arm & Hammer was the only brand without a toxoplasmosis warning on the label (more on that below).

There are many brands of tofu cat litter out there, and if the two products we tried are any indication, they’re a great alternative material if you’re looking to avoid clay at home. Watching these pellets (and the other tofu litter) expand as they become wet is pretty mesmerizing. After a clump forms, it stays in one large piece even as you shake it out in a scooper. Immediately, this litter masked the onion juice smell entirely and maintained a neutral scent for 24 hours. The pellets are long and thin, so there was less tracking around our lab counters than with the granular litter. There was also zero dust visible as the litter was moved and poured. 

The packaging was also notable. The bag is resealable and has a handle that makes pouring the litter into a litter box easy. At $3.05 per pound, it was the most expensive litter we evaluated. But ordering multiple bags at once through the brand’s site provides buyers with a discount. It was also the only litter with any mention of an expiration date—24 months after the production date for an unopened bag.

Tuft + Paw lists flushing as one method of disposing of the litter, but it advises users to check with their local regulations before doing so. (There’s more below on why flushing litter isn’t generally recommended.)

The only differences between this tofu litter and Tuft + Paw’s were the size of the pellets, the price, and the packaging. Frisco’s pellets are slightly thicker, but this made no difference in the amount of litter that ended up outside of the litter box post-evaluation. It masked odors in the box for 24 hours, produced no dust, and expanded into large clumps instantly when wet. (See it in action at the 17-second mark in the video above.) Once dry, the pellet clumps take a little bit of effort to find but they remain intact as you move them to the garbage. Frisco’s litter has a light, natural, veggie scent that isn’t entirely pleasant but is way better than cat pee. 

The bag isn’t resealable, and you lose the convenient handle once you cut it open, which makes pouring a bit of a hassle (petition to end all bagged litter). Also, Frisco warns users not to flush the litter in all caps on the packaging.

This was easily the dustiest cat litter I evaluated. It produced a huge cloud during scooping, emptying, and filling the litter box. That being said, it also immediately masked the smell of onion juice and maintained a pleasant, clean smell in the litter box for a full 24 hours. Clumps formed quickly and were easily scooped from the box without falling apart on the way to the garbage, too. As expected of all the granular cat litters, there was a coating of pebbles all over the lab counters around the litter box. 

The boxed packaging made it very easy to pour and store. I didn’t find the Mountain Spring fragrance overwhelming at all. It was only when I had my nose an inch or two away from the litter that I could really smell the scent.

PrettyLitter’s name doesn’t lie–this clear, crystalline litter was pretty compared with the gray, brown, and beige hues of most of the others. It wasn’t the only health-monitoring litter available online, but according to our research, it’s the most popular brand. This litter notifies cat owners of any potential problems with a cat’s health based on the color of the crystals when urine comes in contact with them. Red indicates the presence of blood. Orange means the acidity of the urine is outside the average range; blue/dark green means the alkalinity is outside that range, and dark yellow or olive green indicates typical pee. We didn’t test the health-monitoring features of this litter in our lab. But you should probably still take your cat to a vet regularly, even if PrettyLitter’s crystals remain olive green every time your cat pees.

There were no clouds of dust at any point during the evaluation, even though it turned into fine powder when I rubbed the crystals in my hand. But the smell of onion was obvious at the 30-minute, 2-hour, and 24-hour marks. The litter turned dark green when it became wet with the juice, which would have made it easy to scoop if this had been a clumping litter. Instead, the company instructs users to mix up the litter so that the dirty crystals aren’t sitting in just one spot. This made the onion smell less noticeable but didn’t totally get rid of it. 

Another bagged option that’s sealable, PrettyLitter is at least available in lighter bags than the other tested cat litters.

This Purina litter works well enough, but its poor packaging made it my least favorite litter to evaluate. Lifting a 17-pound bag with no handle out of a too-tight cardboard box was impossible for me. I ended up using a cup to scoop and pour litter from the bag into a litter box, a process that took far longer than any of the pours required of the other cat litters we tested. 

Its odor-masking abilities weren’t the best either. After 30 minutes, it showed promising results, but at the 2-hour and 24-hour marks, there was a faint, unmistakable onion odor coming from this litter. Clumps were easy to spot and scoop out, and there was only a small cloud of dust when I emptied the box into a trash can. As with every other pebble-shaped litter, it made a mess around the litter box.

Initially, I couldn’t smell the onion juice in this litter, but after 2 hours it took on a rancid odor that was hard to ignore. Twenty-four hours later, it was still lingering in the box. Scooping clumps of this litter took a bit of digging because there was no noticeable change in the color or texture of the litter when it was wet. As I lifted a clump and shook the scooper over the box to get rid of any excess, the clump started to fall apart, meaning I was re-depositing dirty litter back into the box. 

This litter didn’t produce clouds of dust, which is nice, but the small granules crumbled very easily into a fine powder when I rubbed them together between my fingers. As with all of the other heavy bags with no handles, this litter was difficult to pour into my litter box and wasn’t resealable. This was also one of just two tested cat litters that was labeled as flushable by the company. As a reminder, flushing used litter is generally not recommended, especially because it may have been contaminated with the parasite that causes toxoplasmosis.

The onion juice I added to the litter box still had a pungent smell 24 hours later, there was a small cloud of dust every time I scooped clumps out of the box, and there was a mess around this box post-evaluation. The 18-pound bag purchased for our lab test wasn’t resealable and was incredibly difficult for me to lift and pour litter from (I’m just 4 feet, 9 inches tall).

One thing this litter has going for it is that clumps formed around the wet messes really well, and they were easy to spot and scoop out of the box.

*Based on price at the time of publication.