Best shower caddies for college dorms, camp, and shared bathrooms
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Whether you are navigating a college dorm, a summer camp bathhouse, or a shared apartment, juggling your toiletries down a long hallway to a communal restroom shouldn't be the hardest part of your morning. A reliable portable shower caddy is the unsung hero of any shared bathroom routine, keeping your products neatly organized and easily accessible. The best shower caddies have smart compartments, comfortable carrying handles or hanging straps, and rapid-drainage and quick-drying designs so you aren't dragging puddles back into your bedroom.
To find the most durable and spacious options, we pushed 11 caddies to their limits with a standardized 14-product testing routine. The Pottery Barn Teen Recycled Classic Shower Caddy is our top pick because it is roomy enough to hold all the essentials, easy to hang, fast drying, and can be personalized, making it easier to identify if left in a communal space. For just $10, the Room Essentials Mesh Caddy has a similar shape, is spacious, and dries quickly, but is available in fewer colors.
Find out more about how Business Insider Reviews tests and reviews home products.
Our top picks for shower caddies
Best overall shower caddy: Pottery Barn Teen Recycled Classic Shower Caddy - See at Pottery Barn Teen
Best budget shower caddy: Room Essentials Mesh Caddy - See at Target
Best large: Room Essentials Large Plastic Dorm Shower Caddy - See at Target
Best compact shower caddy: Bags in Bag Portable Shower Caddy - See at Amazon
Best toiletry bag: L.L.Bean Personal Organizer Toiletry Bag (Medium) - See at L.L.Bean
Best overall
An attractive, customizable organizer that looks great on display. Because dorm bathrooms often lack private storage, the sleek appearance of the Pottery Barn Teen Recycled Classic Shower Caddy ensures you won't mind keeping it out in the open. It comes in seven colors, features exclusive design collaborations with brands like LoveShackFancy, Lilly Pulitzer, Roller Rabbit, and Hill House —can be personalized with a monogram.
It offers exceptional storage space and a sturdy, self-supporting structure. It features the roomiest main compartment among the mesh caddies tested, easily holding 14 toiletries with extra room in the side pockets. Taller bottles are best kept in the center since the exterior pockets are a bit shallow, but the recycled polyester ensures the bag stays wide open, rather than collapsing in on itself, even when empty.
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The fabric is highly durable, though the mesh bottom requires proper airflow to dry completely. While the side pockets dry quickly, the bottom can remain damp for about eight hours, meaning you'll want to hang it up. Water drains easily through the mesh, and any minor pooling on the bottom polyester strips can be cleared with a quick shake.
Best budget
Lightweight and crammed with pockets to keep all your toiletries together and organized. The Room Essentials mesh caddy holds a full assortment of toiletries in its main compartment, with room to spare in the exterior slots, for the 14 items we added. The six exterior pockets vary in size, but even the smallest one held a 22-ounce shampoo bottle with no problem.
Exceptionally fast-drying and easy to hang up. Within six hours of use, the mesh body dries almost entirely, leaving only the handles feeling slightly damp. The two long handles loop perfectly over door knobs or shower hooks, and are comfortable to sling over your shoulder to carry. Water drains away instantly with virtually no pooling at the bottom.
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Functionally flawless for a budget pick, the caddy's aesthetics are fairly generic. Our biggest concern is that it's not very distinctive-looking, and there aren't many color options to help you distinguish yours from everyone else's.
Best large
An ultra-spacious, heavy-duty option that keeps your routine neatly divided. While the Room Essentials Large Plastic Dorm Shower Caddy lacks the removable nesting bucket of the original model we tested—which is unfortunately no longer available—this standard three-compartment plastic tote still offers massive storage capacity for a strict $10 budget. The divided layout easily lets you separate your bulky in-shower hair products from your sink-side skincare routine.
Easily holds all your toiletries, with room to spare. The large main rectangular section easily accommodates full-size 22-ounce bottles of shampoo and conditioner, as well as chunky body washes. Meanwhile, the two equally sized compartments on the other side keep smaller essentials, like razors, face wash, and shaving cream, from tipping over or getting lost at the bottom.
The rugged plastic frame is built to survive dorm life and features excellent drainage. Made from sturdy polypropylene, this rigid caddy easily survives daily bumps and drops on hard bathroom floors without denting or cracking. Every compartment features generous drainage holes to shed water quickly, but its rigid shape and fixed top handle mean this model is strictly built to rest on a shower bench or counter rather than hang from a hook.
Best compact
A compact, zippered pouch built for maximum portability. The Bags in Bag Portable Shower Caddy stands out as It stands out as a highly collapsible option with a full zipper closure. It can fit large bottles, but won't zip if overstuffed. During testing, it technically crammed in almost every single product on the 14-item list — minus a pack of cotton rounds — though it could not actually zip shut at that capacity. It can comfortably zip around full-sized bottles if not overloaded, including 22-ounce shampoo and body wash bottles, as well as a 21-ounce conditioner.
The mesh design offers excellent drainage and fast drying times. Water flows effortlessly straight through the bottom of the bag during use. Within six hours, the mesh portions dry completely, leaving only the handles and top fabric borders feeling slightly damp.
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The single-compartment layout sacrifices organization. Because there are no interior dividers, loose items are free to mingle inside. Though its zipper design makes it highly portable to tote along in a gym bag, too. It is important to note that while the zipper prevents bottles from falling out, the mesh material will not contain fluid leaks if a cap comes undone.
Best fabric
An excellent toiletry bag with unmatched pocket organization is a great shower caddy alternative. The medium size L.L.Bean Personal Organizer Toiletry Bag we tested has a large capacity with a surplus of specialized compartments, including zippered side pockets, an exterior flap pocket, and built-in mesh pouches. The interior even boasts an attached mirror and a removable partition for travel-sized items, making it a highly functional choice for shared bathrooms.
It easily fits nearly an entire routine of toiletries and zips completely shut. During testing, the medium-sized bag accommodated almost every single item on the 14-product list, except for a jar of face cream. The main compartment closes effortlessly, even with shampoo, conditioner, and body wash inside.
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The heavy-duty built-in hook allows for easy hanging, but the fabric should be kept out of the shower. The sturdy hook supports up to 25 pounds, which easily handles a fully loaded bag. For reference, our bundle of products weighed less than 10 pounds. However, because it's made with water-resistant polyester or nylon(depending on the pattern), it dries much more slowly than mesh alternatives, so it shouldn't be brought directly into the shower with you. It is available in small, medium, large, and family sizes to suit your specific needs.
What else we tested
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What else we recommend and why
Handy Laundry Dorm Shower Caddy ($8): This collapsible mesh caddy from Handy Laundry was the quickest drying option we tested. Its single compartment can hold a lot of products, but its tall design means you'll have to pull out many items to reach anything on the bottom. We still like it as a compact option, though it lacks a zipper like the Bags in Bags pouch.
Handy Laundry 7-Pocket Tote ($7): Handy Laundry's mesh caddy features seven deep pockets for organization. We liked that even tall bottles fit snugly in the side compartments, with no risk of tipping out. It lost out compared to the Room Essentials mesh back because it took longer to dry and had a slightly smaller main compartment.
UUJOLY Organizer Storage Basket ($15): Cute and roomy, this basket fits everything we put into it. It drains well and is lightweight. The main drawback is its lack of compartments. If you don't fill it well, the bottles inside tend to jostle together, and smaller items can get lost. But if you have a lot of products, you should have space for all of them.
What we don't recommend and why
Attmu Oxford Mesh Shower Caddy: Though it comes highly rated on Amazon and is available in many colors, this caddy arrived with an extremely strong chemical odor that took days to dissipate. A few other caddies had faint smells, but nothing as strong or unpleasant as this.
What to look for in a dorm shower caddy
Size: When space is limited, you want a compact caddy that still fits all your toiletries. To get an idea of how big a caddy you need, gather your shower essentials and eyeball the rough dimensions they take up. You might even use a tape measure if you have one available. Then, look for a caddy that's that size.
Compartments: You probably don't want your toothbrush touching your loofah. This is where compartments come in handy to keep things organized. If you need to keep several items separate, choose a caddy with enough compartments to accommodate them. Removable compartments are nice if you don't want to carry your entire body-care routine to brush your teeth and wash your face.
Easy to hang: Your shower may not have a convenient spot to set down your caddy, so an easily hangable caddy is essential. This will also help it dry off when you're done showering.
Quick-drying: When water sticks around, it attracts mold and mildew, which can get stinky and gross. Look for a caddy that doesn't hold onto water and that drains or dries quickly.
How we tested dorm shower caddies
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We tried to fit the following 14 items into every caddy: 22-ounce bottle of shampoo, 21-ounce bottle of conditioner, 22-ounce bottle of body wash, 3.8-ounce tube of toothpaste, razor, 80-count package of cotton rounds, electric toothbrush, 2.7-ounce deodorant, 13.52-ounce bottle of lotion, small floss dispenser, 6-ounce canister of face cream, 6-ounce tube of shaving cream, 2.5-ounce tube of post-shave lotion, and one tube of lip balm. We noted if there were compartments for organization and how well they fit certain items like a 6- or 8-ounce tube of shaving cream or body wash.
We poured a cup of water into the bottom of each caddy to see how well they drained, then noted if water pooled anywhere and whether we had to tip or shake the caddy to get it to drain.
For the mesh and fabric bags, we got them wet and weighed them after four, six, and eight hours to see how long it took them to dry. We also felt them to see which parts were still damp.
To test the durability of the plastic and metal caddies, we pushed them down seven concrete stairs, dropped each one twice on the concrete, and examined them for dents or cracks.
Dorm shower caddy FAQs
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What size shower caddy do I need?
The right shower caddy for you depends on how many products you use. You might think your toiletries are pretty minimal. But by the time you're toting shampoo, conditioner, lotion, toothpaste, shaving cream, and so on back and forth a couple of times a day, you'll realize you have a lot to carry. We recommend tallying the products in your routine to get a sense of whether you can get away with a compact-size caddy.
Is a mesh or plastic shower caddy better?
Plastic shower caddies dry quickly and are easy to clean, while mesh ones take up less space and are often easier to hang up.
Which type you opt for will depend on your priorities. Plastic is less likely to get moldy, and some products can be reached more quickly, but many options take up more space. If you decide to get a mesh bag, make sure you let it dry thoroughly after each use.
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