My honest review of Ruggable's washable rugs after 3 years of using one

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Ruggable first burst onto the scene more than a decade ago with the promise of kid- and pet-friendly rugs you could throw in your washing machine. It was an exciting innovation at the time, and even though a couple more brands have launched washable rugs since (including Tumble and Revival), no one has overtaken Ruggable in popularity or reputation.

Most of the Ruggable reviews I'd read seemed too good to be true, as did all the perfect photos and videos of influencers styling the rugs on Instagram. Being the skeptical product review journalist I am, I knew I had to put Ruggable to the test.

If you want the bottom line quickly, I'll just tell you that most people (including me) really like their Ruggable rugs, but find the smaller ones that aren't covered with heavy furniture to be much easier to both set up and wash.

After testing the Celestine rug from Ruggable in my own home over the last couple of years and interviewing several other Ruggable owners, I've broken down everything you need to know about the setup, cleaning, maintenance, and quality of the rugs.

The setup process is harder for large rugs but very easy for smaller ones.

Ruggable rugs come as two pieces: the cover (which is the pretty part of the rug) and the rug pad. To set up a rug, you have to first lay down the pad and then unroll the cover directly onto it.

The rug covers come rolled up with the decorative side facing outwards. The instructions say to unroll the rug and then re-roll it so the decorative side is facing inward. Once you re-roll the cover, you unroll it over the pad, being careful to perfectly align the corners and edges.

If you don't have a big open space to unroll and re-roll the rug cover, setup can be difficult for large rugs. When setting up a 9x12 rug in our enclosed dining room, we found it difficult to work around our heavy, 8-person table, which we couldn't remove from the room. We had to get scrappy and re-roll the rug while holding it in the air. It was also challenging getting the cover perfectly aligned with the pad.

Most people I spoke to preferred using Ruggable rugs for high-traffic areas where they didn't have to move furniture in order to wash them.

Based on my own experience and many conversations with Ruggable owners, larger rugs that are covered by furniture rarely get washed because they're kind of a pain to remove and set back up. The real value in a Ruggable rug is when you use them in busy areas like hallways or kitchens because the rugs can easily be thrown in the wash and reset on their pads.

That said, lots of people still love using them in their living rooms and don't mind the work of moving some furniture around to throw them in the wash. The author of our guide to the best area rugs swears by the Ruggable in her living room, which she says had withstood plenty of spills.

The rugs really can be machine-washed and dried, but you should expect a bit of color fading over time.

Because of how much furniture we have on top of our rug, I've never washed it (as I mentioned before, lots of heavy furniture is a definite hindrance). But based on interviews with other Ruggable owners, the color and design hold up well against occasional washing and spot cleaning. There's no limit to how often you can wash your rug, though folks I talked to said that you should expect some fading over time if you wash it frequently.

Ruggable rugs should be washed on a delicate cycle with a small amount of non-bleach detergent. Ruggable's instructions suggest adding a cup of vinegar to neutralize pet odors. To dry, use a low-heat setting on your dryer, and depending on the size of your rug, you may have to run the cycle multiple times.

If you're wondering whether the rug size you're looking at will fit in your washing machine, Ruggable offers a guide that tells you the cubic feet your washer needs to be for the various sizes of rugs. For instance, my 9 × 12 foot rug requires a washer drum that is at least 4.2 cubic feet.

The rugs do hold up well over time, but everyone has the same pet peeve about the way they wear.

If there's one thing I heard consistently from Ruggable owners, it was that they didn't like how the rug would tend to ripple over time, sometimes causing the edges of the rug to misalign. The reason this happens is that the rug cover is basically Velcroed to the pad, and with a lot of walking/movement on the surface (like vacuuming), it causes the cover to shift around a tiny bit at a time. Over time, this can create a little ripple effect on the cover that looks kind of like a crease in the rug — but it can be fixed by just adjusting the way it lays.

I tested the flatwoven style, but Ruggable also offers several other rug types and textures, including outdoor styles and shag options.

Ruggable caters to a wide range of aesthetic styles, whether you're into traditional designs, bolder and more playful colors, or kid-friendly motifs. The brand even partners with designers and interior furnishing companies like Morris & Co. and Jonathan Adler to create sophisticated yet affordable designs.

One of the things that really sets Ruggable apart from other washable rug brands is that they also offer unexpected textures, like shag and even tufted (aka plush) options. I haven't tested these yet, but our team is working on it so we'll update this review with more insight on other styles soon.

Are they really worth it? Here's the bottom line.

In short, yes — but with a few caveats to consider.

Ruggable rugs are great for homes with pets, kids, or frequent mess-makers. This is especially true for smaller rugs that are very manageable to move around.

If you want to be able to launder your rug any time there's a spill, you need to have enough space to easily move all of your furniture out of the way. The truth is that setting the rug back up when you're battling dining table legs or heavy beds is such a pain that you won't even want to deal with it. In larger rooms with lots of heavy or clunky furniture, we recommend sticking with a rug that's easy to spot-clean, and instead opting for Ruggable rugs in high-traffic areas like kitchens or hallways, or rooms where moving furniture isn't an issue.