How to Make Any Basic Hanger Instantly More Functional

For such a small, unassuming “room” in the house, a lot goes on in the closet. 

In mine, in addition to its obvious function of storing clothes, shoes, and coats, I have shelves that hold a box that contains my wedding dress, my hiking boots, two breast pumps that I really need to donate, and various travel gear, such as packing cubes, weekender bags, and bone pillows. I also have a brown paper bag ready to receive my closet cast-offs as soon as I try something on and feel unlike myself in it. (This is key to an uncluttered closet, by the way.) 

With all this happening in the closet, it’s easy to assume that clothes storage is the most straightforward operation going on. But it’s not! From deciding whether to organize your clothes by length, type, color, or a combination, to choosing what types of hangers to use, clothing storage comes with a whole host of choices, decision-making, and issues. 

One closet mishap that throws even the tidiest closet into disarray is clothes that slide off the hanger. Not only do falling-off clothes look sloppy, but when clothes slip all the way off the hanger and end up in the no man’s land on the floor underneath other hanging clothes, well, at best you forget about that article of clothing, and at worst, you look for it in frustration when you’re running late in the morning. 

But you don’t need to replace all your slippery plastic hangers with expensive non-slip velvet ones to solve the problem of disappearing robes and sweaters. There’s a super easy fix, and it’s probably somewhere in your craft closet: pipe cleaners!

By wrapping your slippery plastic or wire hangers with a pipe cleaner, you keep your garments hanging neatly and securely. 

To implement this low-cost, quick and easy solution, hold one end of your pipe cleaner near the “elbow” of your hanger and wrap it snugly around the top angled portion of the hanger, toward the hook. You don’t need to wrap the whole thing. Just one pipe cleaner on each side will do the trick to keep your clothes snugly on your hangers, your closet looking sharp, and your garments at arm’s reach, right where they’re supposed to be.