Admit it: You’re not the world’s most graceful person. You occasionally stub your toe, slip on hardwood floors, or cut yourself while preparing dinner. Then there was that one time you dropped your phone in the toilet…okay, you’re a total klutz.
The good news: Technology has you covered. We searched Amazon to find the best products for clumsy folk, and in the process, we found that there’s an entire industry set up for accident-prone people.
If you’re looking to simplify your existence—or you’re simply trying to find a useful gift for the lovable stumblebums in your life—these items should help you get started.
1. Darkness is the natural enemy of the klutz.
They call this a “smart nightlight,” which might be overselling it just a bit; it’s simply a motion-activated light that you install under your bed. The passive infrared motion sensor turns the light on when you set your feet down, ensuring that you won’t step on a LEGO or walk right into your nightstand. It automatically shuts off, too, so you won’t have to fiddle with any switches when you climb back into bed.
Granted, this might not be the best purchase if you’ve got pets—Fido will set it off every couple of seconds if he’s allowed in your room—but otherwise, it’s a lifesaver. Equipped with 45 LEDs, it provides up to 100,000 hours of light (after which you’ll promptly go back to stubbing your toes on everything in sight).
Motion Activated Bed Light, $21.99 from Amazon
2. Why do they make bathtubs so slippery, anyway?
Oh, right—because otherwise, they’d be porous, and…uh, yeah. Well, if you want to avoid a serious slip, you’ll need a tub mat, and Gorilla Grip provides one of the best options available. Hundreds of suction cups hold it perfectly in place on any smooth surface, while small holes on the underside allow water to circulate, preventing mold and bacterial growth.
It’s also machine washable; throw it (or, actually, gently place it) in your washing machine with a mild detergent and cold water, then air dry. The Gorilla Grip mat is free from phthalates, latex, and other potential irritants, so it’s ideal for clumsy folk with sensitive skin—the double whammy.
Just take care when using it with bath oils—the product description notes that oils can make the mat slippery, which sort of defeats the purpose. Hey, on second thought, why not just take a bath?
Gorilla Grip Antibacterial, Slip-Proof Bath Mat, $15.99 from Amazon
3. You really don’t want to have any sort of accident in the bathroom.
According to this piece from The New York Times, about one in three home accidents occurs in the bathroom. That’s understandable but pretty alarming; at any given moment, your bathroom has a substantial number of electrical gadgets, so you want to stay organized to stay safe.
This hair dryer holder helps you keep your sink clear while maximizing space. Install it with the included mounting hardware, and the next time you’re preparing for a big night out, you’ll know exactly where your dryer is—and more importantly, you won’t have to dig through your cabinets or clutter up your sink while you’re getting ready.
Bathroom Hair Dryer Holder, $28.61 from Amazon
4. And in your defense, that carpet was really slippery.
These anti-slip shoe pads allow you to walk with grace and dignity—or at the very least, they let you make your way from room to room without klutzing up the place. Rubber-like “microfingers” grip hardwoods and other slippery surfaces, keeping your feet below you (where they’re supposed to be, as far as we know).
Simply peel off the adhesive backing, apply them to your favorite shoes, and go about your day. Nobody will know that you cover literally all your shoes with grip material to avoid falling down like an idiot. In our book, that’s a win.
Anti-Slip Shoe Pads, $10.02 from Amazon
5. In your defense, you didn’t know that they were real candles.
For clumsy folk, burns are a way of life. The next time you utterly fail at lighting a fire of any kind, reach for this soothing burn gel—provided, of course, that you didn’t accidentally burn your house down. (If you’ve set fire to your house recently, stop reading this article and call the fire department right now.)
It features a 4 percent concentration of lidocaine, which numbs the burn site so you won’t have to spend several hours thinking, “Why didn’t I just not do that?” The advanced formula also has a soothing touch of aloe vera gel, which can help to moisturize your skin to promote faster healing. It’s almost like the burn never happened (at least, that’s what you’ll tell yourself).
Alocane Maximum Strength Emergency Room Burn Gel, $7.47 from Amazon
6. Y’know what? You don’t even need real candles.
Candles are beautiful and romantic and everything, but they’re also a serious fire hazard. That’s particularly true for those of us who tend to bump into tables and knock stuff over. It’s best not to risk it.
But that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the ambient glow of a luminous wick. Just pick up this set of nine LED candles. They’re made of real wax, so they look totally authentic. There’s even a remote timer so you can dial up the ambiance from a distance.
Battery Powered Candle Set, $24.99 from Amazon
7. With these cup covers, you won’t have to explain to the IT guy why you need yet another keyboard.
We can’t work without coffee. Unfortunately, we also can’t work with coffee, since we always spill it on our keyboard. The boss says if we ruin another computer peripheral, it’s coming out of our paycheck.
Luckily, these cup covers are here to save the day. We keep one on our coffee mug between every sip. They even have cute little cat handles, so we look super tough and awesome while we work.
Watertight Silicone Cup Lid Cover, $12.99 from Amazon
8. Protect your most prized possession, which we’re assuming is a laptop.
You didn’t throw down a couple of grand on a Macbook Pro just to shatter the thing on your first drop. Pick up one of these laptop sleeves to protect your investment, even when you inevitably let it hit the floor.
This sleeve has a shockproof lining that will produce more of a bounce than a break. It’s also water repellent, so you can drop your laptop in the rain. It even looks pretty nice. Don’t carry a laptop without it.
Lacdo Waterproof, Shock-Resistant Laptop Case, $11.99 from Amazon
9. Arnica! Arnica! Arnica!
Yep, that was a Dog Day Afternoon reference. Now we will proceed to the point. The herb arnica treats bruises and swelling, hastening the healing process. That’s why we always keep a bit of Arnica Bruise Cream close at hand.
This stuff absorbs quickly into the skin, easing pain and stopping bruises before they start. It also contains vitamin K and horse chestnut extract for even greater healing power. If you’re prone to bruising, carry Arnica Bruise Cream with you everywhere you go.
Miracle Plus Arnica Bruise Cream, $10.92 from Amazon
10. Isn’t it time to enjoy some stress-free eating?
Food is great when it’s in your mouth. Not so much when it’s all over your best dress shirt. While there’s zero chance you’ll get through a meal without some gravy on your outfit, you don’t have to walk around in stained clothes every day.
What’s the secret? Ask grandma. Grandma’s Secret Spot Remover treats stains of all sorts before they set. Put a dab on grease, grass, blood, ink, and more. Now you can enjoy your lunch and wear white on the same day.
Grandma’s Secret Spot Remover, $9.19 from Amazon
11. Chop up your food, not your fingers.
For us clumsy folks, mealtimes are terrifying. They say you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, but you also can’t prepare dinner without chopping up some veggies. Clumsiness and sharp edges do not go well together.
That’s why we’re so grateful for these cut-resistant gloves. They protect like chainmail, with a much more modern look. Best of all, they come in a set of three, and they’re color-coded to prevent cross-contamination. If you love to cook but you hate the sight of blood, put these in your Amazon cart immediately.
TruChef Cut Resistant Gloves (3 pairs), $19.99 from Amazon
12. You don’t have to be a Boy Scout to be prepared.
If you’re clumsy, you probably won’t be able to totally prevent every injury. You’ll stub the occasional toe. You’ll scrape the occasional knee. You might even be prone to paper cuts, we’re sorry to say.
The next-best thing to prevention is preparation. This first aid kit is waterproof, compact, and easy to carry. Keep it in your briefcase, if you have the sort of job that requires a briefcase. Otherwise, just stow it somewhere handy so you can treat those minor injuries like a pro.
Waterproof First Aid Kit, $16.14 from Amazon
13. Clumsy-proof your kitchen shears.
Maybe you don’t trust yourself around sharp objects. Maybe you’ve had a bad experience with kitchen shears. Whatever the reason, if you’re reading this, you could probably use a Clever Cutter.
Did we say shears? Well, they function that way, but they’re really like a combination knife/cutting board with easy-grip handles. Chop your food the easy way, and stay safe out there, folks.
Clever Cutter 2-in-1 Knife & Cutting Board, $9.99 from Amazon
14. If your rugs are clear OSHA violations, you need these.
You know how the corners of rugs are always curling up to form the perfect tripping hazard? If not, you’ll have to tell us where you get your rugs. The other alternative is to pick up a few of these rug grippers.
They’re adhesive strips that stick rugs firmly to the ground below. They’ll eliminate curling and keep rugs from sliding around. It’s not an exaggeration to say that they could save your life. Well, maybe it’s kind of an exaggeration, but this is your life we’re talking about; why take chances?
Anti-Curl Rug Grippers, $13.91 from Amazon
15. Keep your glasses out of the sink—or, worse, the toilet.
Clumsy people who wear glasses need all the help they can get. At the very least, they need these special lanyards built to keep glasses from slipping off their face and tumbling into all sorts of terrible places: dinner plates, toilets, rivers, volcanoes, fissures, you name it.
These braided cords slip onto your glasses’ earpieces and sit comfortably around the neck. They’re great for sunglasses, too. You might not be able to keep your specs on your face, but you can keep them from falling to the ground…or worse.
Glasses Cord (pack of 5), $5.99 from Amazon
16. Fight “baker’s burn” right at the source.
Fun fact: You can always spot a baker. Just look at the forearms. No one who’s spent any time working in a bakery can avoid those tell-tale horizontal burn scars. They come from reaching into the oven and running smack-dab into the rack.
Maybe you can identify. If so, you need these oven rack protectors. They’re genius, really—little bands of heat-resistant silicone that snap right onto the front of oven racks. Now that these exist, how are we going to tell the bakers from the non-bakers on sight?
Heat Resistant Silicone Oven Rack Protectors, $19.99 from Amazon
17. A little gription goes a long way.
Those of us who are prone to slipping should invest in a pack of non-slip socks immediately. They’ll prevent those crashes on the linoleum. Heck, they’ll even keep your shoes more reliably on your feet.
These non-slip socks come as a single pair, a double pack, or a three-in-one, for those of us who slide around most days of the week. They look okay, but who cares what they look like? This is a safety issue!
Non-slip Socks, $7.99 to $15.99 from Amazon
18. This product is like training wheels for your water bottle, which sounds like something you wouldn’t need…until you try it.
Drinking from a reusable water bottle—you know, your Nalgene or your Klean Kanteen—shouldn’t be hard. You just tilt and swallow, right? That’s what we figured, but we’ve also never stopped drenching our shirts with every gulp.
This splash guard turned out to be just the thing we needed to drink water like an adult. It’s a cute little BPA-free device charmingly decorated with a smiley face, and it’ll make hydration a much less embarrassing prospect. Pop one into your bottle and sip away, splash free.
Water Bottle Splash Guard, $5.90 from Amazon
19. Have a little fun tending to the scrapes and cuts of the clumsy life.
You know how they say that if you love your job, you’ll never work a day in your life? That isn’t true, but it does remind us of something that sort of is: If you love your bandages, you won’t mind all those little scrapes quite so much.
What better way to love a bandage than to model it after something that everyone loves? That thing is bacon. Even vegetarians love the idea of bacon, if not its reality. These bandages look like bacon. That is both hilarious and lovable. Just don’t try to eat them.
Bacon Bandages, $6.03 from Amazon
20. Take a safer shower, even when you need to shave your legs.
Bending and reaching in the shower is not a wise choice when you aren’t confident in your ability to remain upright. Nevertheless, we still have to shave our legs, moisturize the kneecaps, and wash our toes.
This removable shower step makes all those tasks about a million percent easier. It sticks firmly into the corner, giving you an easy place to elevate your legs for easier reaching. Shave without fear. You don’t know clean toes until you’ve scrubbed with the help of a shower step.
ElevEase Shower Step, $34.99 from Amazon
21. The toes you save may be your own.
Of all injuries, a stubbed toe is the worst (barring, you know, life-threatening stuff). And of all stubbed toes, the one stubbed against the bedpost is, by far, the worst. You know what we mean if you’ve suffered this calamity.
We wish we knew about the (no kidding) Toe Saver 2000 years ago. It sounds futuristic with all that talk of the space-age year 2000. Really, though, these are super simple. They’re little foam pads that fit around your bedposts, and their creators deserve a Nobel Prize.
Toe Saver 2000 (set of 4), $13.99 from Amazon
22. Go ahead. Drop that phone in the toilet.
If you’ve never dropped an iPhone in a toilet, either you’re a better person than we are or you own an Android. Either way, you can imagine the trauma. If only there were some sort of waterproof phone case!
Well of course there is. This particular iPhone case resists moisture and even snow. Shoot, the manufacturers claim you can submerge the thing more than 6 meters deep for a full hour before a single drop will touch your precious device. Every iPhone should come with one of these.
Waterproof Case for iPhone, $16.99 from Amazon
23. Bake without fear.
You know how some people can reach into an oven and remove a red-hot cookie sheet with nothing but a thin dishrag? We are not those people. Even with a legitimate potholder, we always find a way to make contact with the oven rack. We always get burned.
Maybe that’ll change with these silicone cooking gloves. They use layers of cotton and silicone to keep the heat and our flesh safely separate, even when we accidentally brush the edges of the oven. They even have non-slip palms, so we’re less likely to drop the lentils.
Heat Resistant Silicone Cooking Gloves, $14.99 from Amazon
24. You know you’re really clumsy when you accidentally step in the toilet.
In our defense, it was night-time, it was very dark, and we thought we were stepping over a corner stool. Still, the accidental foot in the toilet is not a mistake we’d care to repeat. That’s why we converted our toilet bowl into a flushable nightlight.
The IllumiBowl is a motion-activated LED light that fits underneath the seat of your throne. It’ll flash on when you get close, ensuring everything ends up where it ought to. Enough said.
IllumiBowl Toilet Night Light, $10.70 from Amazon
25. If you have to stumble, you may as well stumble in comfort.
There are lots of reasons to wear compressions socks: heel spurs, plantar fasciitis, even arthritis. Athletes wear them for extra support. Well, you know who else needs support? People who fall down a lot.
If you’re not the most dextrous person in the world, you might appreciate a little help keeping those ankles aligned. These compressions socks do the trick. They’re even pretty darn comfortable.
Ankle Brace Compression Socks, $21.99 from Amazon
26. Keep the veggie slices where they belong, i.e., not on the floor.
If you lose half your ingredients while trying to get them from the cutting board into the pot, we’ve got a product for you. This cutting board operates just like any other while you’re doing the slicing itself. But when it’s time to pour the contents into a dish? The sides fold up.
The end result is a spill-proof cutting board. Now you won’t have to scoop onion slices off the floor and hope the cooking process removes all the bacteria. You can honestly tell your dinner guests, maybe for the first time in your life, “None of these ingredients had any contact with the floor during the cooking process.”
Foldable Plastic Cutting Board, $11.56 from Amazon
27. Tying shoelaces is for losers. Or, at least, tie-ers.
First of all, let us point out that the tagline for these no-tie shoelaces is very clever: “Win. Never tie.” Secondly, in our experience, the shoelaces were never the problem. The problem was a total lack of the physical coordination it takes to succeed in athletic contests.
That said, these are super-handy. Lace ’em on like any other shoelace. Then, when it’s time to tighten up that footwear, just tug on the lock. These laces are elastic, so they’ll grip your foot without squeezing. Now that’s a win.
Elastic No Tie Shoelaces, $7.93 from Amazon
28. Shields were invented for a reason.
Follow us on this one: When knights of old got into sword fights, they protected themselves with big honking metal shields. You wield a blade in the kitchen. Why not take a lesson from Camelot and shield your off-hand to prevent nasty accidents?
This finger guard from Zelta slips on just like a giant ring, and it covers all four of your vulnerable digits. Slice without fear, just like those dudes at the Round Table. Note: Not for use in battle.
Zelta Finger Guard, $6.95 from Amazon
29. Ladders and stairs just got a whole lot safer.
Slippery surfaces are no good. When you find those slippery surfaces on things you’re supposed to climb, like stairs and ladders, they’re terrifying. Tame them with this anti-slip grip tape.
It’s built for indoor and outdoor use, and once you stick it on, you can trust it will stay in place. Put a line on the edges of slippery steps for dependable traction. If you work on ladders, or ever plan to clean the gutters (for once in your life), this stuff could be a literal lifesaver. Grab some and let it grab your soles.
Anti-Slip Tape, $14.99 from Amazon
30. The night holds no terrors for folks with these on their feet.
Clumsiness and nighttime are a bad combination. It’s way easier to trip when you can’t see what’s going on around your feet. So what if you want to take a romantic nighttime walk? What if you forgot to go jogging before the sun went down?
Slap a few of these shoe clip lights onto your trainers and hit the road in peace. Drivers will see them half a mile away. Ultra-bright LEDs keep you safe while you walk the dusky roads at night. Plus, they’ll fit pretty much any shoe; try them on the dance floor to bring back the good old ravin’ days.
LED Shoe Clip Lights (pack of 2), $8.99 from Amazon
31. Save your microwave the easy way.
If you’re one of those people who can’t get the soup out of the microwave without leaving a few tablespoons on the turntable, you need this silicone mat. It’s built to sit flush on any 12-inch microwave turntable, and if yours is smaller? Cut it down to size, y’all!
With one of these things in play, those spills are a lot easier to clean up. Your microwave will finally stay spot-free. Enjoy soup like you used to. After all, you know what they say: A clean microwave is the finest spice.
Silicone Microwave Mat, $5.79 from Amazon
32. Stains are gonna stain. Prepare for the inevitable.
No matter how much you prepare, you’re eventually going to lose a glob of ketchup on your Sunday best. You will splash the spaghetti sauce on your mother-in-law’s doily. These things are preordained.
But that doesn’t mean you have to live with constant stains! The trick is to carry a Janie Dry Stick with you at all times. These all-natural stain removers are built to soak up the grease and gunk that usually spells disaster for fabrics. Never leave home without it.
Janie Dry Stick Spot Remover, $35.64 from Amazon
33. Want to do something nice for your poor old shins?
Coffee tables and shins are natural enemies. That’s not just for us clumsy types, either. We’re betting even the members of the Bolshoi Ballet have their share of shin-scabs from the dagger-sharp corners of their coffee tables.
That’s why we recommend these stick-on corner protectors for everyone. They’ll soften the blow when you trip past the furniture. Sure, they’re marketed as child-proofing accessories, but you don’t have to be a child to bang your knees on your glass tabletops. Let’s give the shins of the world some relief, already.
Corner Protectors (pack of 8), $12.99 from Amazon
34. Hop in and out of the bath like the merfolk, if the merfolk took baths, which they do not because they live in the ocean.
The bathtub is not kind to the clumsy. In fact, it can get downright dangerous. There’s no shame in reaching for a little assistance when your safety is on the line.
Just grab one of these balance assist bars. Activate the powerful suction cups (only on wet surfaces, note) and give yourself a hand. Use it to get into the bathtub. Use it to get out. Shoot, use it during the bath. We can’t tell you what to do.
Safe-er-Grip Balance Assist Bar, $7.94 from Amazon
35. Finally. Here’s some glassware you won’t have to replace every other week.
When you want to get fancy, you drink out of real glass. Of course, fanciness turns to farce when you shatter every drinking glass that has the misfortune to cross your path. No more.
These silicone stemless glasses (“siliconeses?”) give you all the cultural cache of stemware with none of the shards. Your bare feet will thank you. Try to break these things—just try it. We’re not certain, but we suspect they bounce.
No-Break Silicon Glasses (set of 6), $22.97 from Amazon
36. Toddler technology to the rescue.
Toddlers have it easy. We expect them to spill, so we give them sippy cups. Adults who are equally prone to spilling just have to hope they miss their expensive keyboards. The coffee mug is a recipe for disaster.
That’s why you need a product we like to think of as an adult sippy cup. This travel mug automatically reseals its drinking slot every time you put it down. That way, you can’t spill a drop—no matter how hard you try. Take that, toddlers.
