Do Packing Aids Actually Save Space? Nothing, Packing Cubes, Compression Cubes, Vacuum Bags

Are packing cubes an absolute travel essential or just a really expensive way to organize your clothes into tiny wrinkled footballs? What's up everyone? Emerald here from Emerald's Daily Carry and welcome back to our packing series. If you caught our last video, we covered the absolute best ways to fold your clothes, but today we're going to be tackling the gear itself to give you a definitive answer regarding the effectiveness of packing aids. We see them everywhere online, standard packing cubes, compression cubes, and even vacuum bags, all claiming to magically double your luggage space and save you from those dreaded checked-in bag fees. But what do they actually do and are they really worth the hype? We're going to prove it with rigorous testing and real data. We're breaking it down exactly by which ones genuinely save you usable space, which ones cause the least amount of wrinkles, and which ones are absolutely not worth your money. So let's get into it. This video was made in paid partnership with Rosetta Stone. More on them later. Before we dive into the data, let's introduce the lineup of gear we're going to be using to conduct these tests. Today we're putting standard packing cubes, compression cubes, and vacuum bags head-to-head against simply packing your clothes directly in a suitcase. For our baseline luggage, we are using the MVST Carbon X 2.0. It's definitely on the more expensive side, but we chose it because it's the closest thing we have to a perfect rectangle. It has a book style opening with a fully zippered compartment that lays completely flat, which is really crucial because it means we won't lose any internal volume to weird curves in the shell. Plus that flat zipper ensures we get perfectly flush readings with our pinto beans, which as you'll see, we're going to be using to measure volume in all of the tiny cracks and crevices in the luggage. Now let's talk about the packing aids themselves. It's important to understand the difference between a standard packing cube and a compression cube. A standard packing cube is basically just a lightweight zippered fabric box. Its main job is pure organization. For this, we went with the Eagle Creek Pack-It Reveal. It's a go-to option from a very reputable brand, meaning that we can guarantee that these zippers are not going to fail during our stress tests. A compression cube, on the other hand, takes that same fabric box, but then adds a secondary heavy duty zipper around the perimeter. Once your clothes are packed, you zip that out of track clothes to physically cinch down that fabric to squeeze out the excess air. For this category, we're using the Peak Design Compression Set. We've raved about this on our channel, and it's widely considered one of the best on the market. Finally, we have our vacuum bag. We're using this one from Sandmarc. Honestly, there's a lot on the market, and most of them function the same way, but this is just the one that we happen to have on hand. If you're shopping for one yourself, the key is finding a bag that is seam sealed and ARP welded with a one-way air valve so it doesn't leak. As for what's going inside, we wanted to simulate real travel as closely as possible, so we built a standard capsule wardrobe. We packed five cotton shirts, one pair of jeans, one sweatpants, one shorts, a wool sweater, and a polyester pullover. This is going to give us a great mix of materials so we can see exactly which packing aid prevents or causes the most amount of wrinkles. Getting into the actual testing, we first needed a baseline measurement of our empty suitcase. We filled it completely on the flat side to the rim with pinto beans and found that it holds exactly 17 liters. Next, we folded our entire capsule wardrobe using four different methods. The traditional fold, the KonMari fold, the regular roll, and the ranger roll. We took dimension measurements of those stacks to get a baseline liter volume of just the clothes. We also went over how to do all of these folds in our previous video. Once we had our baselines, the real testing began. We took our capsule wardrobe, folded it using one of the four methods, and then packed it into one of the four packing aids and timed out exactly how long that process took to test for efficiency. Then we placed that packing aid into the luggage and filled the remaining empty space with beans to measure the displacement. This tells us exactly how much volume the packing aid is taking up inside of the luggage. After letting it sit packed for about ten minutes, we took the packing aid out, unpacked the clothes, and photographed each of the garments to see which combination resulted in the fewest wrinkles. Then came the fun part. We steamed every single garment back to perfect condition so we could do it all over again. We repeated this exact process a total of 24 times. Why 24? Because we actually did this madness twice over for the vacuum bag to test out two different pumps which are going to explain a little bit later. Let me tell you this, this took over four straight days of production, folding and packing has consumed me for the past week, and I'm officially done with it for a lifetime. It was at this moment that he knew, he f***ed up. So if you appreciate this level of absolute scientific insanity, please hit that like button below. But honestly, the results were entirely worth it. Now we can finally answer those nagging questions about packing aids with hard scientific proof to back it up. And trust me, the results are going to surprise you. It's been a few weeks since my last update where I've progressed into Unit 2 of learning Korean with Rosetta Stone. Right now we're learning about family relationships and combining those core concepts from Unit 1 that included numbers, colors, and basic activities like mom wearing a green shirt or I have two sisters, for example. I feel a lot more confident with identifying Unit 1 vocabulary and context, and I'm super excited to keep building off of my foundation to converse with my relatives in Korea. Right now you can get an exclusive discount code with Rosetta Stone by clicking the link in the description or by scanning the QR code on screen. All right, so let's start breaking down what we found. Now let's talk about time, which in this case is really a measurement of the effort that you have to put in to pack this stuff. When it comes to actually packing your bag, the required effort ranges drastically. If you pack directly in your luggage, it takes almost zero extra time. But if you go to the vacuum bag route, you are looking at over two full minutes of sealing, pumping, and wrestling just to get it compressed. But time isn't just about packing, it's also about access. Once you get to your destination, how easy is it to actually get to your clothes? We found out that the KonMari Fold and our two rolled methods were by far the fastest way to grab a specific garment out of any of the packing aids. Instead of blindly digging through a large, messy stack to find your favorite shirt, these methods give you a clearer bird's eye view of everything that you brought. You get instant visibility, making it incredibly easy just to grab exactly what you need without ruining the rest of your packing job. What about the additional weight that the packing aids add? This is a huge factor to consider, especially if you're flying with an airline with strict weight allowances. Surprisingly, the compression cubes were actually the heaviest, even beating out our vacuum bag and portable pump combination. This is likely due to the heavy-duty compression zipper and the extra fabrics for that laundry compartment, specifically in the Peak Design bag. Obviously, packing directly into your luggage isn't going to add any extra weight. Standard packing cubes come in at just a marginal weight increase, which is totally worth it for the additional benefit of organization. But here's the crucial thing to remember with vacuum bags. While they do save you volume, the actual weight of your clothes stays exactly the same. Because it shrinks everything down, it gives you a false sense of how much you are actually bringing. It becomes incredibly easy to overpack and accidentally bust your 50-pound weight limit. So if your main concern is weight, no packing aid is going to save you from that. You simply have to minimize what you pack to begin with. Okay, and now we finally get to talk about wrinkles. We've already addressed which folding method creates the most amount of wrinkles in our last video, but now we want to see if any of the packing aids make those things better or much worse. And unsurprisingly, the more compression you apply, the deeper the wrinkles. Because of this, our vacuum bag and compression cube created way more wrinkles than packing directly into an empty suitcase or using a regular packing cube. But seeing this actually brought up a massive insight about wrinkles in general. It honestly doesn't really matter how you fold or what packing aid you use. What really matters is the material itself. As you can see from all of these test photos, our polyester pullover and our wool sweater had little to no visible wrinkles across almost all the different folds and packing methods. This is because the pullover is made out of hydrophobic synthetic fibers and the wool is naturally wrinkle resistant thanks to its springy, microscopic coils that make up wool fiber. Our cotton shirts, on the other hand, showed significant wrinkles no matter what we did. This is because on a molecular level, natural plant-based fibers actually start to break and bend when you introduce them to pressure, ambient moisture, or heat. This shows us that the absolute easiest way to prevent wrinkles in the first place is simply choosing the right material. And there is a great, easy way that you can test this for yourself at home before you even start packing. Just grab a piece of your clothing and pinch that fabric tightly into your fist for a few seconds. Your hand naturally creates both heat and pressure, which is the perfect storm for wrinkles. When you let go, wrinkle-prone fabrics are going to immediately show signs of crumpling, while wrinkle-resistant fabrics will bounce right back and won't show much of a difference. But what happens when that pressure lasts for hours instead of seconds? Even if a shirt passes the fist test, keep in mind that you will always get more wrinkles with more time under pressure. So don't expect any fabric to come out completely scot-free after being squished into a luggage compartment for a grueling full day of travel. So what do you do when the damage is already done? If packing exclusively wrinkle-resistant clothing just isn't an option for your trip, the best thing you can do is unpack your clothes and hang them up as soon as you get to your accommodations. A great trick is to hang them in the bathroom so that the ambient steam from your shower can help naturally loosen up those heavy, set-in wrinkles. However, if you don't have time to wait around for a shower steam to do the work, travel steamers are a fantastic tool. If you've got professional business attire that has to be flawless, wrinkle-free, right out of the suitcase, a dedicated steamer is a surefire way to get rid of creases fast. I actually left a link to the exact one that I used for all of these tests in the video description below if you're on the market for a reasonably priced one. Do packing aids actually help you save volume in your luggage? To answer that question, we had to look at our displacement test with our beans. The beans are great because they're small and relatively uniform in shape, so they can easily fill in all of those cracks and crevices that naturally form in bags. So since we know how much volume is in the empty suitcase at 17L, we can just subtract the displacement volume. Basically, we measured how many liters of beans fit into the bag after the packing aid is inside, which is going to tell us the actual volume of space the clothes are taking up. Based on our data, you don't actually gain any significant volume by using a packing aid. The only exception to this is if you use a vacuum bag, and even then, it's a little bit of a negligible difference. Let me explain. Now we get to talk about the fun difference between volume and capacity. Visually, you can see that all the packing aids take up less physical space than packing However, all of these packing aids also create oblong objects. For compression cubes, this happens because the compression is only acting along the perimeter of the cube, and there's not actually equal amounts of pressure happening on the top and bottom, which is exactly why we end up with football-like shapes. So all of that volume that you're quote-unquote saving is actually just empty gaps in the corners of your bag. You're not really going to gain any new luggage capacity because we can't take advantage of that new created volume. These findings actually make perfect sense when you start thinking about the physical limitations that we're dealing with. Specifically, the limitations of fabric. You would think that the proper folding method or the right container would be the magic solution to packing a shirt into the absolute smallest form factor. But the reality is that we are limited by the physical properties of the fabric itself. This lines up perfectly with what we found after testing out all of the different folding methods. It doesn't really matter how you fold because the absolute volume of the shirt never changes, meaning there really isn't anything more that we can do to make it physically smaller. A shirt is always going to take up the same amount of space no matter what. Specific folding methods like the ranger roll get pretty close to a shirt's absolute volume because the bottom fold holds in that compression. But the only way to make a shirt smaller is by removing the air particles trapped in between the fibers. That's why our vacuum bag gave us clear volume reduction numbers. We finally removed the last variable of air. But even that is not as straightforward as you might think. Once a bag is sealed, your new enemy becomes the amount of energy and pressure it takes to remove the air from the clothes. At a certain point, your pump is going to actually hit the textile resistance of your clothes. As the air is removed, the clothing becomes much more dense. It puts up much more of a physical resistance, making it increasingly more difficult to extract those last bits of air. Think of it as squeezing a lemon. You can probably get 80% of the juice out just by squeezing it with your hands. But to get the absolute maximum amount, you're going to have to use a heavy-duty hydraulic press. Needless to say, vacuum bags might not be worth the squeeze. We tested this theory by pitting a powerful home Dyson vacuum against a portable travel pump. The massive home vacuum only gave us about 5 or 10% more compression. And overall, the portable vacuum only gave us about 10 to 15% of additional compression compared to regular packing aids. But here is the real kicker. Even if you do manage to squeeze out that extra 15 to 20%, you can't actually really use it. Just like compression cubes, they don't create usable capacity because you're left with rock-hard, lumpy shapes with zero flat surfaces. You can't effectively pack around it. So when you factor in the more expensive material cost of the bag plus the portable pump that you're going to have to buy, getting a material amount of unusables volume saving just isn't worth it. So if packing aids don't really save you any usable space, they increase the weight of your bag, and they force you to spend more time packing, is there actually a true benefit to them? The answer is yes, and its benefit is pure organization. Packing your clothes directly into your empty luggage will technically save you the absolute most space since clothes can sit flush against the hard walls. However, that method falls short quickly when you are traveling to multiple destinations and need to constantly dig through your bag to separate clean clothes from dirty ones. This is exactly where standard packing cubes shine. You can organize by clothing type and have incredibly easy access. Plus when you get to your accommodations, all you have to do is take your cube out of the bag and place it directly into a dresser drawer. This keeps your clothes neatly folded, and more importantly clean because who knows the last time that they actually wiped down the inside of those drawers. What honestly surprised me the most throughout these tests was how little compression cubes actually matter for volume savings. Bang for buck, a simple 3 pack of regular lightweight packing cubes makes the most sense for most people. They give you all the organizational benefits without the heavy materials, the extra cost, and the unusable football shape that you're going to get with compression cubes. And for vacuum bags, unless you're packing massive winter coats and don't mind wrestling with a pump, they just really aren't worth the hassle. Because of this, I'm officially switching to regular packing cubes, and as far as folding goes, for long pants, I would stick with traditional folds just to try to match the footprint of your packing aid. From there, the KonMari fold works beautifully for your shirts, creating uniform little bricks that you can lay side by side to optimize your capacity while keeping everything visible. So to recap, you simply can't cheat physics. Vacuum bags are a cool party trick, but not really worth the wrinkles or possible weight risk. Compression cubes are turned into stiff footballs, and the real winner today is the standard packing cube. Honestly, who saw that coming? But now I leave you with the definitive answers to your biggest packing myths. You finally know exactly what works and what is just a whole lot of really great marketing. We're going to keep this packing series going, but I want to know what you want to see next. Drop a comment down below with your wildest travel gear questions, myths, and theories, and we'll tackle the best ones in a future video. Also, if you haven't checked it out already, click right here to watch our deep dive video into the absolute best folding methods. If you want to help support the channel and all the insane testing that we do here, please consider liking, subscribing, or sharing this video with a friend who always overpacks. My name is Emerald from Emerald's Daily Carry, thank you guys so much for watching, and we'll see you in the next one. Peace.