Tidy Cats Scoop Crystals Blend Versus Arm & Hammer Crystal Blend Cat Litter

I've recently been on the search for the perfect cat litter. Having four adult cats and seven kittens can create quite a problem in the smell department. Over the past three weeks I've tried numerous brands of cat litter, and finally narrowed it down to the two best: Tidy Cats Scoop Crystals Blend and Arm & Hammer Crystal Blend. Here's the scoop on how Tidy Cats and Arm & Hammer stack up:

Price

The Arm & Hammer Crystal Blend cat litter was more expensive: around $10.50 for a 14 lb box, versus Tidy Cats Scoop Crystals Blend at around $8.50 for a 20 lb plastic container.

Container

Arm & Hammer Crystal Blend comes in a box with a handle on the top, while Tidy Cats Scoop Crystals Blend comes in a plastic jug with a screw-top lid. The plastic jug is much easier to carry and pour, and I never had to worry about spills. The box that the Arm & Hammer Crystal Blend comes in was unwieldy and made quite a mess. When you have seven kittens jumping all over you while changing the litter, it's important that the container not be easily toppled.

Clumping

Both the Arm & Hammer Crystal Blend and the Tidy Cats Scoop Crystals Blend are clumping litters. However, the Arm & Hammer brand didn't hold up so well to multiple cats using the litter box. Most of the clumps either broke apart when the cats were scratching around in the litter box between cleanings, or broke apart when I was cleaning out the pan. I have a litter box with a built in sifter pan, and the Arm & Hammer Crystal Blends rendered it useless. The clumps broke into small pieces, which fell through the sifting pan, and I had to take out the sifting pan and go in with my old trusty pooper-scooper. Quite inconvenient, really.

The Tidy Cats Scoop Crystals Blend litter performed beautifully in this department. No matter the size of the clump, it came right out and stayed intact from litter box to trash can. Not a single clump fell through my sifter pan. I was very impressed with its clumping capabilities.

Odor Control

Both litter brands performed very well on a day-to-day basis. I didn't have a problem with either one of them having an odor. However, I clean out my litter box twice per day, due to the large cat population in my home. What would happen if the litter box weren't cleaned so often? Against my better judgment, I decided to test the odor control powers of these two litters in extreme conditions. I purchased another litter box, let it get pretty full of kitty "leftovers" (which, by the way, doesn't take very long when you have as many cats as I do), and then placed it in an unused room of our house with a closed door and closed windows for one full week. I repeated this process with both brands.

I tried this out with the Arm & Hammer Crystal Blend first. On the seventh day, I opened the door to that room and was immediately struck by the stench. It was almost overpowering, and this is from a litter box that had not been disturbed for a week. Gagging, I grabbed the litter box, ran outside with it, and proceeded to scour it with a steel scrubbing pad and Ajax until no trace of that horrendous smell remained. It took two full days with the windows open and many applications of Febreze on the carpet and curtains for that smell to clear out of the room.

I repeated the process with Tidy Cats Scoop Crystals Blend. I was understandably nervous about opening the door. I turned the handle, threw the door open, inhaled deeply, and smelled... nothing. The room smelled just as fresh as the day I'd put the litter box in there. I was deeply impressed after the Arm & Hammer fiasco, and that's when I decided that Tidy Cats Scoop Crystals Blend was the litter for me.

Conclusion

In the four most important areas of kitty litter-price, convenience of packaging, clumping, and odor control-Tidy Cats Scoop Crystals Blend won by a landslide. You get more for your money, the container is very convenient (and reusable to store kitten toys after a good washing), and the clumping and odor control capabilities are amazing. I highly recommend Tidy Cats Scoop Crystals Blend. It just can't be beat.