This ZenStyle Compact Washer beats the heck out of going to a laundry mat!

As an apartment-dwelling millennial with a dwindling chance of ever owning my own home, I’ve had my eye on this ZenStyle mini washing machine for a while now. The last time I went to the laundromat was a nightmare: Spilled detergent left the floor with a sticky, lint-encrusted sheen, the place was crammed with a hot miserable mass of sweaty people brawling for a machine, and to top it all off an angry, tight-lipped woman tried to pick a fight with me. The door of the dryer I was using had swung too far into her airspace. It was open more than 90 degrees, and apparently that justified her screaming in my face.

I decided enough was enough, and it was time to throw in the towel (haha, laundry joke) and take a gamble on the mini washer. 

ZenStyle Portable Compact Washer, with a Bimini for scale

Y’all, I don’t mean to sound like a weirdo here, but I think I’m in love. I chose the ZenStyle mini washing machine mostly because it has over 1,000 reviews on Amazon and a rating of 4.2 stars. However, I’d be a liar if I didn’t admit that I chose it partially because I liked the look of it.

It arrived in a large box, the size of which intimidated me at first, but was light enough to haul up the stairs to my apartment without issue. The device weighs 22 pounds. Upon opening the box I found that my mini machine surpassed expectations – it was even prettier than its pictures. 

Ain’t she a beaut?

Not to sound like a totally appliance-obsessed, domesticated 1950s housewife, but I actually squealed a little when I first saw it. I was thrilled with the shiny, plastic jewel-like texture of the dials on my new toy – I joked to my ever-patient roommate that it looks like some kind of Barbie DreamHouse appliance blown up big. I felt like a kid at Christmas.

Features of the ZenStyle Portable Washing Machine

This mini washing machine has a twin tub design. There’s one tub on the left for washing and rinsing, and a second tub on the right that houses a stainless steel basket for spinning your clothes.

Despite the instruction manual being a little confusing, the setup was suspiciously easy. The booklet calls for a flat surface (preferably concrete), and a drain. I put Barbie (yes, I named my washing machine Barbie) in my bathtub, and that seemed to be just fine. All I had to do was make sure that the drainage hose was lying flat, and plug the machine into an electrical outlet.

In this picture you can see the drainage hose lying flat on the right, and the electrical cord is lifted up high out of water’s harmful way.

Electrical appliances in bathrooms always make me nervous – I blame this scene from "Addams Family Values," and well, common sense.  

Electricity and water are like your batty cousin and her toxic ex-boyfriend at a rave: they get along like gangbusters, but not in a good way. It’s hazardous to the health of those nearby.

Barbie’s power cord was not long enough to reach the closest possible outlet, so I used a three-pronged, well-insulated extension cord. I made sure to lift the power cord up so there was no risk of it falling in the tub or ever touching water, and kept it taut. 

Next was setting up the inlet hose. It’s simple enough – you attach a white hose to the top of the washer, and the other end to a nearby faucet. The faucet in my tub has a flared, wide mouth that the hose could not fit over, so instead, I ran the hose to the bathroom sink. This option was okay but too much water pressure had a tendency to knock the hose off the end of the tap. This could probably easily be fixed with a quick visit to the hardware store, but I was impatient to try this sucker out!  I found that I could simply fill a bucket with water from the bathtub faucet, and then pour the bucket directly into the washing machine. I’ll probably just do that forever.

An inlet hose can be run from faucet to washer, but I quickly discarded this in favor of filling up a bucket, oldschool-style.

She was plugged in, her washing tub was full of water, time to give her a maiden run!

I threw two pairs of dirty workout clothes into the washing tub, and half a cap of Seventh Generation Laundry Detergent and turned the Wash Timer dial to 15 minutes. My dear little ZenStyle mini washing machine immediately hummed to life, and the first exclamation out of my mouth was “oh my gosh it sounds like a REAL washing machine!”

According to its Amazon page, the ZenStyle washer has a powerful yet quiet 1300RPM motor with a frequency of 60Hz.  I’ll admit I don’t really know whether that’s actually impressive or not when it comes to motors. I just know that I was very impressed that this shiny pretty plastic toy of a washer churned my clothes around so powerfully. The transparent blue plastic allows you to see your clothes, which is convenient for checking on them, and honestly, I was horrified by how dirty the water became.

After 15 minutes the humming stopped, and I turned the Select Switch to “Drain”. To my delight (so excited over a washing machine! Cheese and biscuits, I really am an adult, aren’t I?) water immediately began to flow out of the drainage hose.

Time to test out the spinning tub. I placed my wet, freshly sudsed and drained clothes into the little tub on the right-hand side, and placed the plastic spin cap on top, which supposedly prevents the clothes from spinning out of the tub. The timer for the spin cycle is only five minutes long, and to be honest, at first I wondered why they bothered with the spinning tub at all. It seemed to just be taking up precious space. I knew it wouldn’t dry the clothes entirely, they’d still need hanging out, so why bother?

I ate my words when the five-minute timer ran out.  I couldn’t believe just how much water had been extracted! Sure, the clothes were still slightly damp but I could not remove any more drops of water even if I wrung them. This was fantastic, as it meant I could hang them on a drying rack in my room with no concern for drips.

Before doing so, however, I realized that the clothes needed a rinse. I returned them to the washing tub, filled it with water, threw in some fabric softener, and set it for another 15 minutes.

When that cycle was over, I gave them another turn in the spinner and then hung them out to dry. It was a real load (of laundry) off my mind.

While I give this adorable appliance a raving and enthusiastic two thumbs up, it’s certainly not the right product for everybody. I’m a single woman in a small apartment, I only need to be able to simply wash a couple of delicate items at a time without having to go to the laundromat or do it entirely by hand in a bucket in my shower. I have a lot of stuff that is hand-wash only, or items that need to be kept separate from other clothing, and I never have time to deal with that. I wind up with a chair full of unwashed bits and pieces. This little gem is a major gamechanger!

The washing tub in the ZenStyle can apparently handle 8-9lbs of laundry in total, but I find it is more effective at agitating the water and actually getting items clean if you wash a lighter load.  My “largest” load contained only 20 pairs of underwear (and about a dozen of those were the skimpy kind), two sports bras, and 5 pairs of socks. For larger articles, I wash (for example) only one bath towel at a time and I can maybe throw in one or two smaller items. Maybe. So if you have a large family, or run a restaurant, or are constantly going through cloth diapers, this is not the product for you.

But if you don’t have a lot on the line (get it? GET IT?!), that is, you’re living in a small space and need something that is quiet and gets the job done, give this a spin. Avoid the headache you get fighting for an available machine at the laundromat on a weekend.