Best kitchen scissors

Whether you're using them to open packaging, trim herbs or spatchcock a chicken, sharp and comfortable scissors are a kitchen essential.

We tested the most popular kitchen scissors from under £5 to over £20 from brands including Fiskars, Joseph Joseph, Victorinox, Robert Welch and more, and found two outstanding Best Buys that are a cut above the rest.

The best scissors are comfortable to use and razor sharp. Read on for our full test results, whether we think it's necessary to buy left-handed scissors, and how to sharpen your kitchen scissors safely.

The best kitchen scissors

Compare our results and prices at a glance in our table below or read on for our full reviews. 

Best Buy: Victorinox Kitchen Scissors

Pros 

• Razor sharp
• Easy to use
• Easy to clean

Cons 

• Not many extra features
• Not the best for crunching through bone

Our verdict Super sharp

Additional features Lid opening 

These scissors are razor sharp and a real favourite of our panel, although they don't have quite as many additional features as some of the other scissors we tested.

While they're ridiculously sharp for tasks such as cutting herbs, packaging and tough plastic, they struggle with thick items such as bones or the dowel we used in our sharpness test. 

If you bought these scissors you wouldn't be disappointed. As well as being sharp, they're also easy to use and easy to clean.

Best Buy: Joseph Joseph Power Grip Kitchen Scissors

Pros 

• Very sharp
• Easy to clean
• Very comfortable

Cons 

• Wasn't brilliant at spatchcocking a chicken or trimming herbs

Our verdict Sharp and very comfortable

Additional features Thumb grip, separable blades for cleaning, fish descaler

This is a sharp pair of scissors that are incredibly comfortable in the hand.

We liked the sharpness of these scissors, the separable blades and how easy they were to clean. 

They're a bit awkward to use when spatchcocking a chicken and, due to the thickness of the blade, aren't the best pair for finely trimming herbs. 

If comfort is your priority, though, then these are a worthy Best Buy.

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Oxo Good Grips Kitchen Scissors

Pros 

• Herb stripper is useful
• Comfortable rubber grip 

Cons 

• Not as sharp as some

Our verdict Brilliant for stripping herbs

Additional Features Separable blades, herb stripping 

These are a nice set of comfortable scissors, that are let down a little because they're just not that as sharp as the very best. However, the herb stripping holes are good for quickly stripping herb leaves from their stalks.

They're comfortable to use too, and the separable blades make them easy to clean. 

Fiskars Kitchen Scissors

Pros 

• Sharp

Cons 

• Fine trimming herbs is relatively tricky
• No additional features

Our verdict Good, simple scissors

Although Fiskars is a popular brand, we think you can get better scissors for less. 

These basic scissors are sharp and moderately comfortable, but the hard plastic can dig into your hands when doing really tough tasks. 

Due to the thickness of the blades, we also found them more difficult than other scissors to finely trim herbs with.

ProCook Kitchen Scissors

Available from ProCook (£4)

Pros 

• Features-packed
• Comfortable
• Easy to clean

Cons 

• Not very sharp 

Our verdict Feature packed but lacking sharpness

Additional features Fish descaler, beer bottle opener, lid opener, separable blade, flathead screwdriver

These scissors come with a lot of features, but are a little too blunt for our recommendation. 

It's hard not to be wowed by the dizzying variety of tasks you can complete using these kitchen scissors.

But ultimately they forgot the most important element – razor sharp blades. 

While they won't struggle with basic tasks, we found tougher ones such as spatchcocking a chicken a bit of a struggle. 

Amazon Basics Kitchen Scissors

Pros 

• Comfortable

Cons 

• No additional features
• Not very sharp

Our verdict Too basic, not very sharp

While relatively cheap and comfortable to hold, they were difficult to use in our tests. 

Spatchcocking a chicken was a struggle, trimming herbs was a faff, the blades lacked sharpness, and there are no additional features. 

Fiskars Left-Handed Kitchen Scissors

Pros 

• Good for spatchcocking chickens
• Easy to clean

Cons 

• No additional features
• Not that comfortable or sharp

Our verdict Left-handers preferred the Best Buy Victorinox

We think there are better options than these kitchen scissors that have been specifically designed for left-handed users.

These scissors didn't perform very well in our sharpness tests and were only average for ease of trimming herbs. 

They're good at tougher tasks, for example crunching through bone when spatchcocking a chicken. 

Robert Welch Signature Household Scissors

Pros 

• Sharp
• Easy to clean

Cons

• Very uncomfortable
• Not many features

Our verdict Not worth the price tag

These were the least favourite scissors out of those we tested because they're so uncomfortable to use.

The plastic handles are very hard and can cause pain when chopping through tough items. 

Despite this, they are easy to clean and pretty sharp. But we can't recommend them because of the discomfort we experienced while using them. 

See the best tin openers from our tests.

How we tested kitchen scissors

• A really good pair of kitchen scissors should be as at home opening difficult packaging as they are at spatchcocking a chicken. 

• We asked a panel of four, two left-handers and two right-handers, to put these scissors to the test in these everyday kitchen tasks:

Spatchcocking a chicken

• The best scissors cut through bone and flesh with ease, making the task a doddle. 

• The worst snapped and crunched the bone rather then cutting through it and required a lot more force. 

Trimming herbs

• We trimmed chives and rosemary to see which scissors were able to chop finely, consistently and with control.

Sharpness test

• Thick wooden dowel, plastic rulers, cardboard, plastic packaging and paper were all chopped, snipped and sliced to determine the sharpest scissors in our test. 

Comfort and grip

• We scored comfort and grip both without and while wearing Cambridge Simulation Gloves. These gloves are designed to provide insight into how conditions that cause restricted hand movement, such as arthritis, can impact product use. 

• For our test of kitchen scissors, we didn't find that there were any particularly noticeable differences between the scissors when wearing these gloves. 

Cleaning

• After the test, each pair of scissors was cleaned in a washing-up bowl and marks awarded to those that were easier to clean than others. 

• We purchased all of the scissors we tested.

Is it worth buying left-handed scissors? 

Many of the scissors we tested are symmetrical, and therefore equally as comfortable for a right or left hand. 

However, none of the left-handers in our panel preferred the left-handed specific scissors we also tested over our symmetrical Best Buy.

How to sharpen kitchen scissors

The simplest way to sharpen kitchen scissors is to treat them exactly like kitchen knives and use a knife sharpener or whetstone. 

We tried a few 'hack' methods, such as cutting sandpaper or kitchen foil, but they didn't seem to sharpen the blades very effectively – and we wasted a lot of sandpaper trying. 

If you're keen to have scissors that are easy to sharpen go for ones with easily separable blades, so that you can take them apart and sharpen them, and get brilliant results.

See the best knife sharpeners.

Five surprising uses for kitchen scissors

1. Opening stuck jars and lids: That serrated bit in the middle of your kitchen scissors isn't just for cracking nuts at Christmas time. You can use it to grip stuck lids and screw top bottles. We tried it on stuck bottles that even Arnold Schwarzenegger would struggle to open and, using this trick, we opened them with ease. 
2. Herb strippers: Some kitchen scissors have one or two tiny little holes between the blades. These are for quickly and easily stripping herbs from their stalks. 
3. Fish descaler: Ever seen a strange serrated edge on the outside of your kitchen scissor blade? It's a tool for descaling fish. 
4. Flathead screwdriver: Some scissors have a handy little flathead screwdriver on the bottom of the handle. 
5. Separable blades: Some scissors have blades that are easily separable so you can take the blades apart, either for cleaning or sharpening.