They are also your eyes and ears on product development, so close communication with your customer base is like having an external research and development department. The lesson is always to remember that your customer is king. The business originally started life as The Funky Iron Company, with Sadie and Joe designing a unique looking electric steam iron. The Funky Iron idea was born from the couple being avid ironers – thanks, in part, to the couple’s three children as there was always a lot of ironing to be done in their household!

The Funky Iron was launched in December 2018 and has since been followed by the Funky Kettle and Funky Toaster which hit the shelves in Spring 2021, all of which have created a rapidly growing Funky fan base. It has the standard power rating of 2600w and a smooth gliding sole place, and like the Tefal Ultimate Pure, it also has a built-in calc container that prevents scale from building up. Because the container is removable, you can rinse away the build up in 15 seconds, to be exact (this is faster and works better than the self-cleaning button featured in the Russell Hobbs one temperature iron and the Funky Iron Company Iron below). It’s easy to clip in and out. We’ve been a little spoilt with some of the high-tech irons featured in this article – but we should point out that it’s quite possible to get a serviceable steam iron for under a tenner. Like most of its high-end steam generators, the Series 8000 coms with a large, detachable, 1.8-litre water reservoir and an excellent Easy De-Calc Plus descaler that continually collects limescale before depositing it into its easily-cleaned limescale channel. It also features a vertical steaming mode for decreasing curtains, suits and other dress wear.

Things to consider

Picture the scene… You’re about to go to a wedding and you have your favourite shirt – possibly your only shirt – ready on the ironing board. You have just minutes to spare, so you turn on your steam iron, place it on the shirt, pull the steam trigger and – holy mother of pearl – a spurt of limescale splatters itself all over the front. We’ve all been there. Well, the clever bods at Tefal appear to have solved this ridiculous peculiarity by fitting a MicroScale filter to this classy iron that removes 100% of any scale in the steam chamber before it reaches the soleplate. We like that, a lot. The Freemove is very lightweight in the hand, not least because it’s cordless. Yes, you read right, cordless. After around 30 seconds of ironing, the base beeps to remind you to recharge. Then it takes 11 seconds to recharge – just enough time for you to adjust the garment to a new position. The timings work. As do the ergonomics: it slides comfortably onto the base and ironing cordlessly feels very natural.

Measured in g/min (grams per minute), the bigger the number the more powerful the steam, which relaxes the fabric weave to make it easier to smooth out creases. The Philips PerfectCare Steam Generator 7000 was the surprise standout favourite of our ironing test run. It was easy for us to hastily judge this iron on looks alone; it's very big, a bit strange looking compared to a conventional iron and quite heavy too. Take Speed mode, for instance. This clever inclusion adapts to the speed of your ironing by automatically boosting or reducing its continuous steam flow while its built in sensor cleverly detects whether iron is moving or at a standstill, and adjusts the steam flow accordingly. The Russell Hobbs 24440 is a great example of the wrinkle-erasing power this type of iron can offer. When we first tried it and watched the creases in our laundry dwindle and disappear it felt a little like waving a magic wand.At Ideal Home we know how important it is to have hands-on experience with products before we recommend them to you, in line with our testing protocol. That's why we've tested every iron in this round-up extensively at our test facility before coming to the conclusion in this ranking. That included testing them on shirts, linen, and bedsheets to test their credentials. My wife Sadie. She has always believed in me. We’ve been together for 17 years now and we’ve known had some amazing highs with my working life and some lows. Finding an idea together for this business has been amazing, as it really is a husband and wife creation and she has as much passion for the product and brand as I do. How do you relax outside of work? Four days later, my wife and I were driving to our local hardware store, as we needed a new ironing board and my wife said, “Ironing board covers are a bit dull and not very funky.” To which I replied, “Forget ironing board covers, there aren’t any funky irons in the world.” So as soon as we got home, we searched for electric steam irons on Google and had a look at how they all look. There was nothing there which you could call funky or cool, so we made up our minds there and then and The Funky Iron Company was formed soon after. What experience do you have in your sector?

As is the case with the majority of Philips steam generators and irons, this model also comes with OptimalTemp technology which uses just one temperature setting for all types of fabric, whether it’s heavy denim or fine silk. The system is so perfectly dialled that you can safely leave the iron unit face down on the ironing board without having to use the main unit’s cradle. Needless to say, the iron will automatically shut down after a period of inactivity.The double ceramic soleplate ensures a smooth glide. Temperature and steam can be managed from the temperature dial and steam control. The power should switch off automatically if the iron is left flat for a couple of minutes, or left upright for longer. The Philips Azur Elite is probably what the future-gazers of bygone decades dreamed irons might be like today. It’s a bit The Jetsons. In its much-feted DynamiQ mode, the Azur Elite uses in-built motion sensors to determine how hard the ironing work you’re doing is and releases steam at a volume to suit the task in hand. You should also think about the iron’s steam output, which is measured in grams per minute (gpm). Typically, the higher an iron’s steam output, the greater its ironing power will be. Water tank capacity: To avoid adding extra weight, look for a small tank (although not so small that you constantly have to refill it).