Wirecutter - A spatula you'll always reach for

Michael Hession

Marilyn Ong

My grandmother taught me never to waste food. She passed away early last spring, but whenever I feel her watching over me as I cook, I reach for my GIR silicone spatulas—indispensable tools for dodging Nainai’s “tsk tsk.” The Ultimate spatula helps me scrape the frosting bowl clean (and conveniently fits straight into my mouth). And the Mini spatula helps me get every last drop of ginger scallion sauce from the jar into my preschooler’s rice bowl. Both clean like a dream.

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As a result of using these spatulas, I can make lists and lists of the foods that end up going down our gullets instead of being washed away. That last baby-size pancake from an almost-empty batter bowl. One extra cookie. A smidge more béchamel in the sausage pasta casserole. Another tablespoon of pork-and-chive filling for that last dumpling wrapper. No mayonnaise left behind.

I know most silicone or rubber spatulas can scrape a bowl without issue. But my previous ones had wooden handles and a removable silicone top, and I’d hesitate to use them because they were annoying to clean. Since owning these GIR spatulas, I’ve found myself reaching for them time and time again because they’re so easy to rinse off by hand or to throw in the dishwasher. It’s not just that they come in handy—I look for excuses to use them.

Even though the Mini size was designed for kids, it’s become my personal favorite. It maneuvers extra-well and fits into tight spaces, and it’s just so dang cute. When I saw GIR released a new, sprinkle-themed mini tool set, I broke down and ordered that, too. If my kids ask nicely, I might let them use it.

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Samantha Rose, the founder of GIR (which stands for “get it right” but is pronounced “gear”), designed these spatulas by tinkering at home with molds and liquid silicone purchased online. She hoped to create the perfect spatula, to give as Christmas gifts to her family. “I started calling factories with this idea for a one-piece silicone spatula. The punch line of the whole rest of my life became all the factories’ responses: ‘You can’t make ten, but you can make ten thousand.’” A Kickstarter project made that first 10,000-spatula order possible, and that’s how GIR was born.

As Rose put it, GIR has really “geeked out” on its products from the inside out. She chose the silicone used in GIR products after doing extensive research—including talking to rocket scientists. For the spatula, silicone is compression-molded around an inner core made of a specialized heat-safe, fiberglass-film nylon that stays cool during use. “We spent a lot of time figuring out the characteristics of this [inner] thing that hopefully no one would ever know about or see, because hopefully they never break their spatula.”

Once the spatulas were made, Rose carted them around New York City trying to talk shopkeepers into carrying them. “It was like a story from the 1930s.” The restaurant-supply store JB Prince took half a dozen. And the next thing Rose knew, her spatulas were in the kitchen of Eleven Madison Park. She said another breakout moment was getting a call from Top Chef Masters winner Chris Cosentino, who had somehow tracked down her phone number and wanted to give the spatulas as holiday gifts.

GIR silicone spatulas aren’t going to satisfy your every spatula need (we have recommendations for models suited to a whole range of cooking tasks). But for mixing, folding, and scraping, the GIR spatulas’ high-quality, seamless construction makes them a joy to use and a cinch to clean.

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• In the Wirecutter test kitchens, the GIR spatula is neck and neck with another one of our picks, the Rubbermaid Commercial High-Heat Silicone Spatula. The head of the Rubbermaid spatula is wider and more flexible, but it can also be a bit too large for home use.

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• The GIR spatula’s grippy handle felt more comfortable to hold than many competitors’ flat, thin sticks. The spatula can also be used by left- and right-handed cooks because both sides of the spatula are symmetrical.

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• GIR offers a rainbow of color options, so you can pick something that feels more personal or makes a more interesting gift. (I mean, just look at this terrazzo-esque Barcelona option.) And GIR’s colors are being updated all the time.

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Read more in our guide to the best spatulas.

We haven’t seen many deals from GIR since early 2020, but there used to be regular deals around Black Friday, Prime Day, and in the spring.

These spatulas are durable and made to last a lifetime. They’re also heat-resistant up to 550 degrees Fahrenheit. So they’ll survive just fine in high-temperature cooking as well as in the dishwasher. In our tests, we did see some small nicks and notches in the silicone, from knocking against the blades of blenders or food processors. Be mindful of that if you’d like to keep your spatula perfectly smooth.