Gossamer Gear Compression Cubes Review

Packing cubes are great for staying organized on a trip. You can separate gear however you like, whether by type, outfit, occasion, or something else that only makes sense to you, like which pieces are suitable for a spaghetti dinner and which are not. But, while packing cubes naturally allows your clothing to take up less space because they hold each item together, no matter how you fold or roll them, they don’t usually make a considerable difference in the amount you can fit.

That’s why packers everywhere appreciate compression cubes. They squish your apparel together, allowing you to bring more items in the same space or bulkier gear in a tighter place. Of course, that seems to fly in the face of Gossamer Gear’s slogan printed on the outside of its Compression Cubes to “take less. do more.”, but we’re here to judge how well they work, not how truthful their motto is. So we packed them up with lots of clothing to figure it out!

External Components

The Gossamer Gear Compression Cubes come in two sizes: full and half. Full is 12L, and half is 6L, so they’re on the larger side for packing cubes, though not the biggest we’ve tested.

On the exterior, you’ll find two different materials. The bottom fabric, if you stand the cubes on end, is a PFAS-free 70D recycled Robic Nylon. It’s lightweight and reminiscent of many other packing cubes, so there’s not much of a surprise with that choice. The top half (again, if the cubes were on end) is 150D polyester mesh for breathability. It also allows you to slightly see into each cube. Again, these cubes are large, and if you’re packing them to capacity to make use of the compression, you’re probably not going to be able to see everything inside, but you can get an idea of the contents.

Each cube has the Gossamer Gear brand label attached to the front and a webbing carry handle at one end. This makes it easier to pull it out of your bag or carry it to a changing room if need be.

However, a compression cube’s most important component is the zippers, and we’re happy to see that these are made by YKK. We think they’re one of the best brands of fasteners out there, and we trust that packing cubes secured with YKK zips are less likely to break when we’re away from home. That’s key when stuffing that much clothing into a small space.

There are two different colors of zippers on the cubes, so you won’t start accidentally pulling the compression zipper when you mean to open the cubes or vice versa. The primary zippers are orange and feature webbing tabs at either end that you can hold to open and close the cubes. On the other hand, the compression zipper encircling the bag is the same charcoal gray as the remainder of the cube. Both zippers have cords woven through the metal pulls with heat shrink at the ends to make it easier to grasp, which really comes in handy when working the compression zipper around the cube.

Inside The Packing Cube

Like many packing cubes, what you see on the outside is what you get on the inside of the Gossamer Gear Compression Cubes. There isn’t any lining inside these compression cubes, which we appreciate. We’ve tested some cubes with so much extra material that you can’t fit anything extra in the cubes by compressing them; the excess cube fabric takes up the space that should be allotted to your extra shirt.

We have no such issue with these packing cubes, which compress well with some effort. Again, this is where having a quality zipper running around the edge is essential: we know that we can pull it around tight corners to the end of the track and trust that it won’t break along the way.

You can fit quite a bit inside. If you’re a smaller user, you can fit about eight T-shirts in the half size, and you shouldn’t have any issue fitting at least five larger shirts inside. We find that we get the best results when rolling our clothing inside the cube as it gives you space to push the items away from the compression zipper as you close it.

In the full size, we fit four pairs of travel pants, two pairs of shorts, and a hoodie. To make the best use of the space, we rolled the pants and then folded the shorts and hoodie on top, but you’ll have to do what works best for your specific clothing.

If you add that all up, you can fit more than a week’s worth of clothing inside these cubes, although there’s not one small enough for socks and underwear. If you don’t need as many tops, you could slot them into the half-size compression cube along with your shirts or find another space for them in your travel backpack or rolling luggage. We wouldn’t mind having the option of a smaller size, but that’s been our complaint with other compression cubes we love that only come in two sizes; when we like the cubes, we always want more!

However, the cubes are sold separately, so you can get two halves, one full, or one of each, depending on what you need. If you’re taking longer trips with rolling luggage, the full cubes make more sense, whereas for shorter excursions in travel backpacks or personal item bags, the half-size might work out better. Whichever you choose, you’ll definitely have no issue packing more than you could without a cube.