Are 3M’s Command Reusable Hooks Really Damage-Free?

Jae-Ha Kim
jaehakim.com
November 15, 2020

Do you see that door to the right? That’s our front entry coat closet. Do you see the hooks to the left? I put those up 2½ years ago … because some members of my household weren’t hanging their jackets up in the closet.

Yup. You choose your battles.

Anyhow, our child has grown like a weed since then and we needed to move the hooks up a bit to accommodate his current height.

Since I had purchased hooks that had promised damage-free hanging, I had hoped it would be a breeze to remove the hooks.

Well, the adhesive on two of the three hooks came off exactly as advertised: easily and without damaging the paint on the wall.

However, I didn’t have much luck with the middle hook. The adhesive that you’re supposed to pull on to ease the hook off snapped from the get-go, making it difficult to pull on anything. The result was that a sizeable chunk of paint came off with the tape.

Cost: I purchased a total of seven 3M Command Damage-Free Hanging strips for about $33 at Target in June 2018.

Recommended or Not: The hooks held our heaviest coats well and didn’t fall off the wall. And during the summer, when we had no use for jackets, the hooks were a convenient place to hang our face masks, because it was a visible reminder that we needed to take them with us during this coronavirus pandemic. But the whole point of these hooks was to not cause any wall damage. And, as you can see — though it’s only cosmetic — we have wall damage. So, now we need to find paint that will match because there’s no way we want to repaint that entire wall. While this isn’t the end of the world, it’s a minor annoyance. I would recommend this with reservations — it works well when it works, but it doesn’t always work.

And yes, I did see some hacks online saying to use dental floss to slide under the hooks if the adhesive breaks off. That didn’t work for us.

If it — or anything else — worked for you, let me know in the comments.