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Purse Hook for Car: How to Keep Your Handbag Safe While Driving
Watch a woman get into her car and you'll usually see the same routine. She pushes her sunglasses up, drops her phone into the cup holder and tosses her handbag onto the passenger seat without so much as a glance. I've done it more times than I'd like to admit, usually with a bag I'd never dream of setting on a restaurant floor.
Between the morning commute and the drive to dinner, your bag probably spends more hours in the car than you'd guess. A purse hook for car rides fixes that without turning your interior into a storage unit. Below you'll find out why the passenger seat is a bigger gamble than it seems and where your bag should actually go. FafaConcepts has made purse hooks since 2009. The idea came after the founder's sister lost her Birkin to a thief at a busy café, so the brand has never treated bag safety as an afterthought.
The Passenger Seat Is a Bigger Gamble Than It Looks
Police in the Miami area have said that smash-and-grab thieves don't bother with a window unless they can see a payoff, and a designer bag is about as clear a payoff as it gets. They shared one case that still makes me wince. A woman parked her Mercedes outside a Starbucks with her Louis Vuitton on the passenger seat, and when she walked back out six minutes later, the window was in pieces and the bag was gone.
Then there's what happens while the car is moving. Goodyear Dunlop ran a study in 2011 showing that loose objects can hit a passenger with as much as 50 times their own weight in a 50 km/h crash (roughly 31 mph, which is ordinary city driving). Do the math on a three-pound shoulder bag and you're looking at something closer to 150 pounds of force. Safety Research and Strategies, a vehicle safety research group, ties unsecured items to about 13,000 injuries every year. Most of us have also lived through the less dramatic version, where one hard brake sends the bag face-first into the footwell and a lipstick rolls somewhere under the pedals.
And No, the Floor Mat Isn't Much Better
Brazilians have a superstition that a woman who puts her purse on the floor will lose all her money. I can't speak to the financial side of things. What I can tell you is that car floors are filthy in a way café floors only aspire to, with tracked-in mud, winter road salt and the ghost of last Tuesday's latte. Pale leather in particular never quite forgets that sort of treatment.
Where Your Handbag Should Actually Ride
My answer is the back of the front passenger seat. Hang the bag from the headrest post there and the seat itself sits between your bag and the dashboard if you have to stop suddenly. It also drops the bag below window level, so nobody at a red light is staring straight at your monogram. You can still grab it the second you park.
Use the post nearest the center console. A lot of cars have side airbags tucked into the outer edge of the front seats, and a bag has no business sitting in front of one. Keep the straps away from the pedals and the driver's legs too. If you're leaving the bag in the car for a while, put it in the trunk before you get where you're going. Doing it in the parking lot just shows anyone nearby exactly where it's hidden.
Car Purse Hanger or a Handbag Hook for Car and Everywhere Else?
Type car purse hanger into any shopping site and you'll get a wall of plastic headrest hooks, usually two or four to a pack for less than ten dollars. They clip onto the posts and never leave. Honestly, for a single family car, they're fine.
My issue with them is that the drive is only one part of the day. You still need a spot for your bag at dinner, at your desk and on the back of a restroom door. A hook fixed to your headrest can't help with any of that, and it's no use at all in a rental on vacation or a rideshare home after drinks. That's the whole argument for a portable handbag hook for car travel that rides along on your bag and keeps working at every stop after you've parked.
How the Heart Purse Hanger Works in Your Car
On your strap, the Heart Purse Hanger looks like a charm, and a pretty convincing one next to gold or silver hardware. One twist opens it into an S-shaped hook. The top curve goes over the headrest post and your bag hangs from the bottom curve. Twist it shut when you get out and it's back to being a charm before you've locked the door.
It's made of aluminum alloy and weighs exactly 1.4 oz and measures 3 × 4 inches. Don't let that fool you, because it holds up to 30 pounds fully open, which is plenty for a work tote stuffed with a laptop, flats and the cardigan you swore you'd need. Rubber tips on the ends grip the post and keep bare metal off your seat. You can get it in gold 22k, gold 14k, platinum or black.
The woman behind it, Fafa, studied fashion design at ESMOD in Paris and product design at Parsons, then worked with Stanford engineers to get the mechanism right. The Heart first came out in 2009 and is patented in the United States, Europe, Japan and China. She made it look like jewelry on purpose. People leave clunky gadgets at home, but they keep wearing the things they like looking at.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is it safe to hang a purse on the back of a car seat?
It's safer than leaving it loose on the seat, as long as the bag is zipped and hangs from the inner headrest post away from any side airbags.
Will a purse hook for car headrests damage my seat?
The Heart shouldn't, because its rubber-tipped ends keep the metal off the surface. If your seats are leather, hang it from the headrest post rather than the seat edge and the upholstery never comes into it.
How much weight can a car purse hook hold?
Cheap plastic hooks vary a lot, so check the listing before you trust one with a heavy tote. The Heart Purse Hanger holds up to 30 pounds when fully extended.
Where should I put my purse when I leave the car?
Ideally it comes with you. If it can't, move it to the trunk before you arrive rather than after.
We spend a small fortune on bags and then let them ride around like takeout. A purse hook for car trips is an easy way to stop doing that, and the Heart happens to look good on your strap while it waits for the next stop. You can see all four finishes in the Heart Purse Hanger collection.
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