Wooden and plastic chairs are quite common, but they’re not really your best bet if you want to minimise your carbon footprint and keep ensuring a vegan and sustainable lifestyle.
Bamboo chairs aren’t only eco-friendly but also quite durable despite being gentle to the touch. They’re even available in a wide variety of stains and finishes that suit different tastes.
Going green and vegan also implies re-thinking your interior furnitures and decoration so they suit perfectly your lifestyle.
In this guide, we’ve reviewed some of the best bamboo chairs you can find in the UK so you can pick the one that best suits your home’s style - you might become a bamboo addict and check our selection of bamboo lamp shades and bamboo blinds afterwards.
Top Pick: Ikea AGEN
The Ikea AGEN is a beautiful, handwoven bamboo chair that you’ll definitely grow to love. With its elegant beige colour, this chair from Ikea can fit anywhere in a contemporary home, be it indoors or outdoors. It’s carefully designed to ensure that it stays intact for years to come.
On top of that, this multi-purpose chair can be paired with some seat and back cushions for extra comfort. Additionally, the Ikea AGEN chair is stackable, making it easier for you to store it when not in use.
The only downside of this chair is that its feet are made of plastic. The purpose behind this is to protect the chair from moisture when the floor is wet since bamboo isn’t that resistive to water, but it comes at the price of having a chair that isn’t 100% ecological.
We like it because: it’s stylish, stackable, versatile, and can withstand years of abuse.
Best Rocking: vidaXL Rocking Chair
If you’re a fan of rocking chairs, you’ll undoubtedly love what the vidaXL Rocking Chair has to offer. Made of 100% natural bamboo, this rocking chair is ecologically friendly while also being perfect for reading, meditating, or simply smelling some fresh air and relaxing in your backyard. You can even get a pair of cushions for extra comfort.
From the first look, you can easily tell that this chair is well-built. It doesn’t rock very aggressively, as the bottom arch isn’t that extreme, so it only tilts slightly, which can either be a good or bad thing depending on your preference.
The only potential problem with this chair is that the assembly process can be challenging and time-consuming for some, but once you’re done with the initial setup, everything that follows is pure comfort.
We like it because: it’s a rocking chair, in addition to being durable, sturdy, and made of 100% natural bamboo.
Best Portable: Sogesfurniture Small Bamboo Folding Chair
The sogesfurniture Bamboo Folding Chair is a great pick for anyone looking for a compact bamboo chair that can be stored in tight places and wardrobes.
Thanks to its small size and portability, this chair is perfect for camping trips, family gatherings, barbecue parties, and picnics. It can also serve as a chair for the little ones.
And the best part about it is that it’s made of 100% natural bamboo. It’s also completely non-toxic, which boasts its status as an eco-friendly piece of furniture even further.
The chair may not look that durable at first glance, but you’d just be surprised by how stable and sturdy it is. It’s quite challenging to find another vegan bamboo chair that offers the best of both worlds when it comes to portability and strength at the same time.
We like it because: there’s nothing out there that beats it in terms of portability, and it comes at a pretty attractive price, too.
Best for Comfort: VRevival Vintage Natural Wicker and Bamboo Chair
The VRevival chair is yet another vintage wicker chair that looks as if it was taken straight out from the 1930s. Unlike the other bamboo chairs on the list, this one has wider holes that make it naturally blend into any decoration.
At a width of 74cm and a height of 82cm, the VRevival bamboo chair is quite large, which makes it extra comfy when sitting on it for a long time, especially if you pair it with some cushions.
The chair feels pretty sturdy. You can sit on it for as long as you want without worrying that it’d fail you.
We like it because: it’s stylish, large, and comfortable.
Best Compact: Boho Vintage Wicker and Bamboo Chair
Made of 100% natural bamboo, rest assured that you can enjoy the Boho Vintage Wicker and Bamboo Chair With peace of mind.
This cute 70’s style bamboo armchair is unlike most bamboo chairs you often see around. It ditches the conventional 4-leg design in favour of a handwoven, one-piece base. This gives it a much better decorative look and feel.
The chair is somewhat small, measuring 80cm tall and 64cm wide. It’s not really made for long periods of sitting; it is, however, perfect for having a cup of tea while enjoying your favourite book. It’s also a good choice for kids.
We like it because: it’s beautiful, compact, and sturdy.
How to Pick a Bamboo Chair
Here are a few considerations that you need to keep in mind when shopping for a bamboo chair.
Size and Shape
The size and shape of the bamboo chair you desire primarily depends on how you’ll be using it. If you want a comfy chair for prolonged use, it’s a good idea to opt for a handwoven bamboo chair and use some cushions with it.
On the other hand, you could go for a foldable bamboo chair if you’ll just be using it occasionally or when going on vacation. Alternatively, you could go for a rocking chair if you want something that makes reading and meditating more relaxing.
By the same token, you should pick the size of the chair depending on how often you’ll be using it and the available space at your home.
Ecological Friendliness
Not all bamboo chairs are as all-natural as you may think. Before deciding on a bamboo chair, do your research about the manufacturer to make sure that it uses naturally harvested bamboo instead of fake bamboo materials or bamboo that was harvested using unnatural methods that involve chemicals and pesticides.
However, all of the products that we’ve reviewed are guaranteed to be made of 100% natural bamboo unless stated otherwise.
Additionally, you need to ensure that the stains on the chair are water-based, which serves as an indicator that confirms the ecological friendliness of the chair’s preserving method.
Glue
If you’re very strict about your bamboo chair being ecological, make sure that the glue used to put the chair parts together is non-toxic. One easy way to identify toxic glue is simply by smelling it. Toxic glue might have a “funny” smell that makes it seem like it’d get a whole lot worse if it were in a “fumes” form.
Wrapping Up
Now that we’ve reviewed some of the best bamboo chairs you can get, it’s time for you to pick the one that suits your needs and home style.
With so many shapes and finishes, it’s not that easy to make a choice; we get it. But here’s hoping that our guide has made things more straightforward for you, and remember, all of the products we’ve mentioned ship to the UK!