The complete guide
Soft Cooler Buying Guide, How To Pick The Right 24 Can Bag
The problem with the esky in the garage
Most households own one cooler, and it is almost always too big. It is a hard plastic box that weighs several kilos before a single can goes in. It lives in the garage because it does not fit anywhere else. And every time you want to take drinks to the park for three hours, you look at it, sigh, and take a plastic bag with a bit of ice in it instead.
That gap is exactly where a soft cooler lives. The AO Coolers Canvas Soft Cooler holds 23 litres and takes 24 cans. Empty, the bag weighs 225 g. You can carry it with two fingers before you load it. Once it is full you are carrying the drinks and the ice, which is honest, because that is all you ever wanted to carry.
How a soft cooler holds the cold
A cooler is really two things working together. There is insulation, which slows down how fast outside heat reaches your drinks, and there is a chamber, which has to hold ice and the water that ice turns into without leaking.
On this model the insulation material is listed as thermoplastic polyurethane, usually shortened to TPU. TPU is the same broad family of material used where a product has to stay watertight and flex at the same time. It makes a smooth inner surface, which matters more than it sounds. Smooth means melt water sits in the bag rather than soaking into fabric, and it means you can wipe the inside clean after a day of prawns and sandwiches instead of trying to scrub a textured liner.
The outer side is built from nylon and polyester. Those are standard outdoor fabrics because they shrug off scuffs, dry quickly and do not mind sand. The shell type is listed as soft, and that is the whole point. A soft shell squashes into a boot corner, bends around other gear, and packs down as the contents go.
What this record does not state is how long the bag holds ice. We are not going to invent a number. Cold retention depends on how much ice you pack, how often the bag is opened, and whether it is sitting in full sun or under a tree. Fill it properly and keep it shaded, and you will get far more out of it than a half-empty bag left on hot concrete.
Does 23 litres suit you
Capacity is where people get it wrong most often. The headline says 24 cans, and that is a real figure, but it assumes the chamber is mostly cans. Add a decent quantity of ice and the can count drops. That is not a flaw, it is physics, and it applies to every cooler on the market.
So think in terms of trip length rather than can count. For a few hours at the beach, a park, a sideline or a boat ramp, 23 litres covers a small group comfortably. For a single overnight camp with one or two people, it stretches. For a long weekend with four adults and food for every meal, you want more volume than this, or you want this bag plus a bigger hard cooler for the bulk.
The internal shape helps. The chamber is 25 cm deep and 30 cm high, in a bag 43 cm wide. That rectangle lets cans lie in rows rather than stacking awkwardly, and leaves room for a flat container of food on top instead of balancing it on a pile of ice.
Who it actually suits
The listed uses are outdoors, fishing, sports, picnics, travel and home storage. Those are not decoration, they describe the kind of person who gets value here.
Anglers like soft coolers because boat space is precious and a rigid box is a tripping hazard. The TPU chamber copes with wet contents and wipes out at the end of the day.
Parents doing weekend sport need something they can carry from the car park to the field with a folding chair in the other hand. A best soft cooler bag for that job is one that is light, and 225 g is about as light as the bag itself gets.
Travellers and road trippers use it as the chilled section of the car. It holds yoghurt, cheese and drinks between stops, and it does not eat the whole boot the way a hard cooler does.
At home, it earns its keep as overflow fridge space before a party, or as the bag that gets frozen groceries home on a hot afternoon. That last job is underrated and it is why the bag often lives by the back door rather than in the shed.
How to choose between soft and hard
If you are deciding between this and a rigid cooler, the question is honestly about trip length and handling.
Hard coolers win when you are away for days, when the cooler will be thrown into a ute tray, or when you need something you can sit on. They also tend to hold cold longer simply because the walls are thicker and the lid seals under tension.
Soft coolers win on weight, on packing, and on the fact you will actually bother to bring them. A best lightweight cooler is the one that does not make you reconsider the trip. Soft bags also collapse, so the ride home takes up less room than the ride out.
Plenty of people end up owning both and using the soft one four times as often.
Packing it well
A few habits make a real difference with any soft cooler.
Pre-chill the contents. Putting room temperature cans into ice means the ice spends its first hour cooling the drinks instead of keeping them cold. Chill them in the fridge first and the ice lasts noticeably longer.
Fill the space. Air is the enemy. A full bag holds cold far better than a half-empty one, so if you are short on drinks, add a frozen water bottle or a towel to take up the gap.
Think about layers. Heavier items and anything you want coldest go at the bottom, with ice packed around rather than just dumped on top. Things you will reach for often go near the opening so the bag spends less time open.
Decide about melt water. Some people drain it to keep the bag light. Others leave it because cold water actually conducts cold to the cans well. If you are moving the bag a lot, drain it. If it is sitting still under a tree, leave it.
Looking after it
Soft coolers die from neglect, not from use. The main rule is simple. Never put it away wet.
After each outing, empty the bag, pour out any water and wipe the TPU lining with warm water and a touch of mild detergent. Rinse that off, then leave the bag wide open somewhere shaded until it is completely dry inside. Damp plus a closed bag in a dark cupboard equals a smell you will fight for months.
Do not machine wash it, do not tumble dry it, and keep it out of the dishwasher. Spot cleaning handles everything a cooler realistically picks up.
For storage, give it room. Loosely folded on a shelf is ideal. Crushed flat under a toolbox for six months is how creases turn into weak points. Keep it out of long direct sunlight too, since UV is hard on outdoor fabrics over time.
If a smell does develop, a weak bicarbonate of soda solution wiped around the lining, followed by a rinse and a proper air dry, usually sorts it.
A note on what we know
This product record lists the capacity as 23 litres, the dimensions as 25 by 43 by 30 cm, the weight as 225 g, and the materials as nylon, polyester and thermoplastic polyurethane. The colour is sand taupe, the model is AO24TA, and spare part availability in the EU is listed at five years.
Some things are not in the record, including country of origin, strap configuration, liner thickness and any published cold retention figure. We have left those blank rather than filling them with guesses. If one of them is the deciding factor for you, ask us and we will check before you commit.
The short version
This is a 23 litre soft cooler sized for 24 cans, with a TPU-lined chamber and a 225 g empty weight. It suits day trips, fishing, sideline sport, picnics, travel and overflow storage at home. It is not a replacement for a big hard cooler on a four day camp, and it was never meant to be.
What it does is remove the excuse. The hard esky stays in the garage because dragging it out is a project. A bag this light goes in the car without a second thought, and that is usually the difference between cold drinks and warm ones.