After extensively testing three brands of strike anywhere matches to find the best strike anywhere matches available today, Diamond Greenlight Strike Anywhere Matches received our Runner-up award. They were slightly worse than our Top Pick, UCO Strike Anywhere Matches.
However, our Top Pick was recently discontinued like so many other brands of strike anywhere matches.
For that reason, if you can’t find our Top Pick and you still want strike anywhere matches, we recommend you get this brand, Diamond Greenlights. It is the only brand of strike anywhere matches still widely available in the US at this time. Jarden Home Brands, the maker of these matches, told me which stores carry their Diamond brand products:
You can also buy these matches online. But, if you’re considering doing that, I recommend you first read about why I’ll never buy strike anywhere matches online again.
Who & What Are These Matches Best for?
Diamond Greenlights are best for people who are interested in buying strike anywhere matches but can’t find our Top Pick, UCO Strike Anywhere Matches. I wouldn’t recommend these matches to campers and backpackers since they do come in a bulky, relatively heavy box (2.785 oz). To those people, I recommend the UCO matches or a good box of waterproof matches or stormproof matches.
I’d also recommend this brand to car campers who aren’t worried about weight or people who simply want a box of strike anywhere matches around the house.
Strike-anywhere-ability
For our side-by-side tests, we struck matches of each brand on a number of surfaces to determine how well they work. We struck 10 on each surface and recorded how many lit successfully. Here are our results for the Diamond Greenlight Strike Anywhere Matches:
- Side of matchbox: 10/10
- Wood: 10/10
- Brick: 8/10
- Rock: 9/10
- Another match: 1/10
These results aren’t as good as our Top Pick, but they’re close. Since these matches lit consistently on surfaces such as wood and rock, you’ll be able to light them outdoors as long as things aren’t wet.
These matches were also slightly more difficult to light than our Top Pick. It occasionally took us three to five strikes to get a light.
Other Minor Performance Metrics
While strike-anywhere-ability was our most important performance metric, we did track a few others.
Burn Time
At 39.502 seconds, the Diamond Greenlights had the longest average burn time of the three brands that we tested. This makes sense — they were the longest matches.
Break Percentage
Out of the 50 Diamond Greenlight matches we struck during our tests, five of them broke. This was the same percentage as the other brands, though, so this performance metric was a wash.
Of course, break percentage is dependent on your striking technique. You might strike more lightly or vigorously than I do, which would increase or decrease the break percentage for you.
Matches Per Box Hand Count
We hand counted the number of matches in two boxes and got an average of 326.5 per box. The packaging claims each box holds 300 matches, so one minor positive is you get a small handful of matches for free.
The Bottom Line
The Diamond Greenlight Strike Anywhere Matches earned our Runner-up award in our test of the best strike anywhere matches. However, since our Top Pick was recently discontinued, if you’re serious about buying strike anywhere matches, this is the brand you’ll probably have to buy since it is the only one that is widely available in the US at this time.
That’s not so bad, though. These matches light consistently on common outdoor surfaces such as wood and rock, so they’ll work for camping and other outdoor activities. Overall, this brand was a close second to our Top Pick and are a great value for the money. Some people talk poorly about them online but we found them to work well.
What do you think of these matches? If you looked for them, were you able to find them? Or are you considering a different brand?
