The Best Bath Towels, After A Year Of Testing More Than A Dozen
Bath towels are a daily necessity—but why can’t they also be your little luxury? I set out to find the best bath towels available by rigorously testing 13 popular styles over the past year. Without a doubt, my top overall pick is Frontgate’s Resort Cotton Bath Towel, an incredibly soft, highly absorbent towel with a blanket-like feel. Or, if you’re looking for a value pick, Amazon Basics Quick-Dry Bath Towels offer impressive performance for the price. From ultra-soft to quick-dry to oversized, below, you’ll find my favorite towels for stocking up your linen closet.
From terry to waffle weave, the best bath towels I tested are soft, absorbent and hold up over time.
The following is a list of all the winners from my testing process:
Over the course of one year, I tested 13 different bath towels of all different weaves, sizes and prices. Because preferences for bed and bath linens can certainly be subjective, I focused on a series of straightforward criteria to maintain as much objectivity as possible. There are a few characteristics that make up the perfect bath towel: Its plushness should be counterweighted by its absorbency, offering a smooth-to-the-touch feel; it should be neither too thick nor too thin; and it should dry reasonably quickly while hanging on a rod or hook. Finally, the best towels should be able to stand up to a somewhat aggressive, frequent laundering regimen.
Close your eyes and think about the best hotel towel you’ve ever wrapped yourself in. Now, imagine upgrading that towel. That’s how I feel about the Frontgate Resort Cotton Bath Towel. It’s far and away the softest and thickest towel I tested, more like a blanket than a utilitarian linen, and it also boasts one of the highest GSM (grams per square meter) of all the towels I tested. That means it’s proven to be fluffy and absorbent—and as expected, it did perform very well in my absorbency test, sucking up a whopping 97.5% of water. (It’s important to note that this towel did tie for first in the absorbency competition with the Matouk Milagro Bath Towel.)
Of course, this isn’t the towel for everyone. It’s particularly thick, as I mentioned, so if you’d prefer a towel whose primary function is just to get you dry—as opposed to one you’d want to, say, lounge around in for hours on end—I might direct you to the Onsen option below. But despite its thickness, this towel was also among the best when it came to a quick drying time. Frontgate’s terry is standard and durable enough to be used daily, but high-pile enough for discerning textile enthusiasts. This pick also retained maximum softness after the numerous washing and drying cycles I subjected it to, and showed no signs of stiffening, shrinking or fading. Last but not least, this towel comes in 26 different hues, so you can find a set that matches even the most niche color scheme. Overall, it’s a veritable win for design lovers and everyday users alike. (Dig deeper into my findings by heading over to my full review of the Frontgate Bath Towel.)
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It’s hard to beat the cost of these towels, but their wallet-friendly price tag is certainly not the only reason I loved them. I was equally impressed with their overall quality, especially relative to the more luxurious (and costlier) options I tested. While they’re not my top pick, they are an excellent choice for those on a budget and anyone who’s simply interested in the best of the basics. Not only did they deftly suck up 78.87% of the water in my absorbency test, they’re also impressively soft. They’re still thinner than the other terry towels I tested, but that shorter pile isn’t necessarily a strike against them: Fewer fibers mean the towels can dry more quickly (as evidenced by this towel’s 7/10 dryness rating).
However, after multiple trips through the washer and dryer, the softness became less apparent as the towel appeared to shake off some of the fabric softeners likely used in manufacturing. This is a problem frequently seen with towels of all types; the straight-from-the-package feel does tend to differ from the post-wash experience. But for a towel at this price point, it’s practically to be expected. At just over $20 for a set of two, this product is great for folks in need of a straightforward bath towel, whether for their own bathroom, a guest room or a dorm room. (Check out my full review of Amazon’s Quick-Dry Towels for more testing details.)
If you’re after “thick” and “really, really fluffy” more than anything else, grab these extra-plush towels from Brooklinen and don’t look back. They’re surprisingly absorbent for an 820 GSM set (note that Brooklinen’s Classic Towels are 550 GSM, and my luxury pick from Matouk, too, clocks in at 550). While they’re certainly not for everyone (some prefer the thinner, more classic feel of the other towels on our list), they offer a knock-your-socks-off level of quality for those who do like a little extra fluff. The white color is particularly bright and fresh-looking, and there are 14 other colors offered on Brooklinen’s site.
The towel feels luxurious and ultra-thick on first pass, though that initial feel does shrink a small amount after its first run through the washer (in other words, it went from “very plush” to “just plain plush”). I didn’t count that as a mark against the product; subsequent washes revealed that it maintained that same post–first-wash feel. It still offers a far thicker texture than other towels on my list. All in all, it’s fairly easy to understand why Brooklinen touts these as its best-selling weave.
This towel was the priciest of the winners I tested, and while a higher price tag doesn’t always equate to a higher-quality product, I believe the Matouk Milagro towels are worth every penny. I found myself looking forward to using them each time the opportunity came up in my testing rotation. Plus, after several months of long-term testing, I still find myself reaching for the Matouk bath towels, despite preferring a larger bath sheet—they’re that soft and luxurious.
In terms of overall absorbency, this towel was tied for first. Like the Frontgate Bath Towel, my top pick, it sucked up 97.5% of the water I poured. It also dried surprisingly fast for its plushness level: I gave it a stellar 9/10 dryness rating. Its 22.1-ounce weight hits the sweet spot between the thick Frontgate towel (27.1 ounces) and the thinner Onsen one (17 ounces). It also stays supremely soft and fluffy—even after multiple washes. While I stand by the Frontgate towel as the best overall pick for most people, I personally preferred the midrange pile on the Matouk. If you think you might also enjoy that in-between plushness range, it’s worth checking out, plus there’s myriad color options available.