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Bath Linen Guide
Help your towels to stay softer for longer with the help of Boutique Linen's bath linen care guides and tutorials.
How to Pick the Perfect Towel....GSM Explained
How to Pick the Perfect Towel......GSM Explained
It goes without saying that any household or hotel needs a substantial number of towels in order to function properly. Bath towels make us dry and clean, and also help accentuate the look of a bathroom. That's why it's important to know exactly what you are looking for when it comes to buying towels, and we've put together a number of tips to help you pick the very best on the market.
Firstly, check the label of a towel and make sure it is 100% cotton. Cotton can hold close to 25 times its weight in liquid, and the extra-comfortable 100% combed cotton pieces does not include shorter threads which means the towel stay strong and does not suffer from pilling.
It's also important not to judge a towel on how soft it initially feels. Manufacturers have been known to added softeners, only for them to become coarse and rough after a few washes.
With this in mind, it's probably best to splash out a little when buying towels. For example, if you pick up Egyptian cotton towels you're likely to get good value for money as they have much longer threads which means they can absorb more moisture per inch.
Another good tip is to see whether you can spot the base of the towel through the loops. Towels with thick, tightly-packed loops are more absorbent and one which has been double-stitched is more likely to have a longer life.
Perhaps the best way to evaluate the quality of a towel is to simply hold it. You'll notice that the heavier the towel is, despite how soft it appears, the better it will turn out to be. You're looking for towels with a high Grams per Square Metre (GSM) rate, perfect for hand or guest towel scenarios. Even heavier towels are best used as bath towels.
Boutique Linen supplies a wide range of towels including hand towels, bath towels, bath sheets with a GSM ranging between 400-600.
Wash your towels before use, and make sure that you always follow the washing instructions on its label. Detergent-wise, we recommend using products aimed specifically at accentuating colour, rather than brightness. All Richard Haworth towels can be washed at 50C.
If your towel starts to wear and a stray loop appears, cut it off. This prevents the towel from potentially unravelling further. To avoid premature wear, do not wash the towels too hot. And avoid the use of fabric conditioner as it reduces absorbency.
Click here to view our wash care symbol guide.
A terry towel is made from terry cloth, which is formed using weaving and features an extra warp yarn to make the loops. They are long-wearing, do not need ironing and are easy to wash.
A good quality terry towel has a close, firm underweave with close loops and is very absorbent, even more so when it has loops on both sides. This is because the absorbent fibre becomes stronger when made wet, which means towels can be washed in very hot water with no risk.
The looped pile on the towel can withstand the most aggressive of uses, while long pile is more absorbent. Terry cloth is most absorbent when it has loops on both sides. Cotton can absorb up to 27 times its own weight in water.
What is velour?
Velour towels, available from Richard Haworth, are towels with cropped loops which have a smoother texture. The designs on these towels are usually much clearer than the average towel.
