After Testing 90 Bath Towels, These Are Our Favorites

In our testing, traditional cotton terry towels consistently delivered the best results for absorbency, softness, and overall satisfaction. That said, there are other towel styles that offer different benefits if you're looking to switch things up.

• BEST WAFFLE TOWEL: The Parachute Waffle Towel is very lightweight and dried quickly in our tests. However, like all waffle towels we've tested, it wasn’t as absorbent as traditional terry styles. We also tested the Onsen Waffle Weave Bath Towel, which stood out for its durability but didn’t score as highly for absorbency, drying speed, or softness.
• BEST ORGANIC TOWEL: The Coyuchi Temescal Organic Towel is certified by GOTS, meaning it meets strict environmental and social standards throughout production. It also performed very well in our softness and absorbency tests, showing that eco-friendly materials can still deliver strong performance. The main downside is the higher price.
• BEST LINEN TOWEL: Linen towels are less common, but they offer a crisp, textured feel that some people prefer. The Linoto Linen Spa Bath Towel was durable and well liked by testers, but it didn’t feel as soft as cotton towels and didn’t absorb water as easily in our tests.

My team of product analysts and I have tested more than 90 bath towels in the past six years. Each one is put through the wringer in both Textiles Lab tests and consumer evaluations. While most other review sites rely solely on personal experience or at-home assessments, our review utilizes standardized methods that are common in the textiles industry. Here's how the bath towels are scored:

✔️ Absorbency: Using the apparatus pictured here, we set up a towel sample at a 60-degree angle and pour water onto it from a standard distance. Any water that the towel doesn't absorb rolls off the fabric and into the container below, which we weigh to measure how much runs off. This test is performed multiple times on each towel, including after repeated wash cycles, because absorbency can change after extended use. A towel with perfect absorbency doesn't have any runoff.

✔️ Drying speed: We apply a standard amount of water to a towel swatch, then hang it to dry. We reweigh the swatch every 30 minutes until it reaches its original weight, indicating that the towel has fully dried.

✔️ Washability: Our analysts wash each towel 20 times and dry each five times, measuring shrinkage and appearance throughout this process. We also measure weight loss from laundering to see how much lint each towel sheds.

✔️ Fabric strength: A specialized machine called the Instron pulls swatches of towel fabric apart and measures the force needed to break each one.

✔️ Consumer tests: Dozens of consumer testers use the towels at home and rate them on factors like softness, appearance, whether they were dried off quickly, and more. We also set up blind softness tests in our Lab, during which additional consumers feel and rate each one in a side-by-side comparison.

One thing we've learned from extensive consumer testing is that picking out the best bath towel is largely based on personal preference. Here's what you should consider:

• If you want a super soft, ultra-absorbent towel, look for 100% cotton with dense, plush loops on the surface. You can also look at fabric weight, which is shown in GSM (grams per square meter). Over 600 GSM is considered heavy, so these will typically be the plushest. Lighter towels like waffle or ribbed weaves typically weren't as soft in our test.
• If you want a towel that's quick drying and more durable, consider a cotton-polyester blend or a lighter fabric with a low pile (short loops). Fluffy loops help the towel feel soft and absorb water, but they can take longer to dry and may show more wear from laundering.

It’s not a rule of thumb, but towels labeled as “Turkish cotton” or “Made in Turkey” performed better in our tests than those claiming to be made of “Egyptian” cotton. In theory, they’re very similar: Both are long-staple fibers, helping to make the fabrics softer and more durable.

However, Turkish cotton is more popular in bath towels and is known for drying faster than Egyptian cotton, which is more commonly seen in bed sheets. Plus, there have been instances of bedding fabrics mislabeled as Egyptian cotton, especially because it's difficult to verify this claim.

RELATED: Turkish vs. Egyptian Cotton Towels: Which is Better?

My best tip to stop shedding is to wash towels before use. Sometimes there are loose fibers left over from the production process, but laundering the towels a few times should help get rid of them. Not to mention, washing also makes the towels more absorbent because it gets rid of leftover finishes from production.

Emma Seymour is the associate director of the Good Housekeeping Institute Textiles Lab. She has been testing towels and other textiles products since 2018. Seymour has personally tested dozens of towels following standardized methods and coordinating hundreds of consumer testers.

Testing and evaluations for this article have also been conducted by Senior Analyst Grace Wu, and Home and Reviews Analyst Amanda Constantine.

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