Buying new organic cotton towels is a great choice! Congrats on that!
If you want to make sure that your towels are as good for the planet as they are for your body then towels made from organically grown cotton are definitely the way to go!
We put our criteria to the test (see below) and we think these are the very best organic towels in the land available today!
Grund Pinehurst 100% Organic Cotton Luxury Spa 3-Piece Set
(Including Bath Sheet)
These are super luxury towels with 100% Turkish Organic Cotton at their heart and they’ve been through GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standard) testing to demonstrate the organic cotton standard at which they are made.
They are soft and pleasant to use, and they come with an incredible 5-year warranty which is awesome for organic cotton. They’re not the cheapest towel but they are truly luxurious, the bath sheet is amazing.
You can find the Grund Pinehurst 100% Organic Cotton Luxury Spa 3-Piece Set online.
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Madras Collections Organic Cotton Kitchen Vintage Set of 10 Towels
Something a little different, this stack of 10 towels for your kitchen is designed to have a sort of “flour sack” appeal but in organic cotton, of course.
We found them to be the perfect organic cotton substitute for paper towels and if you wash them before use, they are superbly absorbent.
These are ideal as hand towels too if you want to use them in the bathroom, they’re made of certified organic cotton and are free of harmful chemicals.
You can find the Madras Collections Organic Cotton Kitchen Vintage Set of 10 Towels online.
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Eco Linen Soft & Plush Organic Bath Towels
Set of 4
This set is an absolute organic cotton bargain and you can’t argue with the low price of these towels. However, these towels are made for light use and are far from plush towels.
We’d use these more for the gym or occasional use than for the bathroom as they’re a bit lighter than some of the other organic cotton offerings we reviewed.
We can’t help but be impressed by the value they bring to your home. They could even be used as bath mats at a push.
You can find The Eco Linen Soft & Plush Organic Bath Towels Set of 4 on Amazon.
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Texere Organic Cotton Jaquard Bath Towels Set of 6
Certified to the Oeko-Tex Standard 100 these organic cotton towels are the perfect towel for the truly environmentally conscious.
They are long-lasting, hardwearing, certified organic cotton towels, and pleasantly soft too. We like the inclusion of the medium towels, they make for ideal hair towels in the shower.
They’re worth their premium price tag.
You can find the Texere Organic Cotton Jaquard Bath Towels Set of 6 online.
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How To Choose The Best Organic Bath Towels For You & Your Family
When I was young, new towels weren’t very complicated, you picked out a size and that was about it. Today, there’s what seems like an infinite variety of types and styles of towels. Towels are made with more love and care today.
We think it’s as important to get the small details right as it is to ensure you’re buying certified organic cotton, sustainable bath towels.
Pick Your Ideal Size & Weight
A washcloth ought to be about 13” x 13” enough to cover your face but not much more. A hand towel measures up at about 16” x 30” and will easily hang up in your kitchen or bathroom.
If you’re looking for something to bathe with then a bath towel is around 27” x 52” and, yes, you can go bigger than bath towels, a bath sheet is bigger still at 35” x 60”.
Bath sheets are much easier to wrap around your body than bath towels are.
Towels are given a density rating in grams per square meter (GSM). This applies to everything from a hand towel to a set of Turkish towels.
You can get towels with a GSM rating of anything from 300 to 900 but what’s the difference?
A 300-400 GSM rating means you’re getting a nice light towel, the perfect thing for your gym bag or maybe for use in the kitchen. The average hand towel might fit in this category too.
A 400-600 GSM is going to be of medium weight, this is the perfect weight for beach towels and for a bath towel. Textured towels are often in this category too.
Get up to 600-900 GSM and you’re talking about a very dense and very absorbent towel with long staple organic cotton in it, that produces fluffy and plush styles of towels.
These can require a little longer to get you dry because though they absorb a lot, they often do so more slowly than other towels. Towels in this range are generally considered to be luxury items. The kind of bath towel that you put out for guests.
Pick The Cotton Based On Your Needs
Standard organic cotton is for everyday use in organic cotton towels. It has no special properties over and above conventional cotton, besides being reasonably absorbent and soft.
If you want something a bit more durable and with a softer edge than conventional cotton, then Turkish cotton may be what you’re looking for, it’s a popular choice for organic cotton towels too. This is what we look for in a bath sheet.
They have denser loops of thread within them and they trap moisture and warmth very well. You often find towels like these in hotels or luxury spas.
One nice thing about Turkish cotton is that it becomes softer and fluffier every time it goes through a wash.
There’s also “Zero Twist” cotton which is much lighter than usual cotton but it’s still soft, fluffy and easy to pack but it comes at a higher price than usual too.
Combed Or Ringspun Cotton?
Combed cotton uses the strongest, longest threads to make the towel. It means that it’s durable and won’t tolerate piling.
Ringspun cotton, on the other hand, uses alternate long and short fibers to create a softer feel on the skin.
Banded edges are good if you don’t want your towels to fray.
Choose The Right Color
There is an endless choice in towel colors just as there is with conventional cotton, so you might as well go with something that matches your bathroom set or kitchen set up perfectly.
If in doubt, you can always choose white which goes with absolutely anything, or go for something seasonal that you rotate throughout the year. (Browns in Fall, Bright Beach Reds in Summer, etc.)
Towel Care
You should always wash cotton towels before you use them and try not to use fabric softeners which, ironically, can actually make a towel stiffer and harder than it ought to be and destroy the fluffy pile of a towel. This is particularly true for lightweight Turkish bath towels.
Get Certifed!
GOTS Certified Organic Cotton is a hallmark of all the best organic toweling products.
We also like to pick up Fair Trade Certified Cotton because it means the people who grew and harvested the cotton for your cotton towels were paid fairly for their efforts.
