Searching for the best towels get you dry pronto – and to give your bathroom a new lease of life? High-quality, fluffy towels don’t always have to cost the earth. In fact, we’ve been testing a load of bath towels so that you can buy yours online, with peace of mind. From DUSK bath towels to Sheridan towels and even The White Company towels, our guide ought to steer you in the right direction.
When buying new bath towels it’s important to consider two things – GSM and size. GSM stands for grams per square metre, and essentially, the higher this number the thicker – and more absorbent – the bath towel will be. As for size, bath towels come in a standard size of 70cm x 140cm. If you like to wrap your towel around yourself, or if you prefer a larger towel, opt for a bath sheet. These are sizeable at around 90cm x 160cm.
How to tell if you need to replace your current bath towels? You should mostly be able to tell by looks, but a sign that you need to replace your towels would be if yours are no longer absorbing as much water as they once did. Otherwise, if your towels are looking lacklustre on your towel rack, then this is a good sign that you need to switch yours, too. With that, you can see 14 of the best towels you can buy below. Find more top tips on finding the right type of towel for you at the end of this page.
“The bathroom is the place to bring in soft and nurturing textures. They are also key to creating a spa-like feel in your bathroom. Nothing says spa quite like a fresh stack of plush towels placed over a towel bar, rolled in baskets or stacked neatly on a shelf.” – Joanna Ross, General Manager – Product & Innovation, Sheridan
The best bath towels you can buy
Image: Sheridan
The Sheridan ribbed towels are, without a doubt, among the best we’ve tested. They are super absorbent and they can dry your body fast thanks to their ribbed texture. Made from 100% cotton, these towels are weighty and thick, thanks to their 670GSM. Rest assured we can vouch for the fact that they stand the test of time – you can use them for a good few showers before needing to wash since they dry fast, plus they wash well. They’re admittedly fluffy but not too fluffy so as to make a hard job of getting you dry. The best part? They are nice and big!
GSM: 670
Size: Face Towel, Hand Towel, Bath Mat, Bath Towel, Bath Sheet
Buy now: Sheridan Living Textures Ribbed Stripes Pattern Pure Cotton Bath Towel, from £9.95, Amazon
The best budget bath towels
Image credit: DUSK
This bath towel range from DUSK truly is impressive. So much so that we rate them the best towels if you want luxury but are on a budget, mostly because they feel like they could melt in your hands since they are so soft. Made from 100% cotton and 500GSM, they’re a combination of lightweight and quick drying. Choose from three stylish colourways and use them to also add texture to your bathroom shelves. We recommend buying the bath sheet size as the bath towels come up a tad small. They come out nice and fluffy when tumble dried. Put a few of their hand towels in your basket to wow guests.
“Flawlessly fluffy towels are the perfect finishing touch to any bathroom, which is why the DUSK Monaco Supreme collection is designed using zero-twist 100% cotton. It means our towels are super soft, quick-drying, and incredibly absorbent, ensuring they stay fluffy for longer!” – Farah Arshad, Head of Design at DUSK
GSM: 500
Sizes: Face Cloth, Hand Towel, Bath Towel, Bath Sheet
Buy now: Monaco Bath Towels, From £3, DUSK
The best luxury bath towels
Image credit: The White Company
Our sources at The White Company inform us that these are the definitive best-selling range – winning high accolades from all manner of experts. The luxury spa-like towels are made from an incredibly high 700GSM twisted Egyptian cotton Terry, which feels super-soft and generously plush to the touch. Their heavyweight design helps to make you feel reassuringly enveloped in complete comfort. In the brands signature crisp white these towels will help to add a posh hotel feel to any bathroom. The clean white design features a detailed simple border, to add just a hint of interest without the need for more. Doing what The White Company does best, these towels help make an everyday home accessory feel a little bit more luxurious.
GSM: 700
Sizes: Face Cloth, Hand Towel, Bath Towel, Bath Sheet, Super Jumbo
Buy now: Luxury Egyptian Cotton Towels, From £4, The White Company
The best bath towel set
Image credit: Beddable
Made from 100% Turkish cotton, these thick towels come in at 600GSM making them both weighty and impressively absorbent. They are probably the most fluffy on our list – especially once tumble dried – and they are ribbed to help get you dry faster. Not only that, but they are OEKO-Tex Certified with no harmful chemicals used in the process of creation. Use them on yourself, your children… anyone! They come in a set and you get a face cloth, hand towel and bath towel. Rest assured that the bath towel is pretty large at 100cm x 150 cm. The only thing they’ve not got? A hook for hanging!
GSM: 600
Size: Face Cloth, Hand Towel, Bath Towel
Buy now: Beddable Dark Grey Towels, £55 for a set, Beddable
The best patterned bath towels
Image credit: Christy
This Honeycomb design by Christy is a great way to add pattern without having to add another accent colour. The simple Platinum grey towels feature a stylised honeycomb pattern sculptured into the towel, rather than having to use multiple colours to create an intriguing design. Made from 100 per cent cotton the highly durable, luxurious towels are ideal for adding decorative interest to simple bathroom schemes, in style.
GSM: 650
Sizes: Hand Towel, Bath Towel, Bath Sheet
Buy now: Honeycomb Towel Platinum, from £12, Christy
The best John Lewis bath towels
Image credit: John Lewis & Partners
Made using untwisted yarn to create a super-soft feel, these are an affordable option for luxury towels. The super-soft towels are coated in an innovative natural peppermint treatment that contains antimicrobial protection, to keep them fresher and cleaner for longer. And while peppermint is the key ingredient in the process, it doesn’t leave the towels smelling like a minty fresh toothpaste – the unique ‘Natural Life’ finish actually helps to keep them completely odour-free. John Lewis test the towels to the highest standards of durability, colour-fastness and performance to ensure they last and last. Available in 16 pleasing shades, from ‘Pale Pink’ and ‘Sapphire’ to more neutral ‘Linen’ and ‘Mineral’ there’s a hue to enhance every bathroom suite.
GSM: 580
Sizes: Face Cloth, Guest Towel, Hand Towel, Bath Towel, Bath Sheet, Extra Large Bath Sheet
Buy now: Ultra Soft Cotton Hand Towel, From £4, John Lewis & Partners
The best supermarket bath towels
Wrap yourself in a little luxury with Fox & Ivy’s Egyptian cotton bath towels. Made with superior Gold Seal accredited Egyptian cotton in a plush 650gsm pile, this towel range feels wonderfully thick and soft against your skin, even after multiple washes. Available in 3 beautiful colour choices including charcoal, rose and silver. The ultra-absorbent range is available in face cloths, hand towels, bath towels and bath sheets. Coordinating Egyptian cotton pedestal mats and bath mats are also available to create a harmonious bathroom scheme. These luxurious towels offer a hotel feel on budget, without compromising on quality.
GSM: 650
Sizes: Hand Towel, Bath Towel, Bath Sheet
Buy now: Fox & Ivy Egyptian Cotton Towels, from £7-£16, Tesco
The best bath towels on Amazon
Image credit: Utopia Towels
This towel is, without a doubt, the best towel on Amazon. With a whopping 15,000 reviews – and a 4.6-star rating – this towel comes in only one size: bath sheet. Though rest assured you can buy them in a pack of two if you need to upgrade a few of your towels. They are made of 100% ring spun cotton to make them highly absorbent and super soft. While they even come in a range of colours including blue, electric blue, grey, pink, plum, navy and of course, white.This bath sheet is ideal if you are on a budget, or equally enough it would be ideal for students, teens…
GSM: 600
Sizes: Bath Sheet
Buy now: Utopia Towels Premium Jumbo Bath Sheet, £12.99, Amazon
The best Egyptian cotton bath towels
Image credit: M&S
Not only are these M&S towels high quality, but they come in a huge range of colours – 40 to be exact – so that you can choose to match them with your decor or use them to add a pop of colour to your toilet. They are made using longer lasting mature cotton fibres and also infused with Marks & Spencer’s StayNEW™ technology to keep them looking and feeling fresh after several washes. Let’s not forget they are also 100% pure Egyptian cotton with a 650gsm rating. For a spa-like experience in your own home, these towels are your best bet.
GSM: 650
Sizes: Face Towel, Guest Towel, Hand Towel, Bath Towel, Bath Sheet
Buy now: Egyptian Cotton Luxury Towel, From £2, Marks & Spencer
The best striking bath towel
Image credit: M&S
Because sometimes you just need to go wild with pattern, and the bathroom is a great place to have fun with it. Somehow there’s less commitment to pattern when it features on towels that can be changed weekly. Who doesn’t love a bit of leopard print? This timeless favourite is the trend that keeps giving, going from strength to strength on decorative accessories. The print in grey at M&S is somewhat subtle – if we dare say that of animal print? The design also comes in a neutral beige. These design-led towels are made from responsibly sourced cotton with 500 GSM, using innovative StayNEW technology which helps to keep them in prime condition for longer.
GSM: 500
Sizes: Guest Towel, Hand Towel, Bath Towel, Bath Sheet
Buy now: Cotton Leopard Design Hand Towel, From £3, Marks & Spencer
The best organic cotton bath towel
Image credit: Sheridan
The Eden Towel collection is luxuriously soft to the touch, yet highly absorbent. This silky soft towel collection is more than stylish, made using organically sourced cotton, Global Organic Textile Standard certified – that’s the worldwide leading textile processing standard for organic fibres to you and me. Organic, in any measure is always considered the best option to get the best quality. The organic cotton yarns are wrapped in lyocell to enhance the super soft touch. The delightful ducky pink shade welcomes a touch of on-trend colour to bathrooms.
Sizes: Face Towel, Hand Towel, Bath Mat, Bath Towel, Bath Sheet
Buy now: Eden Organic Cotton Towels, From £8.95, Amazon
The best bath towel for babies
Image credit: Cuddledry
This is hands down (see what we did there!) the best bath towel for babies. Thanks to the clever design that allows the towel to loop around your neck leaving you hands-free. This eliminates the problem of how to lift baby from the bath – which is a tricky task given they are wet and slippery. This award-winning towel is made from a bamboo and cotton mix, to ensure it’s super-soft against babies skin. It’s also such a simple and yet genius idea for a babies towel!
“We asked hundreds of parents and found that mums and dads everywhere battle with baby towels held awkwardly under their chin, or in their teeth, or put crying babies onto towels on cold bathroom floors. It is of course impossible to safely lift a baby without two hands, but you also somehow have to hold a towel and wrap them in it.” – Polly Marsh, one of Cuddledry’s creators.
Buy now: Cuddledry Hand-free Baby Towel, £34.99, Boots
The best value bath towels
Image credit: The White Company
This ribbed cotton design is a best-seller and for good reason! Made using clever ‘low twist’ technology these towels have an extra quick dry time – which is ultra handy for those who need a quick turnaround on washing. The 100 per cent Hydrocotton towels are ultra fluffy to the touch and they remain that way, blissfully soft and supple after each wash. The ultra white colour choice is perfect for a fresh, clean feel for your bathroom; but they are also available in slate and pearl grey.
GSM: 500
Size: Face Cloth, Hand Towel, Bath Towel, Bath Sheet, Super Jumbo
Buy now: Hydrocotton Towels, From £5, The White Company
The best Supima cotton bath towels
You can’t beat the ‘Cashmere of cotton’ for a truly luxurious feeling for bathtimes and showers. These 750gsm towels feel indulgent and cosy whilst boasting high-performance absorbency, for complete post-bath heaven. The range is available in 6 versatile colour choices of white, mid grey, smoke stone dark teal and aubergine.
“The exceptionally high standard of Supmina fibres used for this range are used to create towels with amazing softness and supreme durability.” – Sarah Smith, Head of Buying & Merchandising at Soak&Sleep
GSM: 650
Sizes: Hand Towel, Bath Towel, Bath Sheet
Buy now: Supima Cotton Towels, From £12, Soak&Sleep
Keep scrolling for the best places to search for new bath towels, if none of our picks above tickled your fancy.
You’ll see this abbreviation frequently when sourcing towels – it’s like the thread count associated with bedding. GSM stands for ‘grams per square metre’. Put simply, it’s the way weight is measured for towels. Typically speaking, the higher the GSM the higher the thickness of the towel. Therefore the higher the GSM attributed, the more luxurious a towel is considered.
‘The GSM is a good indication of how heavy and dense a towel is. Generally, the higher the GSM, the thicker and more absorbent the towel will be. When deciding on the GSM, think about how you’ll use your towel and how often. Lightweight towels dry quicker, but heavyweight towels have a more luxurious feel.” – Lucy Comer Comer, Partner & Bath Shop Buyer at John Lewis & Partners.
There’s no one material fits all with bath towels, as this will be dependent on what you prefer. Here’s a low down of bath towel materials and constructions that are the most popular.
Supima cotton is known as the “cashmere of cotton” to quote Sarah Smith, Head of Buying at Soak&Sleep, and for good reason! Grown only in the USA to exceptionally high standards, the fibres are longer and stronger than any other kind of cotton. They are therefore the most expensive towels, so consider them as a long term investment.
Egyptian cotton towels are a good alternative to costly Supima towels. They are super soft, durable and highly absorbent thanks to the long, thick loops. These towels are only slightly less luxurious and this is reflected in their price.
Standard towels are made from synthetic fibres and are therefore less absorbent and are of a lesser quality than cotton towels. However, they are low-cost and are ideal if you’re planning to change them frequently.
Waffle towels have a textured surface and their lightweight nature makes them handy for travelling.
Plain white bath towels will bring a hotel chic look to any bathroom and can complement any scheme, dark or light. Be mindful of keeping your whites bright – especially if you use a lot of beauty products! It can be tricky to remove those mascara and foundation marks! If you want your towels to make a statement, choose a contrasting colour or pattern. For a more subtle look, choose towels that tone with your tiles and flooring.
“Blue is one of the most popular colours in the bathroom. It can have a positive effect on our mood as it connects us to a blue sky or ocean found in nature, which helps us to feel relaxed. The colour blue is known to help calm the mind and produce a feeling of tranquillity, a perfect sensation for winding down at the end of your day.”– Joanna Ross, General Manager – Product & Innovation, Sheridan
Consider what combination of towels you need and whether you want a matching set. Towel bales are cost-effective sets that usually offer 2 face cloths, two hand towels and two bath towels. If you want larger bath sheets you’ll have to buy individual towels.
You should aim to allocate each member of the family two bath sheets and two bath towels, so they always have a clean one when one is in the wash. Hand towels can be limited to one per bathroom, and of course, always have plenty of spare towels of all sizes for guests.
Zero twist is a term you will see when researching towels. It basically means the cotton is spun with an open loop with no twist, giving a softer and more plush feel.
“Cotton is the most traditionally used material for bathroom towels, as it is extremely durable and absorbent.” –Lucy Comer at John Lewis & Partners
Egyptian cotton towels offer supreme quality and performance. Long, fine fibres of cotton help to create towels that offer high absorbency, durability and a super-soft touch. Egyptian cotton is an ideal towel choice if you prefer a heavier weight for your towels.
Supima cotton is a superior cotton choice, only grown in the USA. Unique with its extra long fibres, Supima cotton is highly durable and stronger than a large majority of alternative cotton types. Despite its tough properties, Supima cotton is sumptuously soft. Making it the ideal choice if you want a hardworking heavyweight towel with a soft feel.
‘Always wash towels before first use so they are thoroughly clean.’ recommends Julia Galloway, Design Manager, Christy Towels, ‘Don’t overload the machine, towels need plenty of space and water to effectively soak.’
‘To maintain the best results wash after wash we recommend using no fabric conditioner with your towels as over time the conditioner builds up in the fibres and reduces absorbency and softness.’ advises Sarah Smith, Head of Buying & Merchandising, Soak&Sleep.
If you can, put your towels out on the line to dry to give them extra freshness. Driers are also great for adding extra softness. Don’t iron towels as this can make them stiff and scratchy and also make them less absorbent.