Give me your most arid hand towels

July 21, 2024 3:16 PM

I want hand towels so drying that plants wilt in their presence. I want hand towels that after you use them you need lotion to stop your skin from cracking. Or at least I want hand towels that work at least half as well as paper for getting my hands dry.

I'm always rinsing vegetables and washing utensils while I cook, so my hands are always damp. Paper towels are so much better at their job than fabric towels! But I hate the waste so I just live with it. Help me!

posted by moonmilk to Home & Garden (11 answers total)

Real actual terrycloth.

But if you can't buy in person, at least buy where you can get up close in a photo and be sure it is actual unsculpted loops of cotton. Not waffled, not groomed in some way. Terry cloth.

My mother has replicated paper towels, basically, with about 50 ugly medium brown (because it doesn't really show stains!) terry washcloths from some weird closeout store near her. They live in a bin on the counter, and she has a small mesh bin in the laundry room where they drape to dry and wait to be washed all in one batch after they've been through their cycle: dish drying, then hand drying, then washing dishes or cleaning counters etc.

I'm not quite there but I do have a 20-piece hoard of real terry washcloths at this point.
posted by Lyn Never at 5:19 PM on July 21 [2 favorites]

Whatever towels you end up with- don't use fabric softener when you wash them. They will come out of the dryer hard and stiff and super absorbent.
posted by JennyJupiter at 5:25 PM on July 21 [9 favorites]

Never letting a towel touch fabric softener is key to keeping them super absorbent. If you have ones that have been softened, you can try to wash it out with a vinegar rinse and air dry a few times.
posted by advicepig at 6:00 PM on July 21 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: I don't use fabric softener (or a dryer), so unfortunately I can't blame that for the poor performance of my kitchen towels.
posted by moonmilk at 8:21 PM on July 21

I actually find cheapo flour-sack towels best for this - thin, easy to mash my hands up in, easy to chuck in the wash, can be used over and over. I use them as napkins, potholders, the over-the-shoulder towel for drying veggies (and hands) after rinsing them off and then wiping veggie residue off as I chop them. I bought some fancy Williams-Sonoma terry towels and they barely even move the water around on the surface of my skin - the universe moves in mysterious ways.
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 10:04 PM on July 21 [2 favorites]

Terry towelling nappies. example
posted by poxandplague at 1:37 AM on July 22

Best answer: For kitchen use you want kitchen towels. The fluffy kind, like these that are made to absorb liquids. Not the smooth kind, like these that are made for things like polishing glassware and don’t absorb liquids as readily. Both are good to have around. Folded up they can be used in place of pot holders or oven mitts. They’re cheap and not meant to last forever, so when they start looking too dingy for kitchen use they can be used for dirtier tasks around the house or in the garage and tossed out.
posted by slkinsey at 4:21 AM on July 22 [2 favorites]

A premium option: organic (to avoid Uyghur Forced Labor), towels from Japan.
posted by Lanark at 12:26 PM on July 22

Response by poster: I've ordered a set of bar mop towels as recommended by slkinsey! I'll report back when they arrive.
posted by moonmilk at 3:59 PM on July 22

I actually find that after one or two washings those smooth kitchen towels are super-absorbent.
posted by nicwolff at 4:13 PM on July 23

Response by poster: OK, I got my bar mops (100% cotton, terry loops) and I can report that they work somewhat better than the flat-woven cotton-poly kitchen towels I've been using. Still not as absorbent as paper, but an improvement is an improvement! I'm giving them a bleachy wash to toughen them up and they'll be my daily kitchen towels for a while.
posted by moonmilk at 9:04 AM on July 25