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I enjoy having a closet full of clean soft towels ready for after a workout, swim, or for the shower, but buying towels is often confusing.


When I walk into a store to buy towels, I do not even read the labels. I just pick up the towels, feel their weight, their softness, and imagine how they will feel after a shower. You cannot do that when you buy towels online to save money. Several times I ordered towels and received towels I did not like. They were too thin and rough for my tastes. That is where the confusion sets in. How do you know what to buy if you cannot feel it?


As an example, lists two different bundles of towels. One set is listed as 600gsm and the other as Royal Egyptian. When you dig a little further you find out the second set of towels are listed as 450gsm.


If you stop at one of your local stores and read the labels you discover gsm mean grams for square meter. The 600gsm is much heavier than the 450gsm towel fabric, but as I quickly learned, that does not mean softer, but usually does. I prefer a heavier towel, just because it dries better. On the other hand, for kitchen towels I prefer something lighter so the towel dries faster and is ready for the next time I was dishes.


There was one other big difference between those two sets of towels. The heavier set was 100% cotton, while the second set used a combination of cotton and corded yarn. From my experience, the first choice is almost always softer.


I did a little reading online to learn about towel weights and was surprised that a 600gsm towel is considered the borderline between a medium grade towel and a high grade towel. I rarely find towels in my searches that are much higher than 600gsm and can only imagine how heavy and plush towels heavier than 600gsm must be.


Looking through the selections on the internet I found most of the towels sites offer range from 450gsm to 600gsm. For my use I will stick with 600gsm towels in the bathroom, but may save a few dollars and buy the 500gsm towels for my destructive kids and for the guest room.


I now watch the weights of the towels I am going to order and check what type of materials they are made from. While synthetics feel soft, they do not absorb very well. I choose to stick to cotton for all of my towels.


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