The 5 Best Bath Towels of 2025

Terry

Riley’s Plush Bath Towel and Brooklinen’s Super-Plush Bath Towel are more plush and luxe than the Target Threshold Signature Spa Bath Towel when they’re new, but they lose more of their softness after a few washes.

Kohl’s The Big One Solid Bath Towel is the best towel I’ve tested under $10, but it is still scratchier and flimsier than our picks. Still, it could be a good option for stocking up a first apartment or college dorm.

JCPenney’s Fieldcrest Heritage Oversized Spa Bath Towel wasn’t as plush as previous Fieldcrest towels we’ve tested (they have often been budget picks in this guide), but it certainly wasn’t the worst towel in our 2023 tests.

Authenticity50’s Essential Cotton Bath Towels weren’t bad, and the towels are made in the United States. But they haven’t been reliably available since 2020.

We tested Target’s Threshold Performance Plus Towel in 2024. It comes in tons of colors, but it felt cheaper, scratchier, and less absorbent than our budget picks.

We tested Target’s Room Essentials Everyday Bath Towel in 2021 as a possible budget pick, but it was thin and not very absorbent. It also took as long to dry as the thickest terry—about 24 hours on a wet winter day in Washington state.

We’ve tested the Snowe Classic Bath Towel twice and, although it’s soft, it clings to wet skin and isn’t as absorbent as our picks.

The Parachute Classic Turkish Cotton Towel was a nice, average towel in our 2017 testing, but Parachute’s waffle towel is better.

The Utopia Towels 600 GSM Luxury Bath Towel from Amazon was absorbent in our 2021 shower tests, but it was too small, and after five washes our test towel looked like it was falling apart.

JCPenney’s Home Expressions Bath Towel felt cheap, thin, scratchy, and too small in our 2023 tests.

In our 2023 tests, Target’s Room Essentials Bath Towel felt more like drying off with a rough washcloth.

We tried the Amadeus Turkish Bath Towel collection in 2021 to see how towels from a real hotel supplier would perform in our tests. Not great, as it turns out. These are considered premium hotel-room towels, the highest-quality designation by this supplier’s definition, but they were noticeably rough and cheap. One towel arrived stuck to itself, and when I pulled to unfold it, several strands of terry snagged right away. It didn’t make it past the initial feel test out of the package.

Caro Home’s Microcotton Luxury Bath Towel 600 GSM was an early upgrade pick in this guide years ago, but in 2017 it didn’t perform as well. It felt thin and wasn’t as absorbent as we’d like.

The Lands’ End Premium Supima Cotton Bath Towel, another early pick in this guide (a runner-up option), didn’t absorb well in our 2017 tests, and we thought it clung to the body too much.

The L.L.Bean Premium Cotton Bath Towel was the fastest-drying terry towel in our first timed test in 2017—it dried in about 10 hours. But it was rough and uncomfortable to use.

In past years we’ve also tested and dismissed the following: the Chakir Turkish Linens Premium Bath Towel, the Pottery Barn Hydrocotton Organic Quick-Drying Towel, the Restoration Hardware 802-Gram Turkish Bath Towel, The Company Store Green Earth Quick-Dry Towel (which may have been redesigned since we first tested it), the Made Here by 1888 Mills Bath Towel, the now-discontinued Nordstrom Hydrocotton Bath Towel, the Amazon Pinzon Heavyweight Luxury Cotton Bath Towel, the IKEA Fräjen Bath Towel, the L.L.Bean Egyptian Cotton Towel, the Royal Velvet Signature Soft Bath Towel, and the Target Fieldcrest Spa Solid Bath Towel.

Lattice

The Rikumo Vintage Waffle Towel, a classic lattice towel, has been produced in Imabari, Japan, since the 1930s. It’s imported to the United States through a company called Morihata, which sells it to several stores, as well as through its retail site Rikumo. (If you see any of these names credited to an imported Japanese lattice towel—Kontex, Morihata, Rikumo—it’s all the same towel.) It’s a linen-cotton blend, which made it feel scratchier on the skin than the Onsen towel, and it was more clingy while toweling off. We’ve also noticed that this towel is frequently out of stock, a common issue with imports, and it’s very expensive.

The Gilden Tree Modern Style Bath Towel was as absorbent as the other lattice towels we tested but uncomfortable to use. It felt like drying off with a thick, rough dish towel.

We also tested an older, now-discontinued version of Brooklinen’s waffle towel, made of the same material as their waffle robe, a pick in our guide to the best robes.

This article was edited by Daniela Gorny and Christine Ryan.