What Separates a $70 Hot Yoga Towel from a $20 One? Not Much.
The Yogitoes and Eunzel towels are both made mostly of microfiber cloth, a synthetic material prized for its durability and moisture-wicking abilities.
Manduka says its Yogitoes towel is a woven fabric made from 90% polyester (30% of which the company claims is recycled) and 10% nylon. Our testers found its texture to be slightly smoother than that of the Eunzel towel, but it was not slippery.
The Eunzel towel feels thinner and weighs less (14.5 ounces, versus 16 ounces for the similarly sized Yogitoes towel). But in terms of overall textile quality, these small differences in weights and textures are unlikely to be meaningful, Fashion Institute of Technology professor and textiles expert Ajoy Sarkar explained. That’s because both towels are made from similar microfiber fabrics. Whatever the composition, and regardless of whether they’ve been woven or knit, microfiber fabrics are exceptionally durable.
They’re also great at wicking away liquid. When it came to the towels’ sweat management, our testers found that both performed similarly, including during our most extreme tests — several 90-minute hot yoga sessions.
The towels’ grip dots differ somewhat. The grip dots on the Yogitoes towel are made from 100% silicone, and they’re spaced farther apart. And the Eunzel towel’s dots (which are more tightly spaced) are made from a silicone and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) composite — a material that likely costs less to produce, Sarkar said.
The grip dots on both towels helped them to lock onto our test yoga mats, which included the all-rubber JadeYoga Harmony Mat (Wirecutter’s top pick) and a PVC mat.
On bare flooring (without a yoga mat underneath), the Eunzel towel provided better grip than the Yogitoes towel. But neither one had enough cushioning to replace a yoga mat entirely.
All yoga towels should be laundered after each use. And the frequency of washing and drying will impact how long a towel lasts. Both the Eunzel and Yogitoes towels can be machine-dried (and no grip dots were harmed in our testing).
