Synthetic, Natural, Organic..what's the deal?

Lets take a proper look at the fibres we use and compare them to conventional travel towels. It’s pretty simple stuff really. Organic Cotton is a carbohydrate, grown by nature. Polyester is a synthetic Hydro Carbon, made from petrochemicals. Cotton absorbs & holds water away from your skin. Polyester holds water between the fibres...because it’s a plastic.

Something else too, Polyester & Nylon shed microplastics with each wash and every use. In saying this, we ain't here to scare you into buying our stuff, there's no doubt that synthetic yarns definitely deserve their place in the fabric world. Without man made fibres we wouldn't have things like snow gear, tents, technical thermal underwear etc.

But what we are saying, is Organic Cotton is far superior in the world of comfortable fabrics and Travel towels. Polyester travel towels exist not only because they pack small, but also because they're extremely cheap to manufacture.

Towels for Outdoors People, not Outdoors People

In the hardcore outdoor community, there’s a common saying - ‘cotton kills’. This originated from the Alpine and hiking community referring to the fact that cotton holds moisture, a little too well. When you are hiking up Alpine peaks, you don’t want an absorbent fabric (like Organic Cotton) keeping you damp. It’ll cool down your core temperature, make your clothes freeze and literally kill you. So Microfibre, Polyester and other synthetic fabrics step in where Cotton fails.
But a Travel Towel isn’t for people ascending the world biggest mountains. Our Towels are for outdoorsy people that want to pack better, dry more comfortably and know that they’re contributing to less micro-plastics into waterways.

The Packable Collections

In the never ending quest to pack smarter and travel lighter, without forfeiting comfort, we've loomed a collection of Travel Towels using GOTS Organic cotton yarn. Packing down smaller, drying faster and 100% free from microfibre plastics, Layday towels are nice fit for your pack & our planet.

Waffle Weave

While traveling or out and about, our Waffle Organic Cotton Towels are as functional as much as they are comfortable. The shallow waffle craters increase absorbency and drying times…while keeping the fabric nice and flat for packability.

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Flat Weave

Flatwoven Organic Cotton - Kind of like that favourite pair of Jeans that got more and more comfortable as they aged, this gutsier option of Travel Towel will become your absorbent travel buddy for years to come. It has a GSM rating of around 250gsm..and to put that into perspective..a T-shirt is around 180gsm and and your bath towel around 580 gsm. So right on the button of durability and packability.
The workmanship on this piece consists of 2 yarn dyed horizontal yarns & and 1 naturally coloured vertical yarn. The coloured stripes are not screen printed they're simply yarn dyed. After a few use-rinse-dry cycles, the vertical white yarn gives the towel a frosted look thanks the to the expansion & activated Organic Cotton.

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Jacquard Weave

Overall, our Jacquard range is a tighter feeling weave. They’re woven on traditional Jacquard looms so the pattern is woven into the fabric using a cardboard punch card. Because it’s woven tighter, after a few uses it takes on a ruffled feel which feels buttery soft.

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Pre Washed With Sand & Water

Fabric softeners simply smother fibres to make them feel softer than they really are. Along its production journey, a Cotton fibre starts from a seed, then goes to farm, to ground, to grow, to harvest, to ginning, to spinning, to weaving. Even Certified Organic Cotton goes through some (non-toxic) coating stages before they’re spun into towels. When our towels are fresh off the loom, they need something to soften them up. Rather than fake that first feel with fabric softeners, we’ve adopted a simple water & sand rinse and soak. This gives you a nice head start into breaking in a Layday. Optimum absorbency comes around the 5th dry - soak - use cycle.

Certified GOTS Organic Cotton Yarn

Now, we’re not about to shout Sustainability ethics at you from a moral high ground here. There’s enough of that out there already. But since we’re in the game of sourcing fabrics, interrogating supply chain’s and keeping our company as small and nimble as possible, we do want to let you know that GOTS Organic Cotton is better for everyone involved...from seed to shelf. There’s a nice video explaining what Organic Cotton is and why it’s arguably better than conventional Cotton. Check it out over here.