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How to Choose the Best Salon Towels

 

When customers visit a salon, they expect a soft, fluffy towel that instantly makes them think of luxury and relaxation. A towel that’s thin and scratchy will instantly shatter this vision, leaving them uncomfortable for the duration of their visit and unlikely to return.

But how do you choose the best salon towels? What qualities do luxury salon towels all have in common, and how do you know them when you see them? We know that you have dozens of questions like this and today, we want to answer them. That’s why we’ve put together this guide to quality salon towels — what they are, how to identify them and how to choose them.

Which Towels Are Right for My Salon?

To know which towels are the right choice for your salon, to instantly transport your customer to that place of luxury and quality, you’ll first need to understand the different criteria that go into making the perfect salon towel. Let’s break down these different criteria now and see all the different variables that go into making the perfect towel for your salon.

1. Towel Construction

Salon towels need to hold up against multiple washings.

Towel construction is a vital consideration because of how often you’re going to be washing your towels. It’s unsanitary to use the same towel with multiple customers without washing it in between, meaning that there will be a near-constant cycle of towels traveling in and out of the washing machine during a long day at your salon. Because of this, you need towels that will hold up against multiple washings rather than a towel that begins to fall apart the first time it goes through the spin cycle.

As you look at a towel you’re considering purchasing, look closely for these tell-tale signs of excellent towel construction:

  • Tight, high-quality stitching: Loose threads are a sure sign of poor construction.
  • Double-turned edges: This means that the hems have been reinforced with double rows of stitching and are less likely to come loose in the wash.
  • Advanced hemming: A simple and easy hemming job will likely result in a cheaper towel, but also one that will come apart in the first wash.

2. Towel Weight

Did you know that towel quality is commonly judged by how much a towel weighs? A heavier towel is almost always more fluffy and luxurious, and therefore higher quality, while a lighter towel is likely thinner and less absorbent. This is because heavier towels are more likely to be plush, absorbent and comfortable, while light towels simply don’t have the necessary amount of material to deliver the same results.

While it’s true that heavy towels will be fluffier, softer and more salon-quality, there’s a price to pay for this quality. If you don’t have a ton of towels stocking your spa and you need your towels to cycle through the wash quickly in time for another use, this heaviness may be more of a burden than an advantage. This is because heavy towels take longer to dry since they’re made of thicker material.

Lighter towels, on the other hand, will almost always be of lesser quality. What they sacrifice in quality, however, they make up for in fast washing and drying times, as their thinner nature makes them dry far faster.

As a salon owner, you’ll need to decide on which is more important — quality or efficiency — and how to balance these two priorities in the towels you choose to buy.

3. Towel Absorbency

A towel’s absorbency is one of the most important factors when it comes time to choose salon towels. After all, a towel may look pretty and feel soft, but if it doesn’t absorb liquid, it isn’t doing its job very well. On the surface, this seems like a very simple issue. Based on past experiences, we all likely have a fairly good idea of which towels absorb the best. We know that heavier, fluffier towels will absorb more while thin towels will often just rub the water around without soaking it in. But the issue goes deeper than this.

A towel’s absorbency is a direct result of the number of loops that towel has. The more loops per square inch a towel has, the more absorbent it will be, and vice versa. Since most of us colloquially refer to loops as the general “fluffiness” of a towel, it makes sense that we correlate fluffy and heavy towels with greater levels of absorbency. If you can see the base of the towel through the loops, the odds are good that the towel will not be very absorbent.

When selecting your salon towel, you’ll want to choose double loop towels with greater absorbing power to help keep your guests dryer for longer. Of course, it’s also reasonable to buy some towels with higher absorbency rates and others with less. This is because salons use towels for a variety of purposes, and not all of them include drying. Decide how many of your towels you want to achieve maximum absorbing power, and let a towel’s loop-rate be your guide.

4. Towel Material

Common materials for salon towels

Not all towels are created equally. In fact, not all towels are even constructed from the same material. Instead, there are several different materials that are common choices for towels, and as a salon owner, it’s important to know the differences, as well as the pros and cons to expect from each one.

Some of the most common materials you’ll encounter include:

  • Cotton towels: Cotton towels come in two different varieties — 100 percent cotton towels and cotton blends. Both can be excellent choices, but as a whole, pure cotton tends to be more absorbent and durable while cotton blends can better maintain their shape over time. Across the board, cotton towels are the most popular choice for salons due to their availability, durability and absorbency.
  • Microfiber towels: A synthetic material that’s the closest competitor to cotton towels, microfiber also has a lot to offer. This material is highly absorbent, long-lasting and quite durable. It’s also reasonably affordable and is an all-around promising candidate. Be aware, however, that it can tend to be trickier to wash than a traditional cotton towel, making this a potential roadblock for a busy salon owner.
  • Linen towels: Linen towels do exist, but they aren’t nearly as common as cotton or microfiber towels. While they’re highly absorbent and odor-resistant, they don’t offer the same level of plush comfort and can instead feel more like a napkin or a tablecloth than the cozy towels we’re used to. For this reason, they are likely not the best choice for your salon towel.

5. Towel Size

This category doesn’t reflect a towel’s quality. Any towel, no matter its size, can be either high or low quality. Nevertheless, towels come in all shapes and sizes, and as you stock your facility with these necessities, it’s important to put some thought into which sizes you’ll need, and how many of each size.

To help you do this, let’s break down the different available towel sizes now.

  • Washcloths: Washcloths are the smallest member of the towel family, so small and different in function that it’s easy to forget that they’re a part of the towel family at all. Most commonly, they’re used for facial care, such as washing and drying the face, although they may also be used in place of a shower poof to scrub down the entire body. While there may be variations in size, the vast majority of washcloths are square and measure 13 inches by 13 inches.
  • Hand towels: We’re all likely familiar with these. These are the towels we hang in our bathrooms and kitchens, and use to dry our hands after washing them. They’re also used to dry the face after a cleansing face routine. As with every other type of towel, there may be very slight size variations, but the standard is that these will be rectangular and measure in at 15 inches by 25 inches.
  • Bath towels: A bath towel is also rectangular and is in many ways a much larger version of the hand towel. Its large size makes it perfect for drying off the entire body after a bath or shower. It can also be used as a wrap after exiting the shower and before dressing, or it may be used to dry the hair after it has been wet. Typically, this towel will measure 30 inches wide and 58 inches long.
  • Bath sheets: Out of these four terms, this is likely to be the one most of us are least familiar with. It’s not that we’ve never interacted with them before, but we often lump them together with bath towels and don’t realize the differences between the two. A bath sheet is essentially a larger version of the ordinary bath towel. It has the same basic function — drying off after a shower and wrapping around yourself while you comb your hair or brush your teeth. The extra benefit that comes with the bath sheet is that it’s larger, measuring in at 40 inches by 70 inches and gives you more coverage if you want to wrap it around yourself.

As a salon owner, you’ll almost certainly need to stock a combination of all of these different towel varieties. Think carefully about the different types of services you offer and the towels that may be used as part of these procedures, and let this guide your decision as far as how many of each type of towel you’ll need.

Different Towels for Different Stations

Questions to ask when choosing towels for different stations

If your salon offers a variety of services, the simple fact is that you’ll need a wide range of different towels to accommodate this. Your hair-dying station will require different towels than your shampooing and conditioning station, for example. Because of this, it isn’t enough to simply purchase an armful of identical towels that can be used interchangeably at every station in your business. Instead, you need to tailor the towels for their precise purposes.

When it comes to choosing a towel for a specific station within your salon, ask yourself these questions to ensure the best towel-fit.

1. What Size Towel Do I Need?

Will this towel be used to quickly dry a customer’s hair? Will it be used to cover them as they lay back for a massage or a facial treatment? Will you be using it to clean their face? Each of these uses indicate a need for a different type of towel. Start by figuring out whether a washcloth, hand towel, bath towel or bath sheet is most appropriate for the situation at hand and move forward from there.

2. How Often Will I Be Washing This Towel?

Perhaps at your salon, you’re shampooing and conditioning customers’ hair every day, whereas you only color hair a handful of times a month. If this is the case, your shampooing towels will need to be washed far more frequently than your hair-dying towels. This means you may not want to invest in something extremely fluffy that could take a frustratingly long time to dry for your shampooing towels.

3. How Much Does Fluffiness Matter?

If a guest is going to be draped in this towel during a beauty procedure, it’s essential that the towel feels full and plush. If, on the other hand, the guest is never going to touch the towel, and the only one using it will be you to do a quick toweling off of the guest’s hair, that same level of luxury isn’t as important. You might choose luxury towels for your guests to use and something less expensive for other uses.

4. What Type of Damage Might This Towel Incur?

Certain types of towels are in more danger of being ruined than others. If a towel is only used for a guest to wear while she’s being pampered, for instance, it is less likely to be stained, damaged or harmed in any way. Compare this with a towel that you frequently use with hair-dye that might easily be stained and need to be bleached. In this case, the standard towel can be a very ordinary model while the dye-towel will need to be a bleach-proof towel that can withstand frequent bleaching and stains without becoming discolored or dingy-looking.

Shop Wholesale Salon Towels Today

Shop Wholesale Salon Towels

When it comes to buying towels, it doesn’t matter whether you own a hair salon, a spa, a barbershop or a nail salon. You’ll still need a variety of dependable, durable and luxurious towels to pamper your customers with. Because you’ll need a fresh towel for every visitor, this is likely too many towels to purchase one at a time from your local department store. Instead, why not order these towels in bulk from Towel Super Center?

We carry high-quality towels in a rainbow of colors, sizes, shapes and materials so that no matter what beauty treatments your business includes, we’ve got something for you. Browse our wholesale salon towels today to get started finding the perfect towels for your business.

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