GOOP turkish-t-for-goop

Hamam Or Huckaback: The Linen Towel Option

Fed up with soaring energy bills? These stylish well-priced alternatives to triple-thick bath sheets could lead to savings.

GOOP turkish-t-for-goop

 

SHOPPING AROUND | Leave it to sophisticated Europeans to promote a stylish/ecofriendly way to dry your body after bathing. Flip through any of their high-style décor magazines and you’ll run into references to both linen and flat cotton towels, which are a true and viable alternative to those triple-thick terrycloth bath sheets we North Americans appear to prize—a choice that has our dryers set on overtime and our energy bills on the rise.

Lesouk Turkish Hamam towelsThe towels you see in these publications and on stylish websites such as Le Souk from the Netherlands or Linenme.com from England (or Britain-based Gwyneth Paltrow’s GOOP.com) promote two kinds of towels: hamam towels (a.k.a. pestemal) from Turkey, which are made from either linen or a superabsorbent flat cotton, or huckaback linen towels that seem to come mostly from Lithuania.

The Turkish Pestemal

Hamam/pestemal towels come body-wrap size with braided fringe that won’t get sloppy. The cotton versions pictured directly above from Le Souk (which I found on Apartment Therapy) soften beautifully after a single wash; the linen ones take a bit longer. Both air dry quickly. A great source for both types of hamam towels is Indigo Traders in Multnomah Village, a sweet little shopping district in Portland, Oregon.

The Lithuanian Huckaback

Huckabuck TowelsHuckaback towels are a 19th-century throwback. Made of linen woven with a twist (a “huck”) to give it a slightly rough friction surface, this fabric is highly absorbent, quick drying and gets softer the more you use it. Sometimes these towels resemble damask, like those from Linenme.com shown here, and sometimes not, like the gorgeous plain and waffle weave offerings from Japan’s Fog Linen Work.

Recently I bought a Lithuanian linen towel from Marché St. George in Vancouver to see how I like the idea toweling off with linen, and I suspect I’ll also test drive one of the Turkish hamam towels they sell at Old Faithful Shop.—C. Rule

Check out pestemal and huckaback towels at www.soukshop.com, www.linenme.com, www.indigo traders.com, www.foglinenwork.com, www.marchestgeorge.com. and www.oldfaithfulshop.com.

Photos: GOOP, Le Souk (via Apartment Therapy); linenme.com

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