I bought my first Pact Organic waffle weave towel in 2019, just for myself. Once I moved in with my boyfriend in 2020, I bought a full set including bath sheets and hand towels. The waffle weave appealed to me as I heard it dried faster and I also just liked the look. Being organic cotton wasn’t a requirement, but it’s nice to have. I chose a grey color, which I now regret since I can’t bleach them. Now that it’s 2023, how are they holding up?
- First towel from 2019: a regular bath towel for me. This has held up great! Except one HUGE caveat. As you can see from the picture (it’s the towel on the right) it turned a weird reddish color at one point. I don’t know why, as I don’t really own anything red and nothing else turned red. I have noticed other people mention this issue on the Spotless Podcast, so I’m wondering if it’s something with the dye? If it were white I could bleach it, but it’s not. It’s not a nice color but I don’t like to get rid of things that work fine, so I’ll keep using it.
- 2020 batch: These are all in good condition, except one bath sheet that has frayed. I wish I’d realized it was fraying because I could have probably stopped it, but at this point it’s unraveling. My boyfriend uses this one and says it’s probably because he always washes it after using instead of hanging to dry. However the other bath sheet, bath towel, and hand towels look great!
Overall review: With those two caveats these have held up well. The only other issue I have with them is that they do not dry as fast as I’d like. We have a bathroom without windows (UGH) so sometimes they stay damp longer than they should. They do dry faster than traditional terry though. If I do end up replacing them, I’m considering thinner cotton towels like Coyuchi’s Mediterranean series or Oddbird’s handloom towels. Both aren’t cheap, but I have other products from these companies (lounge dress from Oddbird and blanket from Coyuchi) and they are very high quality. From what I’ve read, this type of towel dries much faster than waffle weave towels. They are very different from the terry towels I grew up with though, so they may take some time getting used to.