Skip to main content

Feel Like You’re at a Japanese Hot Spring Every Day with the Onsen Bath Towel

Towels. You probably don’t think much about them…

Until you step out of the shower one morning to dry yourself off, only to be overcome by the pungent mustiness of a towel that never dried fully.

Related Videos

If you’re like most people, you definitely do not wash your bath towels after every use. And why would you? It’s a waste of water, energy, and for the most part, a towel is clean when you’re done using it, because you’ve obviously just stepped out of the shower (and hopefully you actually washed while in there). So, one would hope that placing a clean, albeit moist, towel on the rack to dry would result in the towel, well, drying.

Sometimes, however, that just isn’t the case. Maybe the humidity in your bathroom is too high, maybe your towels are old and can’t shed water as much as the used to, or maybe you’re just super lazy and leave towels on the rack until they build up into a layer cake of bacteria and mildew (suggestion: don’t be that guy). No matter how it happens, you know the smell and feeling of attempting to dry off with a not-so-fresh towel.

Onsen Towel, which is currently available for backing on Kickstarter, wants to eliminate the possibility of a smelly towel once and for all with its innovative weaving technique.

Named after the Japanese term referring to thermal hot springs and the spas and hotels that surround them, the Onsen towel was created to bring Japanese-style high-quality to American basics.

Onsen towel creator, Shane Monson, began looking for a better towel to suit his needs. He was overcome with the amount of options out there and also disappointed in how poorly the towels held up after use.

It wasn’t until Monson was working in Tokyo that he was inspired to create the perfect towel: “Growing up I was greatly influenced by the Japanese culture (it’s in my blood!). It wasn’t until later while working in Tokyo when I noticed how much value was placed on product quality…My love for well-made products grew exponentially while working with Japanese distributors importing international brands. They were very picky about the brands they’d work with, but even more so with each product offered by the brand. Without compromise, it was all about getting the basics right.”

And with the Onsen towel, Monson prove the devil is in the details. The towel is super soft and made from premium cotton that’s waffle woven in such a way to maximize the surface area exposure so the towel can dry itself faster, preventing bacterial growth, and in-turn, that mustiness. The towel also sports an exfoliating texture and is generously sized, with the bath towel coming in at 31 x 57 inches. And, according to Monson, the towel will only get softer with each wash.

The onsen towel is currently available for backing. A $40 pledge will get you one large onsen towel, $55 will get you a full set of one bath towel, face towel, and hand towel (all in cinder grey). Check out their Kickstarter here for more pledge options. Orders are expected to be fulfilled and shipped in June of 2017.

shane monson samurai
Onsen Towel creator, Shane Monson, dressed as a Samurai.

Editors' Recommendations

The 10 best Amazon Prime original movies to stream today
These incredible Amazon Prime original movies are worth a watch (or two)
best amazon prime original movies report

If you know anything about Amazon (and let's be honest, who doesn't), you probably know it as one of the biggest retailers in the world. As that retail business continues to grow, though, Amazon has also gotten into the streaming game in a major way. There are lots of movies on Amazon Prime movies as well as plenty of shows, but this list is focusing on the streaming films that have been produced by Amazon as a studio. Amazon clearly wants to be a dominant player in Hollywood, in addition to the dominance it already has in the world of retail, and based on this list, it's well on its way.

Because Amazon is such a new studio, all of the movies on this list are quite recent. Hopefully, that means that they feel vibrant and relevant, and will continue to hold up for years to come.

Read more
Easy, Intuitive Cleaning with DEEBOT T10 OMNI: Hey YIKO, Vacuum and Mop My Home
ECOVACS DEEBOT T10 OMNI cleaning floors

This content was produced in partnership with ECOVACS.
Picture this, you've just sat down after a hard day's work, barely have a moment of respite, and your phone rings. It's your mother-in-law and she's going to pay an impromptu visit. Before even hanging up you're wracked by a state of panic. The house is a mess. There's clutter everywhere. It will take forever to organize, vacuum, mop, clean, and get everything else done before she arrives. It's not a fun situation but let's rewind here. If you had ECOVACS' newest state-of-the-art smart vacuum and all-in-one cleaning system, the DEEBOT T10 OMNI, the situation would be barely an inconvenience.

The DEEBOT T10 OMNI has an all-in-one station that handles just about everything you'd need it to, like auto-emptying the dustbin, auto-cleaning the mop attachments, and auto-hot-air-drying the mop. It's the most advanced docking station on the market, but AI is baked into this system at nearly every touchpoint. Intuitive AI voice controls allow you to issue voice commands without moving a muscle. It could be as easy as calling out, "Okay YIKO, start cleaning here!" It knows exactly where "here" is thanks to a built-in voice locator. AI is also leveraged to prevent the spread of granular particles while it's vacuuming, so it won't make a bigger mess. Coupled with sophisticated mapping and object detection, plus a large battery, this thing will just keep going as long as it needs to. If all of that sounds like something you might need, keep reading.
Buy Now
 
The Best Features First

Read more
The best horror podcasts (listen to at your own risk)
Want a good chill? Check out the best horror podcasts of 2023
A scary sketched Frankenstein monster.

A good scary story doesn't just come to life. It takes great narrative ability and some out-there content. Fortunately, there's a podcast for just that.

Sure, we love a good music podcast, but sometimes you want that eye-opening rush otherwise known as fear. The best horror podcasts reawaken that sense and remind us that not only are humans strange, but some things are just really, really hard to explain. So as the days get a little longer and the darkness of winter subsides, hang on to a bit of that darkness with a good old-fashioned terrifying tale.

Read more