How to Care For Your Beach Towel

With proper care, a Salty Dunes Beach Towel should last you a lifetime of adventure. We have developed our beach towels not only for their vintage inspired designs, but also with a focus on sustainability. By following these steps, you will be able to enjoy your Salty Dunes Beach Towel for years to come.

Two beach towels which have been cared for are laying over a rock on the beach at the bay of fires in Tasmania.

Wash your towel before its first use

Before your towels first use, it is important to give it a wash by itself to get out any conditioners and leftover dyes from the manufacturing process. This will make sure the towel is as durable and absorbent as possible. For the best results, follow these steps before the towel’s first use:

Wash your towel with ½ to 1 cup of white cleaning vinegar in hot water
Without drying the towel, wash it a second time with ½ to 1 cup baking soda in hot water.
Hang your towel to dry.

(Yes, this method can be done in a machine!)

How To Keep Your Towel Soft & Fresh

Contrary to popular opinion, washing your towel in fabric softener is not a good idea. Fabric softener inhibits towels from being absorbent, meaning your towel won’t be nearly as effective at drying you off after a hot summer’s day.

Adding a little bit of white cleaning vinegar to washes in place of fabric softener will keep them soft and smelling fresh, while still maximising absorbency.

It’s also a great idea to wash your towel with the previously mentioned method above every now and again to keep it super absorbent & durable!

Keep Away From Sharp Objects

Make sure to keep your Salty Dunes towel away from any sharp objects such as Velcro, sharp rocks etc. Sharp objects can catch on the towel’s terry loops, causing them to become pulled. If this happens, don’t stress, and simply snip the pulled thread with scissors. As a result of our towels not having a velour side, they are more likely to become pulled as there is twice the loops of conventional beach towels.

What’s Velour?

Velour towels start out as regular towels with terry loops on both sides. They are then passed through a large machine where the loops of the towel are sheared off on one side (as shown in the diagram below). The sheared parts of the loops are then sent to waste before the towel is even complete. Once the loops become “open”, they also no longer hold as much water, making for a less absorbent towel. Having a focus on sustainability, we would rather that you need to snip a pulled loop occasionally, instead of sending a large amount of the towel to waste before its even used.

Diagram of how velour towels are made. Scissors shearing off Terry loops with the text "loops are sheared off, creating a velour towel"