Best Beach Towels
These sand-repellent beach towels are made with materials that wick sand, whether they’re wet or dry
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Even the most saltwater-loving, boogie-boarding, toes-in-the-sand beach buffs among us want to keep sand where it belongs: by the shoreline and not trailed into our cars, trunks, beach bags, and home by our feet—or shaken from our beach towels.
We tested the Ephesus Turkish Beach Towel for sand resistance using dry sand in four different assessments—two times while the towel was dry and two times while it was wet. Each time, this towel impressed us with its superior ability to repel sand: Our scale detected either 0 ounces or 0.1 ounces of sand left on the towel—so little that I couldn’t feel or see leftover sand when I ran my hand across the towel.
During my water test, two more interesting things happened:
- Its Turkish cotton material seemed desperate to repel water—droplets stayed suspended on the areas of the towel where I poured ocean water, which the towel didn’t readily absorb.
- I made the second discovery after submerging the towel in a tub of water: It was the first of the eight towels evaluated to dry completely, in about four hours (the wet towels were set out to dry over a clothesline in a room-temperature basement; all of the towels would have likely dried a lot faster in the sun or heat).
In my overall assessment, I found a link between the towels that dried the fastest and the ones that excelled at repelling sand. However, I was dismayed to find that the most sand-resistant towels were also thinner, less warm, and not as soft and comfortable as the towels that retained some sand.
The Ephesus towel isn’t a fancy towel that will get you noticed on the beach and it doesn’t feel like a cloud, but it outranked similar sand-resistant towels because it’s a solid workhorse that combines efficacy and enough softness to feel nice on your skin, whether you’re lying on it or wrapping it around yourself after a swim. It comes in 40 colors and in packs of one, two, and five towels.
Whether it’s dry or wet, the Bay Laurel Turkish Beach Towel repels sand as well as the Ephesus—in fact, their results in our assessments were nearly identical.
When submerged completely in water and set out to dry, the Bay Laurel is the second fastest-drying towel after the Ephesus. It’s even the same exact size as the Ephesus and features a similar fringe design along two sides.
This Turkish cotton towel is our runner-up choice because it felt slightly more abrasive to the touch than the Ephesus and was less comfortable to sit and lie on. And although it seems just as durable, the Bay Laurel towel is a bit thinner and more transparent.
That said, the Bay Laurel Turkish Beach Towel is a sand-repelling force of nature that does its job well. It comes in 39 colors and includes an aesthetically pleasing soft travel bag with straps that you can wear on your shoulder for portability.
There’s a trade-off when it comes to sand-resistant towels: the more sand they resist, the less soft, thick, and comfortable they tend to be.
The Dock & Bay Quick Dry Towel is the exception, and it fared almost as well as our top two picks when confronted with dry sand on a dry towel (in both dry towel assessments, it was left with just 0.1 ounces of sand after we shook it).
When we wet this towel and added sand to it, it did not repel as much of the sand as the Ephesus or Bay Laurel towels, and you could still see visible sand on it. But it proved able to repel more sand than three similarly heavier, thicker, and smoother towels we tested: the Sand Cloud Sunrise Towel, Tesalate Sand-Free Beach Towel, and Nomadix Original Towel.
This Dock & Bay Quick Dry Towel is made from polyester and polyamide, which feels velvety soft, and it comes in four sizes, including a double extra-large 70x78 inches, the roomiest towel on this list. It’s extremely comfortable to lie on and feels warm when you wrap it around your body after a swim.
However, its thicker material means it takes longer to dry than our top two picks (in our testing, it required about eight hours to dry completely). It comes in more than 40 splashy colors, stripes, and other designs and includes a matching soft carrying bag with a drawstring tie.
Other Sand-Repellent Beach Towels We Evaluated
All of the towels that we assessed repelled sand relatively well. None were outliers that retained a significantly greater amount of sand than the others. Even though we have our favorites, any one of these towels would be a smart choice to take on your next beach trip.
The WETCAT Original Turkish Beach Towel repelled sand well when dry and wet, and dried relatively quickly after being submerged in water. It’s not the most comfortable towel, as it’s on the thinner side, but it’s lightweight and comes in three sizes and more than 30 colors (all with a striped design). Its Turkish cotton fabric meets Oeko-Tex Standard 100 Certification, which means it is certified to be free of harmful chemicals.
We loved how soft and warm the Sand Cloud Sunrise Towel was and how well it repelled sand, especially when it was dry. When the towel was wet, some leftover sand was visible after we tried to shake it all off, and the towel’s drying time after being submerged in water was somewhere in the middle between the fastest drying towel (the Ephesus Turkish Beach Towel) and the Tesalate Sand-Free Beach Towel below, which took the longest to dry. Made from Turkish organic cotton, this is a thick and comfortable towel that feels high-quality.
The Tesalate Sand-Free Beach Towel is an eye-catching pick. It has a double-sided design and is made of a smooth synthetic material that the manufacturer calls “Absorblit.” It comes with a convenient hook for hanging it to dry and its own travel bag with an adjustable tie closure. It’s the heaviest towel we tested, and you can feel the difference in how warm it is. It repels sand and does the best job when it’s dry, but visible sand was evident when the towel was wet, and it took the longest of all the towels on our list to dry completely after being submerged in water.
After the Tesalate, the Nomadix Original Towel is the heaviest towel on this list, and it’s warm and soft. However, its recycled “MicroTerry blend” fabric isn’t as smooth as other picks. It’s a stylish and sizable towel, has a hanging loop, comes in more than 40 designs, and will repel sand when dry, but it was left with visible sand and a grainy texture when we assessed it with sand while wet. It also took nearly as long as some other towels to dry completely after being submerged in water.
The lightweight Slowtide Koko Turkish Towel meets Oeko-Tex Standard 100 Certification, and it repels sand perfectly well when dry. However, some visible sand was left on it after we assessed its sand resistance while wet. It dried moderately quickly after we submerged it in water, but it wasn’t the fastest-drying towel on our list. It’s a lovely sand-resistant towel with a convenient drying loop, but it didn’t rank as high as others because of its rough texture. It isn’t the most comfortable towel for lounging or drying yourself after a dip in the ocean or a pool, either.
How We Evaluated Sand-Repellent Beach Towels
The first thing we did was bring our eight sand-repellent towels to Long Beach, N.Y., and assessed them for comfort and warmth by lying on them and wrapping them around ourselves after a quick dip in the Atlantic Ocean.
The rest of our assessment was performed indoors to keep elements like wind from altering our results. We cut each towel into 12x12 squares to make them consistent in size and easier to work with. After weighing each towel, we added 3 ounces of sand to each one and worked the sand into the fabric by rubbing 5-pound weights over it. We left the sand on each towel for two hours and then shook each towel well and weighed it using a sensitive scale that measures one-tenth of an ounce. We then assessed how the towels resist sand when wet by pouring 2 fluid ounces of ocean water onto each towel, recording its weight when wet, adding 3 ounces of sand to each towel, and working it into the fabric by rubbing 5-pound weights over it. We left the wet towels with sand on them untouched for two hours, shook them well, and weighed them to find out how much sand remained on the towels.
To assess whether sand-repellent towels can lose their efficacy after being washed, we washed all of the towels five times and allowed them to dry naturally before performing the same dry and wet towel assessment again and recording our results.
Lastly, to assess how quickly the towels dry when wet, we submerged them in a tub of cold water and hung them over a clothesline in a room-temperature basement. We checked on the towels every two hours and recorded observations about which towels were drying the fastest and which ones were taking the longest time to dry completely.
