The Evolution of Towels

Mr. Abe, what kind of activities do you do as a "Towel Sommelier"?

Towel Sommelier is a qualification from Imabari City, Ehime Prefecture, which is known as a major towel production area. In Imabari, there are manufacturers like us weavers, as well as businesses specializing in dyeing and wholesale companies. Sales are basically handled by retail stores, but the qualification was established so that we can explain things using the same terminology when customers ask us about towels.

Izumisano City in Osaka Prefecture and Imabari City in Ehime Prefecture are said to be the two major production areas for towels. Both use cotton yarn as raw material, but the manufacturing methods are different. In short, Osaka is "post-bleaching" (ato-zarashi) and Imabari is "pre-bleaching" (saki-zarashi).

"Bleaching" is the process of removing impurities from the yarn and whitening it. In Osaka, it's called post-bleaching because they bleach the raw yarn after weaving it on a loom. Imabari is called pre-bleaching because they bleach and dye the yarn before weaving it.

I've always thought the differences between production areas are similar to alcohol. Just as sake and wine are linked to their region and brewery, towels have different finishes depending on the production area. Customers sense that and make their choices.

What's strange about towel customer service is that everyone chooses towels with dry hands. In reality, they are used to wipe wet hands, and they are washed after use. From that perspective, our store lets people try out products after they have been washed.

When we do that, it often turns out that what they thought was their preference is different from what actually feels right. Some people evaluate the tactile sensation in the context of their own personal stories, and I really feel that it's not just "fluffy" that is universally preferred.

Even when we say "a good towel," preferences vary completely from person to person. Some like fluffy ones, while others like a firm texture.

Rather than making products tied to a specific region, we are a company that has focused on what kind of towel we want to create, so we've made high water absorbency a major premise. As Mr. Abe says, customer preferences are truly diverse. It's difficult to define what the "standard" is, and I wonder if it's even something that should be defined.

Japanese people have so many different tastes that it's hard to find a product that hits the bullseye for everyone.

But I wonder if people are really that interested in towels. Of course, we use towels every morning, but I've long wondered if people ever have special feelings toward them.

What do you mean by that?

Towels are a staple gift item, right? This is thanks to the efforts of wholesalers and retailers, but as a result, the mindset that "towels are something you receive" became very strong. A situation was created where homes were overflowing with more towels than could be used, even without buying them.

After the bubble burst and the culture of giving towels as gifts declined, a culture of choosing towels for oneself finally emerged. At that time, there was a strong focus on saving money, so cheap items were in demand. From now on, I hope we enter an era where people choose truly good towels.

I heard that more people became interested in towels due to at-home consumption during the COVID-19 pandemic, and some people say using a good towel at the end of the day is a reward. The growing momentum to re-evaluate items in the home was one of the good things for the towel industry.

Certainly, at-home consumption during the pandemic had a lot of momentum. Everyone's interest shifted toward how to enrich their lives inside the home. Because people spent more time at home, they shifted toward using things that felt satisfying and comfortable.

With the increased momentum to re-evaluate lifestyles, I think customers have also started to think about the meaning of using a product. When we share the brand story and the background of the manufacturing, they are satisfied with their purchase. Because of that, I feel like needs such as "I want a towel with this kind of texture" have increased. What do you think, Mr. Konno?

People who know what they want have very clear requests. However, on the other hand, there are still those who don't have such demands. Awareness of daily necessities certainly changed during the pandemic, but regarding towels, from a hygienic perspective, wasn't there also a movement to "just throw them away because they might have viruses on them"?

Furthermore, while lifestyles have changed significantly in modern times, the trend toward nuclear families has progressed, and there is almost no visiting between homes anymore. As a result, opportunities to have guests over have decreased, and I suspect there are more cases where people no longer place high-quality towels in the restroom.

That's certainly true.

Some households don't mind if the towels at home are ones they received at a hot spring inn. Since appearances matter, they think about having good items for things they take outside, so even if they spend money, it ends up being on face towels or handkerchiefs they carry out.

Previously, when we developed a towel muffler that uses evaporative cooling to lower body temperature as a summer product for outdoor use, the idea of a "muffler in summer" was unexpected and was picked up by the media, becoming a huge hit. The fact that you could just throw it in the washing machine even if you sweat was also well-received, and production volume grew much more than expected.

Polarization might also be progressing. Recently, among young women, some use towels to wipe their faces, while others use disposable facial towels. The disposable facial towel group believes that bacteria on towels is bad for skincare, while the towel group wants to wipe with a fluffy texture.

It also shows in how people use their time; some choose things that are easy to wash to save time, while others use good towels because they want to turn that same hour into a rich experience.

I see.

To meet those needs, we created a "small bath towel" that is between a face towel and a bath towel. It's a size that isn't bulky in the washing machine and can be dried on a hanger.

What is the approximate size?

It's shorter than a bath towel and about 50 centimeters wide. With that kind of compactness, I thought it could meet the needs of single-person households who want to make laundry easier.

Changes in lifestyle are appearing here as well. The standard width of a bath towel for Japanese people is usually about 60 centimeters, but around 1990, at the end of the bubble economy, it was 70 centimeters. It was an era where people were happy with anything larger, as it felt luxurious.

In the older days when large families were common and dressing rooms were cramped, it was normal to spend time wrapped in a large bath towel inside the house after a bath. That's probably not the case now. Rather, reflecting the value that a towel just needs to be enough to wipe with, thin and small items have become preferred recently.

Thin and small bath towels require fewer raw materials, so they are good from an SDGs perspective too. They have the advantage of being washable with a small amount of water and detergent and drying quickly. Towels from Izumisano City are called "Senshu Towels," and since we have long been good at making thin towels, this is a very welcome trend.

Drying easily is important.

Lately, more households aren't hanging laundry outside, right?

That's true.

There is a high demand for things that dry quickly when hung indoors. Konno Towel also makes thin bath towels, and they have a strong following in online sales.

How is the durability of the fabric?

Thicker ones are generally more durable, but either way, the yarn gets damaged by washing, so I don't think it's a very big difference.

Generally, it's said that the fluffier the towel, the lower the durability. The softer it is, the more vulnerable it is to damage, and I think many manufacturers focus on balancing these two aspects.

Mr. Abe, you also share information on how to care for towels. It's often said that if the pile on the surface dries while flattened, the finish becomes stiff and scratchy.

From an SDGs perspective, I believe that having the texture from when it was first bought last as long as possible has the lowest environmental impact. When absorbency worsens, the touch becomes hard, or it gets dark or smelly, it's usually caused by too much detergent or "insufficient rinsing," and that state usually happens because people put in too much detergent or fabric softener.

I understand. Exactly!

To communicate such proper care, Ikeuchi Organic doesn't consider the point where the product reaches the customer's hands as the end, but rather views it as the start of the relationship. Based on this idea, we also started a maintenance service in 2022.

When the texture worsens, it needs to be reset once, but that method isn't very well known. If people continue to use them as they are, it leads to complaints that they don't last at all, but if handled properly, towels last a long time.

I think so too.

Since pile fabric (the fabric unique to towels) consists of a combination of cotton yarn and weaving methods, there shouldn't really be a huge difference. While the production area and materials are important, it's said that differences in design are what dictate durability.

In commercials for detergents and washing machines, "time-saving" and "water-saving" are often touted, right? Washing towels requires a certain amount of water, and you probably need about three rinses. "Zero rinses" or "washable with a small amount of water" is a bit hard to imagine for towels and underwear. But if that is made the standard, fine impurities that are invisible to the eye remain. If you can remove those, the towel returns to its original state and can be used for a long time.

In fabric softener commercials, towels are used to express the effect. That combination has the potential to be misleading. The reason "texture doesn't last" is actually often because people are putting in too much fabric softener.

I agree. For clothing like outerwear, it might prevent losing shape and shorten drying time, but when fabric softener is used on products where absorbency is the lifeblood, like underwear and towels, the functionality is compromised.

The idea that you shouldn't use too much detergent applies to clothing in general, not just towels. The amount indicated by detergent manufacturers is usually the maximum amount, but everyone tends to put in more detergent thinking it will get cleaner. Since people used to wash with just water, detergent shouldn't be necessary if it's not dirty.

Using surfactants like fabric softener does indeed make the yarn fluffy. However, since fabric softener has properties similar to oil, it impairs absorbency, loosens the entanglement between fibers, and causes linting (cotton dust). This causes the yarn to thin out and the towel to become stiff and scratchy—that's how it works.

The preference for "fluffy" is really deep-rooted. Water absorbency has become a given performance for towels, and softness is further demanded. In Japan, fluffiness has been placed at the top of the value hierarchy for a long time.

However, the values regarding towels are very different between the West and Japan; over there, processing that prevents the yarn from breaking is mainstream. Thick towels are preferred, and it's considered that the more yarn there is, the better. It's a contrast to Japan, where delicate manufacturing is mainstream.

Certainly, high-twist yarn (kyonenshi), which is popular in the West, isn't used much in Japan. In Japan, which has soft water, low-twist "ama-yori" yarn is common. We receive feedback that when washed in regions with hard water like Europe, the texture of low-twist yarn changes.

That's right. If the water is hard, towels quickly become frizzy in high-temperature dryers, so it's a harsh environment for Japanese towels. The fact that delicate towels can be used for a long time in Japan is likely due in large part to the nature of the water.

In Japan, we are careful with washing even for soft towels, but in the West, there is a culture of washing thoroughly.

About 15 or 16 years ago, I exhibited at a gift show in New York. The person in charge from JETRO (Japan External Trade Organization) told me it would be difficult to even show soft gauze towels or handkerchiefs, but when I took them, it seemed soft towels were rare, and they were quite well-received.

That's because the US doesn't have a culture of using handkerchiefs.

It's a disposable culture where you wipe your hands with paper even in the restroom. Recently, towel oshibori (wet towels) are disappearing from Japanese restaurants as well. It's a shame that these items are vanishing from the market, but I suppose it's an expression of the trend toward viewing disposables as more hygienic.

Conversely, lately, quite a few foreign tourists buy handkerchiefs as souvenirs to take home.

Is the variety of designs also appealing? I really want them to notice the convenience of handkerchiefs.

When we exhibit at US gift shows, we also hear evaluations that they are good for the environment. Since many of our products have cute designs, they seem to be moving mainly as baby products in the US.

In Japan, where humidity is high, towel handkerchiefs are a summer necessity. This is especially true in urban areas where there is a lot of walking. On the other hand, in car-centric societies like regional cities, they aren't as prized, and I think the US is similar in that regard.

And people in the US don't put many things in their pockets.

Compared to Japan, which becomes like a steam bath when the outside temperature reaches 34 or 35 degrees, the US is dry with 30 or 40% humidity even if the temperature is high. I think the difference in climate is also significant.

People often associate towels with summer use, but for us, December is the busiest month of the year.

It's December for us as well.

It's usually the end of the year. I suspect many households replace their towels once a year during the year-end major cleaning season.

It used to be said that towels sold best in the summer, but they move more at the end of the year now. Other than the year-end, March is busy when people start their new lives.

Another reason for the December surge might be the deadline for Hometown Tax (Furusato Nozei) deduction applications. In fact, Izumisano City in Osaka offers its specialty Senshu towels as a return gift, and they are highly popular products with top-tier donation amounts.

Izumisano City is definitely the leader. Inspired by this, Imabari City also decided to put more effort into towels as return gifts the year before last. Though we still haven't quite reached the level of Senshu towels.

By the way, Japan has a unique culture of giving towels as gifts, doesn't it?

Since American homes have many rooms, it's probably normal to buy towels in bulk. I think the fact that Japanese households use smaller towels for daily use is one reason why larger towels become gifts.

People in Japan almost never buy towels in bulk. Even if they have many, they probably have trouble finding a place to store them.

The way people over there shop is truly amazing. Everyone buys five or more of the same item. It really makes you feel the difference in housing situations.

In the West, towels are an element of interior design. There is a strong commitment to things like coordinating colors. Since private spaces are secret places for the family, there is actually a tendency to dislike receiving them as gifts.

I can well understand the feeling of wanting to avoid someone else's selection intruding when you want to create an interior to your own taste.

It's tough to be given something that isn't to your taste.

Japan's gift-giving culture probably stems from the fact that towels used to be luxury items. I suspect the culture of giving them to one another spread as a novelty back when towels were not yet familiar to general households.

Certainly, in the history of textiles, towels are very recent. The history of towels in Imabari is in its 131st year this year.

I think the history of towels in Japan can be traced back about 140 years. Even when I was a child, bath towels hadn't yet become widespread in homes. Of course, since we were a towel shop, we could use as many as we wanted (laughs).

As the gift-giving culture spread, towel sections in department stores expanded, but those are gradually getting smaller now. While gift demand is decreasing, individual shops are now handling them separately. I think more people are choosing towels for themselves.

Towels have a nature that blends well with various products. They are in the bath area, of course, but they are also in clothing sections, and it doesn't feel out of place if they are sold at family restaurants for wiping children's hands. Towels are entering all sorts of situations.

On the other hand, the culture of giving towels for family celebrations (uchiiwai) or as return gifts still remains.

I think gift-giving has now become a form of self-expression for the giver. For example, wanting someone to know about a towel because they liked it. I believe there are people like this among those who choose them for family celebrations.

What is the towel you recommend the most? For me, it inevitably ends up being my own company's product (laughs).

Mine is also my own company's product. The "Organic 120" series from Ikeuchi Organic doesn't have a huge impact when you first touch it—it's the "standard of standards"—but its feature is that the initial texture lasts a long time. In terms of rice balls, it's like a plain salt rice ball, the ultimate standard.

Centering on this, we created our own matrix to compare variations with different softness, texture, and water absorption. With softness/hardness on the horizontal axis and ease of drying on the vertical axis, the differences are clear at a glance. We made this so customers could understand which characteristics are in a trade-off relationship.

So the Organic 120 is the towel that serves as the starting point.

That's right.

My recommendation is a bath towel called "Shiawase Towel" (Happiness Towel) woven with extremely fine 100-count yarn. Yarn is considered finer as the count number increases; a normal towel is said to be 20-count, but we achieved a fineness about one-fifth of that.

100-count is too fine. That must be an incredible towel.

By weaving with fine yarn, we tried to satisfy delicacy, softness, and durability all at once. Fluffiness and durability are at opposite ends of the spectrum, but we focused on balancing these while providing an emotional experience that goes beyond the function of a towel. After much trial and error, it ended up costing 14,000 yen (excluding tax), but it is our best-seller.

Did you use 100-count yarn for the pile? It's not a single yarn, is it?

No, it's a 100-count single yarn.

That must be difficult to weave. Manufacturers would hate it (laughs).

We manufacture it at a factory in Thailand, but when we first brought up this idea, they were reluctant, saying it couldn't be done because the yarn breaks easily and efficiency is poor. We conducted research after research on how to weave without breaking, and finally managed to realize a towel like no other.

That's a bit hard to believe...

Actually, we also have a product made with even finer 140-count yarn.

What?

We sell it under the name "Shiho" (Supreme Treasure). Since it's even more expensive than the "Shiawase Towel," it doesn't sell frequently, but I think this is the best among our towels.

140-count is extraordinary. Can you really weave with such fine yarn?

We slow down the machine speed and weave it slowly. The yarn breaks easily and the loom rotation is slow, so productivity drops, and the factory really hated it.

I bet (laughs). How about you, Mr. Konno?

At Konno Towel, we have made many different products, but the best ones are the towels for daily use created by considering the balance of size and weight. As a manufacturer, I also want to weave using good cotton yarn, so I've gone to the US West Coast to see the cotton and made products with a focus on the yarn twist, but that inevitably costs more.

Yarn is essentially a collection of fibers, so if you use long fibers, you can make the twist loose. If you make the twist loose with short fibers, "shedding" occurs and the yarn thins out. That's why long fibers are necessary.

The thickness of the fiber also varies depending on the cotton. If you use thin, long fibers, you get thin yarn, but then it loses elasticity. Conversely, I also made elastic products using thick, long fibers that are usually considered inferior. After trying various variations on our own looms like this, the number of items we've made has exceeded 1,000.

That many!?

I have an attachment to each of them, but my favorite is a product called "Bihada Komachi" (Beautiful Skin Maiden), which isn't that soft but is finished firmly using 40-count class yarn with high density. When you wipe your face with this, because the yarn is fine, you can feel it absorbing the sebum from your face. I use it at home too.

Mr. Uchino, do you go to the production areas to see the materials?

I haven't been able to go. I'd like to feel the climate firsthand, though.

For example, in restaurants, there's the type that visits producers to source individually for each menu item they want to create, and the type that partners with a specific producer and works together through thick and thin. Ikeuchi Organic is the latter, so our yarn variations are very narrow. We have no way to source 140-count yarn; the finest we can get is 60-count.

Furthermore, when you focus on organic and work with producers, the character of the yarn changes every year. Even so, if we continue to buy the same amount every year, the business can continue. That's the kind of towel-making we do.

I see.

If the relationship is sustainable, traceability is also possible. Of course, I'm interested in 140-count yarn, but it's difficult for us to pursue that, so we focus on what we can do precisely because we care about the environment.

If you saw 140-count yarn, you'd lose the will to weave it (laughs).

I'm sure (laughs). Even 60-count isn't easy with organic cotton yarn.

Where is the spinning (the process of turning cotton into yarn) done?

In Tanzania. To handle organic products, the spinning process must also be certified, so we partner with factories that have dedicated organic production lines.

That's GOTS certification (Global Organic Textile Standard), right?

Yes. The system's restrictions are strict, but because we are directly connected with the producers and factory people, there's a sense of reality, and we can make things with a warm feeling.

By the way, in terms of traceability and certification, towels involve many processes, so if you try to get certification, all the related companies have to be involved. Furthermore, because the types of yarn we use are basically limited to one due to certification requirements, unlike large manufacturers, there are some things we can't handle, like short-delivery or large-lot orders. It's not a matter of which is better, but I think these differences are significant.

It's difficult to ask a farm to change the cotton variety. So that's the kind of manufacturing it is.

Exactly. We basically leave the cotton cultivation to them, and we just pray that there's no flood damage this year and that they can harvest properly (laughs).

Is the farm in Tanzania too?

Yes. It used to be Indian cotton, but there were situations where "conventional farming" using fertilizers and pesticides was adjacent to organic farming, and we could no longer get organic certification due to contamination issues. Syria was also a producer of high-quality cotton, but because of the civil war, that's no longer possible, and production areas are gradually becoming limited.

As the gift culture settles down and we hear voices saying that households have surplus towels, we have started a service at our shops where we set up towel collection boxes and accept unwanted towels.

Will the collected towels be reused?

We reuse and recycle them. Reused items are used for donations to organizations conducting support activities and children's cafeterias, and are also utilized for disaster recovery support activities.

Recycling involves returning them to yarn once and remaking them as towels again.

Is the process of returning them to yarn done overseas?

That's right. Even including transportation costs, it can be done more cheaply than doing it domestically. When making them into towels again, we weave them together with new yarn to add value.

It comes down to what customers look for in these kinds of products, doesn't it?

Exactly.

Since we also handle organic materials, customers often ask us, "Organic is expensive, but what's so good about it?" Since organic is an environmental value, it's a quite difficult question to answer how much of an advantage it has compared to regular cotton.

Softness and texture are matters of yarn thickness and the number of twists, so they have nothing to do with being organic. We had no choice but to say that. However, while ten years ago people used to say, "I can't pay for something where I can't feel the benefit," such reactions are very rare now.

I see!

Customer awareness is definitely changing. While they used to judge based on the presence or absence of immediate benefits, now there are customers who think as far as what will happen if they continue to use this (conventional product).

I think that is truly amazing.

Until now, it was often said, "It's safe because it uses organic cotton." That sense of safety was a misunderstanding that arose from confusing organic food with organic cotton products. I believe the fact that it has come to be correctly understood is the result of everyone at IKEUCHI ORGANIC explaining it with sincerity.

Thank you. Certainly, in the early days of organic, illusions such as safety and durability were deep-rooted, and I think there were circumstances where marketing wouldn't work unless you focused on those. However, if you do that, just like with fabric softeners, the "it becomes fluffy but there are downsides" part—the downside part—gets hidden. I felt we had to keep explaining that part steadily.

The perception of safety and security is completely different between food and cotton. I think it's really difficult to get people to understand that.

Since the pesticides used in cotton cultivation do not enter the body, there is no immediate health hazard to the user. However, because that was confused, people said that non-organic cotton was dangerous. In the early days, many people confused the two.

It's amazing that people with incorrect perceptions about organic have stopped coming to see you, Mr. Abe. On the other hand, we also have people who say, "I want you to make it with organic cotton," and when I ask, "Why organic?" they say, "Because it's a good thing, right?" The reality may be that there are still many people whose understanding hasn't caught up.

In terms of quality, organic is by no means the better one, is it?

Things grown while being managed with pesticides should have better quality. Organic cotton has limits to its quality because it doesn't use pesticides. If you think about the producers, it's certainly good for them because the damage from pesticides is eliminated, but for the user, there isn't a big difference.

Exactly.

Conversely, even when pesticides are used, there are products that are properly post-processed. They are not dangerous because they are properly washed off during processing.

On the other hand, even if cultivated without pesticides, it's a problem if chemicals that are not good for the human body are used in the post-processing. Rather than which is safer, what's important is whether it's properly managed.

That said, even if you try to increase organic production, it's quite difficult because if you don't use pesticides, there's a lot of pest damage. In Europe, understanding of organic producers is advanced, but a situation has arisen where there's a scramble for the limited cotton, and only the costs keep rising. It would be good if more people in Japan chose organic cotton with the producers in mind, but the mainstream will likely still be people who say regular cotton is fine if the cost goes up.

We also receive offers from companies wanting to make towels with organic cotton, but we explain things thoroughly at the beginning to ensure there's no misunderstanding. When we ask if they will still proceed with organic, there are actually few cases where it's realized. I feel that we are doing "manufacturing on the edge."

Corporate activities have budgets, after all.

Yes. When comparing a regular towel and an organic towel, choosing "organic, which is inferior in feel but higher in price" becomes "patience consumption." If you think of it as patience, it will end as a passing fad, so we need to change our way of thinking to how we can use it comfortably and for a long time within limited means.

I see.

It's fine as long as you can think that you're cool for being patient. The day will surely come when you can't think that anymore. For that time, you can't deceive yourself unless you can truly think this is good.

Even for a product with high environmental value, unless we appeal to sensory parts that cannot be quantified, such as a good feel or a sense of security, I think people probably won't use it forever.

It's about what you place importance on. Companies that want to promote environmental consideration should appeal to that first rather than the feel, and if they want to reach people who want fluffy towels, they can say that as a result of pursuing this softness, the yarn tends to become weaker, but the feel is wonderful. There's no product that satisfies all needs.

Exactly.

So, I hope that if there are ten people, all ten will make an effort to find their favorite towel. If you have a towel you like, life becomes richer and more fun. As a producer, nothing makes me happier than if people feel this towel is comfortable when they wake up and wash their face every morning, and think they'll do their best today too.

The joy of using a comfortable towel is irreplaceable, isn't it?

I think it's truly significant.

I want those who haven't encountered it yet to imagine it. You reach for the towel shelf while washing your face in the morning, right? You must have felt, "This is the one," by the touch. Continuing to use that "one" forever is a truly wonderful thing.

In the end, what you keep using repeatedly is your favorite thing.

Exactly. We are just helping you find it; choosing what is "the one" is ultimately up to the customers themselves.