How to choice weight of towels?
General rule, the heavier the towel the more it will cost. Simple, the largest cost of the towel is the cotton or cotton and what ever fiber you mix with the cotton. This is about 60%-66% of the cost to make the towel. The remaining 34%-40% is the cost to manufacture the towel, electricity, labor, cost of money, labels, hang tags, and cartons to ship the towels in. As you have seen in the tour of the factory, there is not really very much labor to making the towel, machines do all of the work. The largest cost besides the cost of the raw materials is the cost of money and energy.
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GSM is the weight of the terry fabric 1 meter x 1 meter expressed in Grams.
The reason grams per square meter are used even in the U.S. is that they are a more accurate indicator of quality than pounds and makes it easy to compare one towel to another.
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Let’s compare, for example, two towels both weighing 1.5 pounds (680 grams) but with different dimensions, as follows:
Towel A weighs 1.5 pounds (680 grams) and measures 26 by 52 inches (.66 meters by 1.32 meters).
Calculate the surface area by multiplying the length and width in meters: .66 times 1.32 equals .8712 square meters.
Divide the weight in grams (680) by .8712 and find that you have a 780 GSM towel.
But when we price towels in the US we seem to always discuss pounds, example a 14-pound towel. What we are discussing is the weight of 12 towels (dozen) and how much that dozen towel weights. So many times you will see pricing as $36.00 per Dozen, and the price per pound is $3.00, guess what this would be for a 12 pound towel? $36.00.
But dealing only in how much a dozen towels weight does not tell you the GSM, because you have not discussed the size. Is that $36.00 per dozen for a 27 x 52 towel for 30 x 54 towel? The 27 x 52 (1404 sq. inches) would be heavier per GSM at this price that the 30 x 54 (1620 sq. inches) would be because the same weight of cotton is in a smaller towel.
So GSM is the best way to talk about towel weight as this makes everything equal.
But don’t put all of your eggs in the GSM basket as the only way to determine quality. Remember, there are lots of ways to do something. First we know that the quality of the cotton will make a towel better or worse. Second we know that if it is open end, carded or combed will make a difference in the quality of the towel. Third the size of the yarns will make a difference in the quality of the towel.
Suppose for an example we made two towels, both with the same number of warp years and the same number of weft yarns and the same number of loops (Picks) on the surface of the towel. But one was made entirely of 16 singles and the other entirely of 8 singles. Remember that the weight of the yarn for the larger number is less than for the smaller number. This is for theory only, but the towel made with 8 singles would weight twice as much. Would that mean the 8 singles towel is better quality? I doubt it; the coarse 8 singles yarns would never feel as soft and luxurious as the 16 singles yarns. So don’t get hung up on the weight, it is only one of the parameters you need to know to determine the quality of a towel.
I am sure you have seen terry shop cloths that seem to have only a few terry loops on the surface of the towel. This is because the factory made the cloth with thick weft and warp yarns and that is where the weight of the towel comes from, not the terry loops.
You can increase a towels weight by;
Thinker yarns in the weft, warp or loops.
Weaving the warp, weft or loops closer together.
Making the length of the loop yarns longer.
Using 1 ply or 2 ply yarns in the loops.
Each of the above ways will change the weight of a towel in GSM.
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Make the loops longer
Weave the loops closer together
Add warp and/ or weft yarns and leave the loops the same length.
Make the weft and/or warp yarns heavier and the loops the same.
There are endless ways to change a towel, and each factory has their own protocols as to how they manufacture their products.
One other factor will affect the weight of a towel. Since the towel is made of Cotton, when the cotton is put into an environment with more or less moisture the towel will absorb the moisture in the air and increase in weight.
I have seen towels that have been flown in airplanes where the humidity is very low weight 5% -10% less when they arrive at their destination than before they left. Very often we will take towel out of they poly bags they are in and let them air out 24 hours before we weight them so they can get back to the moisture count they originally had to get the correct weight.
Want to condition as towel, put it in a dryer with a wet wash cloth and let the dryer run for 10-15 minutes, the towel will come out feeling softer and heavier then before you put it in the dryer.
Just so you know, building a towel is not an exact science. Usually the third party testing laboratories will give an allowance of 5%-7% in the weight of a towel. So a 700 GSM towel can weigh between 660 GSM -740 GSM and still be acceptable to most testing labs. I assure you that you most people could not tell the difference between a 700 GSM and a 740 GSM, it is just too little of weight to feel.
Basic rules to weight are:
Less than340~ 400 gsm, a promotional towel at low cost
400gsm-500 gsm low price towel but suitable for general use but you can do much better.
500gsm-600gsm a pretty good towel, you would be happy with the feel and the ability to dry you after a shower and not feel that the towel as soaked. There are some very good towels at this weight, but they were usually made with better yarns.
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700 gsm-800 gsm usually a premium product that you will be happy with for many years of use. This is the recommended weight for a towel to give you the best qualities of everything a towel should do without waste and spending too much money.
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