Brooklinen Towels Review: The Brand That Made Its Towel Lighter

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Brooklinen's Super-Plush is 770 GSM of zero-twist Aegean Turkish cotton, reduced from 820 GSM after customers said it took too long to dry. It is a genuinely plush towel with a real durability caveat: zero-twist yarn snags more easily than twisted terry.

The Super-Plush line is Brooklinen's towel program: 100% Aegean Turkish cotton, zero-twist construction, hemstitched edges, STANDARD 100 by OEKO-TEX certified, at 30 x 58 in -- larger than the 27 x 54 in US standard.

It reduced the weight, on purpose, because of complaints. Brooklinen cut the Super-Plush from 820 GSM to 770 GSM in response to feedback about absorbency and dry time. That is worth dwelling on. In a category where GSM is used as a marketing number, a brand treating it as a means rather than an end is unusual and is a real signal about how the product is managed.

Zero-twist is a genuine construction, not a word. Spinning the yarn with almost no twist lets the fibers splay open, which increases surface area -- so the towel absorbs faster than its weight predicts and feels softer than a twisted terry of the same GSM.

The specs are published and specific. Fiber, origin, weight, dimensions, certification. A brand willing to state all five is making claims it can be held to, which is more than most of this market does. Why that matters.

Hemstitched rather than folded-and-stitched. A small construction detail, and it is on the part of the towel that usually fails first.

770 GSM is still heavy. The reduction helped; it did not move the towel into the comfortable band. In a bathroom without a window, an extractor that runs, or a heated rail, this towel will not be fully dry between showers -- and a towel that is never fully dry has a shorter life regardless of how well it is made. The GSM trade, in full.

Zero-twist yarn is structurally weaker. This is the honest cost of the softness. Untwisting the yarn is what opens the fiber up, and it is also what makes a snagged loop harder to live with. If you have a cat, or a towel rail with rough hardware, or wear rings in the bathroom, a short-loop or twisted construction will treat you better.

It is priced as a premium towel. That is defensible given the fiber and construction, but it is not the cheapest route to long-staple Turkish cotton by a wide margin.

Aegean Turkish cotton is long-staple, so the fundamentals are good: it should lint less and thin more slowly than a short-staple towel, and soften rather than degrade over the first year or two.

The two things that will actually decide this towel's lifespan in your house are your bathroom's airflow and whether anything catches the loops. Both are more predictive than anything about the towel itself.

Whatever else you do, keep it away from fabric softener -- a zero-twist towel's open fiber structure means it takes on a softener film especially readily, and it is exactly the property you paid for being undone. Here is what softener does.

Buy it if you want a genuinely plush towel, your bathroom has real airflow, and nothing in your household is going to snag it. It is one of the better plush towels available and the brand has behaved sensibly about it.

Skip it if your bathroom is small and windowless -- a 550 GSM towel will serve you better and cost less. Skip it if you have pets whose claws find loops. And skip it if you want the cheapest route to long-staple Turkish cotton, which is not this.

Chakir Turkish Linens at 550-600 GSM gives you the same long-staple Turkish cotton at a fraction of the price, in the hotel-and-spa specification. Less plush, faster drying, and per year of service considerably cheaper.

Onsen Supima waffle goes the other direction entirely -- 410 GSM in an open waffle, extra-long-staple Supima, dries in a fraction of the time. If the Brooklinen's dry time is what gives you pause, this is the answer rather than a lighter terry.

See also our full bath towel picks and the luxury roundup.