Two towels can both be labelled 100% cotton, and one can cost five times as much as the other. The label does not tell you why. Four things do: how fine the yarn is, whether it has been twisted, how much of it is woven into the cloth, and which cotton it was spun from.
Yarn count: the number most towels never mention
Cotton yarn is measured by count. In the cotton count system a higher number means a finer yarn — the count is how many fixed-length hanks it takes to make a pound, so more hanks means a thinner thread.
Ordinary towel yarn is coarse, because coarse yarn is cheap to buy, fast to weave and forgiving on the loom. Finer yarn is none of those things.
Our Shiawase range is woven from 100-count yarn, which UCHINO describes as about one-fifth the thickness of ordinary towel yarn. The Shiho range is 140 count, which UCHINO puts at about one-seventh. Those two figures are UCHINO's own, from the product specifications, and they are the single biggest reason for the price gap between our ranges.
Fine yarn is also where a towel's handle comes from. More threads, each of them thinner, in the same space give a surface that bends where a coarse one would scratch.
Twist: the choice to leave it out
Yarn is normally twisted. Twist is what makes a thread strong enough to survive spinning, weaving and a few hundred washes.
It also closes the fibre bundle up. A zero-twist yarn is left untwisted, so the cotton stays open and lofted. Twenty-five of our products are woven from it, including the Super Marshmallow range. UCHINO measures that range taking up water in about a second, against a standard cotton towel — their own measurement, not an independent test.
The cost is in the handling: untwisted yarn is weaker on the loom, so it is slower and less forgiving to weave.
Density and pile: how much cotton is actually in there
A towel's weight is mostly loops. More loops per square centimetre, and longer ones, means more surface to hold water — and more cotton bought, more time on the loom.
UCHINO weaves the Shiho range at roughly six times ordinary density in an extra-long pile. Again, that figure is UCHINO's own. It is also why that range is the most expensive thing we sell, and why it is only three products: at that density a loom produces very little per day.
The cotton itself
Almost all cotton grown commercially belongs to one of two species. The USDA puts it plainly: the two grown for commercial use are upland cotton and Pima, also called extra-long staple, and the primary difference between them is fibre length. Length is what cotton is graded on, in 32nds of an inch.
Longer fibres are what make a fine yarn possible, because a thin thread made from short fibres has too few of them gripping each other to hold together.
Three of our products — the Excellence range — are woven from Sea Island cotton. That is Gossypium barbadense, the same species as Pima, and historically the fibre commanded the highest prices of any cotton because of its long staple and silky texture.
Thirteen products are organic cotton, several of them dyed with tea, wine, coffee or plants rather than pigment. Six are a cotton and rayon blend with binchotan charcoal ground into the yarn before weaving.
The rest of the range is listed as 100% cotton, which is what our specification tables say and all we are going to claim for it.
What you are actually paying for
Not a brand mark on a band. Finer yarn costs more per kilo and is slower to weave. Untwisted yarn breaks more often and is slower again. Six times the density uses six times the cotton and ties up the loom for longer. Every one of those decisions trades production speed for something you feel with your hands.
Whether that trade is worth it to you depends on how often you touch the thing. A towel is one of the few textiles in a house that every person uses every day.
Questions
What does yarn count mean on a towel?
It is a measure of fineness. In the cotton count system a higher number means a thinner yarn. Our Shiawase range is 100 count and Shiho is 140; UCHINO describes these as roughly one-fifth and one-seventh the thickness of ordinary towel yarn.
What is zero-twist cotton?
Yarn left untwisted, so the fibres stay open and lofted rather than closed up. It is softer and more absorbent, and harder to weave.
What is Sea Island cotton?
Gossypium barbadense, the same species the USDA classes as extra-long staple. Long fibres are what allow a fine yarn to be spun, and historically the fibre sold at the highest prices of any cotton.
Why are some towels five times the price of others?
Finer yarn, no twist, and more of it woven more densely. Each of those slows production down, and that is most of the difference.
Sources. Cotton species and fibre-length grading: USDA Economic Research Service and USDA Agricultural Marketing Service. Gossypium barbadense staple length and historical price: Gossypium barbadense. Yarn counts, density figures, absorbency timing and materials are UCHINO's own specifications as published on our product pages; the absorbency figure has not been independently tested.