How To Fold Hand Towels

Keeping your home neat and organized means that you’ll always be able to find everything you need quickly and easily.

While it can be a huge pain to take steps to keep everything in it’s place, there are a few quick and easy ways that you can make your home look as organized and put together as possible – even if you don’t have much space.

A great option is to always aim to store things neatly.

Keeping your hand, bath and large towels along with your other linens nicely folded in your linen cabinet is a must.

This way, both you and any guests will be able to find everything needed without causing an avalanche of items to fall out of your linen closet or cabinet.

So how should you fold your towels properly?

The following are some tips for how to store hand towels, bath towels, or any other type of towel you might own, and some step by step instructions for how to fold your towels perfectly every time.

Tip 1: Wash your towels first.

Before anything else, you’ll want to make sure that your towels are clean.

Make sure you wash your towels according to color.

White towels should be washed in hot water with detergent and non-chlorine bleach.

Colored towels should be washed in warm water with detergent.

Skip the fabric softener, as this tends to ruin towels and make them smell musty over time.

If you’ve noticed a musty smell around your towels, you can wash them with baking soda first and then wash them in detergent.

This is actually a great way to freshen up all of your linens.

I’ve got a few more thoughts on unpleasant musty smells in your washing machine which you can read about here.

Tip 2: Make sure your towels are completely dry.

That musty smell we mentioned above can happen if you fold and store your towels without making sure that they are completely dry.

Make sure that you check that your towels have dried all the way to their centers before you fold them.

These wool dryer balls are a great non toxic way to speed up drying time and keep your towels soft and fluffy.

Tip 3: Choose a folding technique.

There are a couple of different ways that you can fold your hand towels properly.

While the cute little designs, decorative shapes and towel animals cruise ships and the hospitality industry make with towels are fun, they’re not completely practical for day to day life!

I mean, if you’ve seen one towel swan or towel flower you’ve seen them all.

You’ll want to choose one folding technique and be consistent.

To master towel folding, just one consistent type of fold is actually the key here.

This technique, when done right will work for both a large towel right down to your smallest dish towels.

This way you’ll be able to perfect your folding technique and you’ll be able to store all of your towels together without them looking inconsistent.

Who knows, you might even create some extra space in your bathroom or linen closet.

You can find our laundry room wallpaper here.

Folded Towels: How to Fold Hand Towels

Whether you’re folding bath sheets or a hand towel, you’ll want your towel folds to be neat and symmetrical.

While a rolled towel is the easiest way for larger towels, a pretty spa-style roll might not always be the best way.

Rolled towels tend to be more difficult to keep neat long term, especially in small spaces.

While there are of course different methods, we’ve found the best folding method is to follow these basic techniques.

Step One:

Lay the towel down on a flat surface.

You’ll want to have the tag facing up.

Step Two:

Visually establish where the center of the towel lies.

Then, fold the left corner of the towel about two-thirds of the way across to the short side.

Repeat with the bottom edge so the towel is folded from top to bottom.

Step Three:

Fold the right side of the towel over the first third of the way, again, length-wise.

Your towel should now be long and skinny.

Step Four:

Fold the towel in half from bottom to top folded edge.

Step Five:

Now you’ll want to fold the towel in half from the opposite direction, from bottom to top again.

Note: if your towel is a smaller towel (like wash cloths) it might be easier to fold your towel in thirds for steps 4 and 5 rather than quarters.

And there you have it!

Our blue and white bathroom -more photos and sources including my favorite lucite towel rack.

You should now have a perfectly folded towel that can be easily stacked neatly on an open shelf.

Ideally this will also translate beautifully when you go to hang your bathroom towels on your towel bar or towel ring.

How to Fold Hand Towels – Conclusion

This technique can be used for towels of all sizes, including beach towels and even Turkish bath towels.

No matter how you store them, it’ll be easy to pull one out from the tidy and neat stacks.

For an extra space saving option, try storing your linens with the short edges facing out.

Plus your linen closet, or any storage space really – will look extra nice and clean.

If you’re at all curious about which towels we prefer, be sure to check out this post on my favorite hotel towels.

Hope you found these tips and ideas helpful.

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A few more things…

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In this group – members share photos with their design questions and dilemmas from their own homes.

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It’s a nice group of fellow design enthusiasts.

We also spill our best sources and tips – so it’s such a great place for sourcing hard to find items and pieces.

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