REVIEW | TESALATE TOWEL

Tesalate make very popular (and rather instagrammable) towels. The Australian company concentrate on just one thing – full-sized towels made from sand-expelling material that soak up all the water and dry super-fast.

I’ll be honest, I have wanted a Tesalate towel for ages, it’s one of those things I’ve coveted when I’ve seen other people with them, they seem like such a well designed product (and look very cool). And so when I was offered one as a blogging gift (you can often find some of the things I get in the post in my weekly blog series if you’re interested in ramblings of my normal life), I did not hesitate to say yes to giving it a test out. I’ve done my best to not let my lust after this particular product get in the way of a real review; I often find that if I’ve wanted something for a long time my reviews are a little harsher than they might be otherwise as I have such high expectations. So let’s see…

I see the Tesalate towel as a kind of midway point between a normal beach towel you’d use by the pool (they are that size and shape), and a microfiber travel towel you’d use for backpacking. It has a number of features listed in the marketing material, the biggest one being the “sand free” material that means you leave the beach at the beach, along with being ultra-absorbent (apparently it’ll soak up over one litre of water) and rapid drying (and we know that beach towels can take an age to dry).

Mine arrived just before we headed to Tenerife for our holiday back in February (read about that here), and so it went straight in my suitcase. Although we’ve been in lock down for a few weeks now, I have had opportunity to use it on the beach, after sea swimming, after swimming in a pool, and generally in my post-muddy-hike kit. And I’m pleased to report, it’s a keeper.

Let me take those three important claims first. I’m pleased to report that it does indeed repel the sand, very well. After sitting on it for a while on the sandy beach of La Tejita (read my post about sea views in Tenerife here), a quick shake off and I could pack it away without having a whole heap of sand in my bag. I wondered if the sand-free properties might also mean it helped get sand off me easier than a normal towel, and to be honest it doesn’t, you still need to be dry to get rid of sand from your feet, but it certainly does stop you taking the beach home with you.

The material has a strange feel to it, kind of like a textured microfiber towel in some ways, it’s not particularly soft like towelling, but it does dry me very well and then it dries out very quickly. It also packs down nice and small; this is a large towel, but it is thin and rolls down to fit into its own bag, which means it doesn’t take up all the space in your beach or swim bag. Having said that, it’s not especially lightweight, it isn’t a towel for carrying on a long trek, but it is much more convenient (and indeed lighter) than a traditional towel for all kinds of travel. A Tesalate towel is that useful halfway point between a traditional beach towel and a travel towel – easily as absorbent as a travel towel, but not as luxurious as a proper towel.

I chose the Leaf Me Alone version, which has a massive green banana leaf pattern on one side, and a cool black and white geometric design on the other. I really like that it’s double sided, it is very striking. I nearly chose the Bora Bora design, which is much more of a traditional towel design, but I’m glad I went for the leafy one. It’s a large 160cm x 80cm, which means I can (just) lay my short 158cm self on it completely if I want to relax on the beach, not that I’m very good at relaxing on the beach, and it is a decent enough size to use as a cover-up to get changed if I need to. The large size is actually very important; having spent years travelling with a backpacking towel half this size (or maybe smaller still), having something that’s full-sized makes such a big difference for post shower drying and embarrassment-free changing.

At £49 this is not a cheap towel, a microfibre travel towel of a similar size will cost around £20 (mine is the Lifeventure one) and a large beach towel probably much less (there’s a set of four here for £23), but this thing is one very nice towel and it should last a very long time indeed. If you travel a lot, or take part in beach-side water sports, and space in your bag is a premium, then a Tesalate towel is an excellent way to have something that’s the best of both worlds, and looks very cool, too. It would also make a lovely gift for that special travel or beach loving person in your life.

While it’s a bit heavy for backpacking, this Tesalate towel has become be my go-to towel for when I’m road tripping by car or motorbike, and will definitely be my towel of choice for the boot of the car when I’m heading off for a lake or sea swim, or just want to go paddling (whenever we’re allowed to do that again…). It’s nice to have something a bit more normal than a microfiber towel when I have the space, and I know I’ll be getting a lot of use out of this.

For more information (and to buy your own if you are convinced), head to the Tesalate (UK) website.

As mentioned above, this Tesalate towel was a gift from the company in order that I could test out the product and provide an honest review here on Splodz Blogz. This is not a sponsored post or an advertorial, and they have not seen the words before I published. Amazon links are affiliate links.