The Lightload towel part II

Following on from my earlier posting on the Lightload towel.
We used this throughout our recent trip to Scotland and now that we have given it a thorough testing i can say with conviction that we liked it better than any of the micro fibre towels we have used.
It will now join our backpacking kit and replace the microfibre towel.

Size for size it rolls up smaller and weighs less than the fibre towel.
It's not as strong as the fibre towels and you have to take this into consideration.
It feels much more like a proper towel than a fleece towel does when using it.
When wet or after washing it. Don't wring it out but compress it to remove the excess water. If you wring it out then there is the danger of tearing it.
Even after compressing the excess water out it will still dry you.
I didn't notice that it held any bad odour with use, like some of the fibre towels do.
It dries very quickly.
It washes well at low temp on short cycle or by hand wash.

If on a campsite, keep it off the shower floor and walls as it will soak everything up quickly.
It's cheap enough to replace at any time.
Sizes are available to suit what ever you require.

We cut our purchased towel in half and after 2 weeks the cut edge hadn't deteriorated.
No bad points really. A good buy.

Even if you don't like it you can always use it to wash to car or the windows.

LightLoad Towel.

I had noticed these towels on the US backpacking or through packing sites. On checking out the suppliers website they sounded perfect for what i was looking for.
The only problem was that they were only available from the US. Considering the small cost and the usual tribulations of ordering from the US i decided to hang fire.
I kept a look out but nobody Europe based seemed to have made any comments or done reviews.
Strange, i thought, as its a light weight piece of kit.

Then a few weeks ago i noticed that a few new suppliers, UK based had got them in. So, in for a penny in for a pound. Well £6.95 actually. I ordered a large beach towel. 90cm x 150cm, thats 36" x 60" in old money.

It arrived forthwith from Amazon and i couldn't wait to get the tiny parcel open.

As you can see, against the CD its tiny. How do you get a bath sized towel into such a little space?

Having taken off all the packaging you are left with a very compact stone like disc.

How the dickens do you open this i thought. Its too tight to peel apart. So, back to the wrapper.
It said hold under water or something like that, to release. So i did.
And open it came like a spell from Alladins lamp. Out came this bath sheet. Laugh, well never mind about that. There it was in all it's glory.

So, what do we have?
 Is it Egyptian cotton, nice and fluffy? No.
 Is it just a nice cotton towel? No.
Is it a big J cloth? Well it looks very similar, if it isn't.
It feels like a J cloth. It looks like an unbleached J cloth with a pattern on it. But! Does it work?
Lets Try before you Dry.

Sheila and i both showered and used the towel. Believe it or not it dried us both far better than our Lifeventure soft fibre towel. It soaks up the water far better than i thought would happen.
We were impressed.

When the towel was dried out it weighed 100gr. So we are going to split it in half which still gives us a fair sized piece of towel and it will be about 20gr. lighter than our current Lifeventure towel.

On the down side. With it looking and feeling much like a J cloth, it's a wee bit more delicate than a soft fibre towel and it will rip with rough handling.
All in all i would say its worth the £6.95. But it won't last too long.
We will be taking it on our next backpacking trip to Scotland in 10 days so the proof of the pudding will be in the eating as the saying goes.
More to follow later.