Need Suggestion - Best Dish Cloth

Not sure exactly where to put this.

I have a lot of terry cloth washcloths that I have accumulated over the years and guess what, they are not terribly absorbent. I use them but I think I could be doing better, hence I am appealing to the experts on this site.

What is your favorite, most absorbent dish cloth?

I have an old fashioned kitchen, no dish washer, and thus a good dish cloth is a necessity if I don’t want to have wet, drying dishes air drying all the time, which I do not.

I used to have more dish clothes, nowadays I find sponge is better. I have one to use with soap, another to swipe and clean surface. But I have dish racks for wet stuffs and dry everything with Ikea kitchen towels.

Years ago I bought these with an odd credit i had to Williams sonoma- and i never looked back. They really can dry a whole sinkful of dishes and then some. I wash them constantly and they last me 1-2 years before they’re just too stained and i retire them to rags. Caution- theses are the ONLY ones i have liked from WS, i have recieved other versions of dishtowels they sell and was less than thrilled
https://www.williams-sonoma.com/m/products/all-purpose-kitchen-towel/?pkey=cdish-cloths-towels&isx=0.2.10169

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If you use them for drying - I recommend not using any fabric softener on them, it makes them less absorbent, regardless of what you end up buying.

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I have several pieces of cloth and washable sponges, and I use them for different purposes. For washing dishes, I use brushes and sponges, and for wiping dry (such as my knives and cutting boards…) I tend to use kitchen towels and I have different kind of kitchen towels. For my knives, I dedicate a few towels which are very soft and have decent water absorption because I like to keep my knives dry and not to scratch them. Some of my towels have good absorbance but they are also more difficult to dry. Others cannot pick up a lot of water, but they dry up easily. I wash them once a week.

What a clever idea, to use a sponge to absorb the excess water! I must try that.

I go to Ikea every so often so I’ll give their dish towels a try.

BTW in netsurfing the subject I learned that a lot of people use surgical towels but the ones on Amazon all seem to have a lint problem when washed. For their intended purpose they are thrown away.

Depending on how many things you’re drying by hand you may want to dry one of the microfiber polishing cloths used to ‘polish’ wine glasses. They’re absorbent and dry very quickly. I don’t know how they’d do with extremely wet things but I can dry/polish two dozen wine glasses, fresh from a dishwasher wash cycle, with one cloth.

My favorites are German side towels, checkered pattern, comes in many colors. Wear like iron.
Link:
https://www.jbprince.com/pc_combined_results.asp?q=dish+towels&u_search_submit=

I have tons of vintage kitchen towels and they beat any modern towels I’ve tried. If you can find old stock of birdseye cotton cloth diapers they are hands down the most absorbant (hard not to sell though since a dozen with tags still on can fetch $100-$150.)

If forced to buy modern towels I do like the Tekla towels from Ikea and they’re something like 79 cents each.