Earlier this spring I received a Nomadix towel for review, because summer in the south is akin to a Russian banya 24/7. You need a good towel for everything from the beach trip to post-yardwork and weekend running, biking and swimming. Or shelling peas on the back patio. Southeast summers, man.
A towel? Who gets hyped about a towel? We’ve had towels for decades. They’re made of cotton, unless you’re uber-rich and choose silk or something made of Benjamins. They come in beach sizes down to washcloth sizes. We stuff them in bags, vehicle totes, toss a 10x18ish size over our shoulder to wipe our brow manning the grill. We smell them moldering in the garage a couple of days later after Lil’ Jimmy dropped it coming back from the pool. Or, worse, we forget about that one in the back of the vehicle following a long trail run or ride. The next day, that vehicle has the beginnings of a hockey or wrestling lockeroom funky-funk stank party.
The Nomadix towel I have offers none of those issues, thankfully, even after being piled up in the bed of my closed pickup following a long, sweaty trail run in July. I’m not big into saying “ohhh, revolutionary!” about products because a lot of that is marketing hooey. But these towels are pretty darn skippy.
They’re made with a MicroTerry design, which is found in all the Nomadix lines. Nomadix uses repurposed, post-consumer recycled materials for its products. This is big in the outdoors industry right now. I’m seeing it more in the fishing industry, too, with apparel from Huk, Aftco, Gill and others. The recycled plastics are turned into fibers used for apparel and other products. Some fabrics, like those used by Nomadix, are certified through the Global Recycle Standard by meeting supply chain requirements and environmental principles.
Sustainability Matters
What does all that mean? It means you get a nice product that works well and is helping via a sustainable process. That’s a good thing.
My towel is lightweight and absorbs incredibly well. Nomadix says its towels have four times the absorption ability of regular towels. Having grown up with cotton apparel and towels, I know how terribly saturated they get. During football practice in high school we ran through cotton t-shirts and towels like booze through a goose. No one back then knew what “performance fabrics” were, and we didn’t at the time think about how our polyester football pants were cooler and dried quicker than our cotton t-shirts. Doh. If only we had, we might have beaten Under Armor to the punch.
Nomadix has its original towels and ultralight towels, which are a smidge different but still work like a champ. The addition of these changing ponchos is a cool idea and should be a hit, as well. The ponchos are designed as you’d expect — like a poncho — and have a kangaroo pouch on the front for keys, phone or other items.
Nomadix Towel Spinoffs
Nomadix also has a couple of other cool options to consider.
One is its Changing Poncho, which Nomadix calls “the intersection of towel and poncho.” They’re a bit larger and wider, designed to cover you while you slip out of wet clothes and into dry ones. Or adjust or fiddle, or whatever you need to do under a poncho. They have an oversized hood, which helps keep you warm if it’s chilly or you want to look like Obi Wan Kenobi. As with Nomadix’s products they’re resistant to odor, sand and pet hair. They dry quickly, too, which is nice, and are affordable in three sizes at $49.95-$69.95.
If you need something bigger for events, such as music night at the park or a festival, Nomadix has larger blankets, too. Spread out and chill out. It also has a line of nifty bandanas, along with a hip tie-dye collection (and other prints or colors), should you want to get your groove on at the festival, on the trail or elsewhere.
