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The Best Shop Towels to Battle Grease, Oil, and Grime

Last updated: 9 Jul 2024
By: Popular Woodworking Reviews Team
The Best Shop Towels of 2024

 

Durable and effective, shop towels are designed to deal with all sorts of oils, fluids, and dirt. They're far more resilient than a paper towel or rag and can make a huge difference in keeping your workshop clean. To help you find the best one for your workshop, we've gathered the best shop towels of 2024 in this curated list, with the Scott Shop Towels Original coming out on top as our favorite pick. But if you want to test more than one product, check out all our recommendations below!

  • Best Overall: Scott Shop Towels Original Shop Now ➔
  • Most Affordable: Simpli-Magic Shop Towels Shop Now ➔
  • Best Bulk Option: GREEN LIFESTYLE Shop Towel Shop Now ➔
  • Lightweight Pick: Talvania Shop Towels Shop Now ➔
View all Contents
  • The Ultimate Buying Guide to the Best Shop Towels
    • Factors to Consider When Buying Shop Towels
    • Benefits of Using Shop Towels
    • How to Maintain Shop Towels
  • People Also Ask
    • Can shop towels be reused?
    • What is the difference between shop towels and paper towels?
    • Can shop towels be used at home?
  • Related Reviews

The Best Shop Towels of 2024

Best Overall

Scott Shop Towels Original

Scott Shop Towels Original

If you’ve got an automotive workshop that involves painting or detailing, you’re going to need these shop towels from Scott. This shop towel can help you keep things clean as you go about refilling fluids or changing oil. Many mechanics rely on the towel to get their work done neatly. It’s also portable, designed to fit in any paper towel holder, and the manufacturer (brand) has a massive reputation in the industry due to long years of outstanding performance. 

So even if you’re dealing with the messiest automotive repairs, you don’t have to be bothered by liquids or oil spills. For its durability and towel holder-friendly design, this shop towel gets our vote as the best overall pick on our list. 

Pros

  • Durability
  • Multipurpose shop towel
  • Portable standard roll format

Cons

  • A little pricey
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Most Affordable

Simpli-Magic Shop Towels

Simpli-Magic Shop Towels

The Simpli-Magic is one shop towel you can invest your money in. It helps eliminate grease oil, fluid spills, and dirt from working tools. Plus, it was made to suit both industrial and commercial usage. Our favorite part? It’s a washable cloth towel, so you don’t have to be wasteful like when going through rolls of paper towels. You can also order them in red or blue colors if that matches your shop’s uniform or if you don’t want the white color getting dirty over and over again. On top of all that, the towels are absorbent and dry quickly!

Pros

  • Best for commercial and industrial use
  • Easy to machine wash and dries quickly
  • 100% cotton

Cons

  • Size is on the smaller side
Check on Amazon

Best Bulk Option

GREEN LIFESTYLE Shop Towel

GREEN LIFESTYLE Shop Towel

The Green Lifestyle shop towels are a heavy duty option for those dealing with a lot of frequent spills and messes. These shop towels are 12” x 14” in size and are perfect for cleaning dirty or oily surfaces. You can use them for automotive purposes or for simply dusting in your apartment, and more! The towels are available in three colors and in packs of 50, 100, 150, and 600. 

They’re certainly more efficient compared to paper towels and can be warm-washed. Also, they’re super absorbent with a fairly rough texture but are not given to fuzzing and fraying quickly.

Pros

  • Multipurpose
  • Can be used as car cleaning rags
  • Comes in packs of 50, 100, 150, and 600

Cons

  • A bit pricey
Check on Amazon

Lightweight Pick

Talvania Shop Towels

Talvania Shop Towels

The Talvania shop towels are designed with high-quality materials for longevity and are 100% safe for various works. They can retain water and all other kinds of liquids, making them excellent to be used for all cleaning purposes; come oil or water spillage. It’s suggested that you only hand-wash them with warm water for longevity. It is preferable to use a mild detergent to retain its originality and help prevent further costs. 

Moreover, they’re available in two colors; red and white. These rags are also lint resistant and won’t shrink in warm water!

Pros

  • Lightweight
  • Have anti-shrinking properties
  • Super absorbent for moisture

Cons

  • Gives off a little white fluff when cleaning
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The Ultimate Buying Guide to the Best Shop Towels

If your job involves working with heavy machines, equipment, upholstery, and other related work, you’re going to need more than paper towels to keep your workshop clean. This is where shop towels come in. Durable, resilient, and far more heavy-duty than paper towels or regular rags, shop towels are designed to be hyper-absorbant to deal with all sorts of oil, fluids, and grime. They’re the ideal cleaning tool in a workshop environment, but not all shop towels are made the same. You’ll need to keep a few factors in mind when choosing the right shop towels to maintain a neat and tidy workshop. 

Factors to Consider When Buying Shop Towels

Quantity

You need to know the correct quantity you’ll need before placing an order for shop towels. For instance, someone buying for their company might want to buy in large amounts, while an individual buying for personal use will buy a few packs. It would be wasteful to buy beyond or below the numbers you will likely use. Most shop towels come in packs of different amounts ranging from 20 to 200. 

Re-usability

Disposable shop towels, also known as paper towels, can’t be used for the second time around. However, shop towels can be washed and reused for as many times as you want.  Their life longevity depends on how often you wash them and what sort of tasks you expose them to. Many shop towels come with the manufacturer’s instructions on how to wash them to ensure their longevity.

Color

Many buyers have their color preferences when buying products in the market. The most common colors of shop towels are red, white, or blue. White is the most popular color, but many mechanics opt for red, blue, or other colored options to keep the illusion of cleanliness as dirt and oil are less visible on non-white towels. 

Workplace

Depending on the equipment or machine you will be working on, the workplace plays an important role in buying shop towels. You can’t use kitchen towels for industrial design workshops because they won’t function well compared to using the right shop towel. You will need durable towels for cleaning machinery and tools. For instance, shop towels with soft scratch-resistant will be the best for washing cars.

Price range

Having an idea of your budget will determine the kind of shop towels you want to buy. Most shop towels are of better quality than regular rags, but some have special materials that make them more durable, as well as expensive. Buying in bulk is also more costly than buying in packs of 20 or 30. Determine the quality you want in your shower towels, as well as how many you can afford. 

Durability and material

Durability is another factor to check before buying shop towels. Cotton is the most robust material you can buy that can serve you for many years, while shop towels with polyester and cotton blends are also very durable. A 100% cotton shop towel is ideal because it offers optimum luxury to users, and is suitable for grease and oil spillage. Shop towels made from Egyptian cotton weigh 650GSM, making them thick to retain water.

Benefits of Using Shop Towels

Drying hands

The primary reason for buying shop towels is for cleaning hands. If you want your workplace to be hygienic, then shop towels must be part of your station to keep your hands clean after dealing with greasy substances. 

Clearing greases

Shop towels are crucial in cleaning varying grease spills and oil in different quantities. Since they are highly absorbent, they absorb moisture to ensure the surface they are cleaning is neat.

Wiping inks and solvents

Printing firms also use shop towels to erase unwanted ink spillage on their working surfaces. A company without this shop towel would have a hard time keeping a clean environment.

Home or office cleaning

Due to the versatility of shop towels, they can function inside the kitchen for cleaning, and help clean up sinks and other surfaces. Better yet, they’ll help anybody with cleaning anything.

How to Maintain Shop Towels

If you have been finding it difficult to remove grease or stains from shop towels, it is advisable to rinse them with clean, warm water to eliminate stains. Also, you can opt to use sodium phosphate and water to remove marks. Keeping and washing the shop towel alongside your clothes is not advisable because the stain could be transferred to other clothes, but it’s important to regularly clean your shop towels to ensure their longevity. 

People Also Ask

Can shop towels be reused?

Some shop towels you can reuse while others can't. When you buy reusable shop towels, you can use them several times before disposing of the towel because you can wash them with a machine.

What is the difference between shop towels and paper towels?

Paper towels can be used as shop towels as well, but it's not advised. Paper towels are disposable and non-washable. However, shop towels are made from a blend of cotton or polyester and are washable and durable!

Can shop towels be used at home?

There is no fixed place for users to use the shop towel - you may use them anywhere; be it a kitchen, garage, garden, etc.

Article Contributors

Popular Woodworking Reviews Team

The Popular Woodworking Review Team’s product reviews and comprehensive guides are here to help you select the best gear and tools to efficiently complete top-quality woodworking projects.

Popular Woodworking is reader-supported: When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Artificial Intelligence (large language models) may have been used in the research and creation of the content.

Questions about product testing or a specific articles should be sent to aimperiapt@gmail.com

Read More About Popular Woodworking Reviews Team Here
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