Hommey Towels Review

• OEKO-TEX Standard 100 (claimed on Oasis and Everyday Marle lines)

The Short Version

Hommey makes the prettiest towels in this price bracket. That’s not a backhanded compliment. The pinstripes, the marle blends, the Merlot and Espresso and Fig colorways, none of the big US brands do color this well, and if you’ve ever tried to find a towel that matches a tiled bathroom you know that matters.

Here’s the thing, though. When I went looking for what the towels are actually made of, I found “100% premium cotton” and not much else. No cotton variety. No growing country. A GSM figure that changes depending on which page you’re reading. And a pattern of buyer reviews, on Hommey’s own site, saying the towels shed lint and don’t soak up water the way a $50 towel should.

So: buy Hommey for the look, with your eyes open about the rest. Full breakdown below.

What Hommey Actually Is

Hommey launched in 2020 in South Yarra, Melbourne, founded by Justin Kestelman. It started with cushions, added bedding, bath, and loungewear, and then hit the algorithm jackpot in 2025 when its robes went viral on TikTok. It opened a store in South Yarra in 2023 and another on Rundle Street in Adelaide in December 2025, with more planned.

For US buyers, the relevant date is May 2025, when Hommey relaunched shipping to the United States through us.gethommey.com, priced in dollars. Customer care is still run out of Melbourne.

That’s a real company with real momentum. It’s also a design-first company, and the product pages read that way: a lot about the color story, very little about the cotton.

Hommey Towel Lines and Prices (2026)

Hommey sells three towel lines now, and they’re different products. Prices are what I saw on us.gethommey.com and gethommey.com.au at the end of August 2026. The older 2-pack listings ($99 for two bath towels, $149 for two bath sheets) that most US press quotes are gone; everything sells singly now.

Other pieces: face washer 2-pack $29, bath mat $49 (1200 GSM, OEKO-TEX), robes $119 to $149, beach towel $69, hair wrap $25.

Sizes are the same across lines: bath towel 70 x 140 cm (27.5 x 55 inches), bath sheet 90 x 170 cm (35 x 67 inches), hand towel 50 x 80 cm, face washer 30 x 30 cm. The bath sheet is genuinely big. The bath towel is US-standard.

One practical note: the color you want dictates the line you get. You can’t buy Merlot in the Australian cotton, or Fig in the pinstripe. So you’re choosing a cotton spec by choosing a color, which is a strange way to buy a towel.

The GSM Question: 700, 600, or 550?

GSM is grams per square meter, and it’s the closest thing towels have to an honest spec. Hommey’s number moves around.

• Older product listings for the pinstripe 2-packs said 700 GSM, thick loop pile, OEKO-TEX Standard 100, made in China. Better Homes & Gardens Australia repeated 700 GSM in its August 2026 roundup, where the Merlot towel was named best overall.
• Broadsheet’s best-towels list calls Hommey 600 GSM and an Australian and Turkish cotton blend.
• The Oasis line is listed at 600 GSM.
• The Marle line is 550 GSM, and Hommey describes it as lighter for quicker drying.

Then there are the shipping weights in Hommey’s own store data: 600 g for a bath towel, 800 g for an Oasis bath sheet, 840 g for a Marle bath sheet, 210 g for a hand towel. Divide by the area and you get roughly 610, 520, 550, and 525 GSM respectively. Shipping weights include packaging and are rounded, so I wouldn’t hang a verdict on them. But none of them land anywhere near 700.

Look, a 600 GSM towel is a perfectly good towel. The issue is a brand quoting 700 in some places and not stating a number in others, at a price where competitors put the GSM on the front of the listing. If Hommey towels were 700 GSM, Hommey would say so on every page.

”Premium Cotton” Isn’t a Cotton

This is the part that bothers me most as someone who used to buy cotton for a living.

“Premium cotton” tells you nothing. Cotton quality is mostly about staple length, meaning how long the individual fibers are. Extra-long-staple cotton (Egyptian Giza, American Supima, some Turkish Aegean) spins into finer, stronger yarn that stays soft and sheds less. Short-staple upland cotton, which is most of the world’s crop, makes a towel that feels fine on day one and thins and pills faster.

Hommey doesn’t say which it uses for the main line. The only line with a named origin is Oasis, at “100% Australian cotton” (Australia grows good upland cotton, mostly medium staple). The Marle line is a cotton and lyocell blend, which is why it’s lighter and dries faster. The pinstripes, the ones everyone photographs, are “premium cotton, sourced exclusively from premium, top-tier suppliers and mills.” That’s a sentence with no information in it.

To be fair: Hommey never claims Egyptian cotton, so there’s no false claim to expose here. And Australian consumer law is strict enough that I’m confident the towels are 100% cotton. But if you care what’s in your towel, the honest answer is that Hommey isn’t telling you.

Country of manufacture is the same story. “Made in China, designed in Australia” appeared on the older listings and still appears on Shopbop. It doesn’t appear on the current product pages at all.

Certifications

OEKO-TEX Standard 100 is claimed on the Oasis and Everyday Marle lines, on the bath mat, and on the archived pinstripe listings. That certification tests the finished textile for harmful substances. It doesn’t say anything about cotton origin or quality, but it’s a real standard and I’ve no reason to think Hommey doesn’t hold it.

There’s no GOTS certification (the Marle line’s “organic cotton” is uncertified as far as I can find), no Cotton Egypt Association mark (no Egyptian claim, so none expected), and no Supima licensing. US brands at this price, like Parachute and Boll & Branch, publish more.

What Reviewers Say

The professional reviews are warm, with a consistent asterisk.

theSkimm’s October 2025 review said the towels “immediately felt luxe,” called the colors “fun and playful, while still feeling mature,” and found no pilling or softness loss after washing. The cons were a “full” lint trap after the first wash, slow air-drying, and a hair wrap that was harsh on curls.

Apartment Therapy asked “Is Hommey worth it?” and landed on the $99 2-pack being “on the pricier side” but not unreasonable for the look. Its August 2026 review of the Marle towel liked the flat-edge binding and said the softness “hasn’t waned.”

Broadsheet included Hommey in its best Australian towels list and passed on the founder’s care tip: warm wash, minimal detergent, a splash of white vinegar, warm tumble dry, because detergent coats the loops and gives a “crispy effect.”

Better Homes & Gardens Australia named the Merlot towel best overall in August 2026 at 700 GSM, in the same roundup where Sheridan’s Trenton (670 GSM Egyptian cotton) came in at roughly half the price.

On Hommey’s own site, the review widget shows 4.9 out of 5 across about 880 US reviews and 960 Australian ones. That’s a high score. It’s also a widget the brand controls, so I went and read the one and two star reviews.

What Buyers Complain About

Sorting Hommey’s reviews by lowest rating gives you the same three complaints over and over, from May 2025 through July 2026:

Lint. “Fluff everywhere” after washing, dryer traps full, lint on the bathroom floor. Four separate reviewers between May 2025 and February 2026 said the same thing. Some lint from a new plush towel is normal. Lint that keeps coming is a sign of short fibers or a loose twist.

Water sits on the surface. “Don’t dry you at all.” “Water sits on the surface.” Four reviewers between August 2025 and July 2026. I’ll explain why this happens in the next section, because it’s fixable in some cases and not in others.

Loops that catch and pull. Long pile snagging on rings and rough skin.

Plus the one-offs: a hand towel that turned out to be enormous and couldn’t be returned because it was on sale, and a duvet cover that faded after one tumble dry.

Off-site, ProductReview.com.au has only five reviews and they average 1.2 out of 5: a missed order that was then declared discontinued while still listed, refund fees, an ignored cancellation, a missing item with no reply. Five reviews is a tiny sample against nearly two thousand on the brand’s site, but every one of them is about fulfillment and support rather than the product, which fits a fast-growing company. Hommey has no Trustpilot listing at all.

Why a Plush Towel Can Feel Like It Doesn’t Dry You

Two things are going on with the absorbency complaints, and it helps to separate them.

The first is finishing residue. Towels leave the mill coated with softening agents so they feel fluffy on the shelf. Until that washes out, water beads on the surface. This is why Hommey (and everyone else) says to wash before first use, and why the vinegar trick works: vinegar strips the coating. If a Hommey towel repelled water on day one and improved after three or four washes, this was the cause.

The second is construction. The plush, “super soft” feel comes from long loops with a loose twist. That’s lovely to touch, but loose loops wick water more slowly than the tighter, denser terry in a hotel towel. It’s a design choice, not a defect, and it doesn’t wash out. If a Hommey towel still feels like it’s pushing water around after ten washes, this is the cause, and your only fix is a different towel.

Fabric softener makes both problems worse. Never use it on towels.

Buying Hommey in the US: Shipping, Returns, and Duties

The US store is real and priced in dollars, but read the fine print before you order six towels.

• Shipping: the site header says free over $100 USD, $10 flat under. Hommey’s two shipping policy pages give different thresholds (one says free at $400), so assume the header is right and screenshot it.
• Delivery time: not published. The store doesn’t say where US orders ship from.
• Duties: the site warns that “international duties and taxes may apply.” On an order that ships from outside the US, that can mean a surprise bill at the door.
• Returns: 30 days from delivery, unused, original packaging. Exchanges and store credit are free. A refund to your card costs $12.50.
• Final sale: archive and sale items can’t be returned. That cheap $12.50 stripe hand towel is a final sale item.

Against a US brand that offers free returns and a published delivery window, that’s a lot of friction for a $50 towel.

Hommey vs Sheridan vs Kemet

Here’s where Hommey sits against the obvious alternatives: the Australian Egyptian cotton benchmark, and the US Egyptian cotton brand we point people to at this price.

The honest read: at Hommey’s price, Kemet’s 600 GSM Signature line gives you named Giza cotton, a stated GSM, and free returns for about $2 less a towel. The catch I always give with Kemet is that it launched in 2025 and doesn’t yet carry the Cotton Egypt Association Pyramid Mark, so its origin claim rests on unusually specific sourcing detail rather than a third-party stamp. That’s still a great deal more than “premium cotton.”

Check Kemet Cotton Pricing →

🏆 For towels where the cotton is actually named and verified, see: Best Egyptian Cotton Towels of 2026 →

Who Should Buy Hommey

Buy Hommey if:

• The color is the point. If you need Merlot pinstripes or a Fig bath sheet, nobody else makes them
• You’re in Australia, where the price is fair and returns are simple
• You want a matching set across towels, bath mat, and robe from one brand
• You’re buying a robe (the thing Hommey is actually famous for) and want towels to go with it

Skip Hommey if:

• You want to know what cotton you’re buying
• Absorbency and quick drying matter more than softness
• You’re in the US and would be annoyed by a $12.50 refund fee, no delivery estimate, or a possible duties bill
• You’re comparing on GSM, because Hommey won’t give you a number you can hold it to

The Bottom Line

Hommey is a design brand that makes towels, not a towel brand that does design, and everything about it follows from that. The colors are the best in the category. The product pages are the vaguest. The reviews are glowing on look and feel and consistently mixed on lint and absorbency.

At $49.50 a towel in the US, it’s a fair price for the look and a poor price for the spec. If you love the palette, buy one, wash it with vinegar before you use it, and see how it behaves before committing to a bathroom’s worth. If you want a towel where the label tells you what you’re getting, our best Egyptian cotton towels ranking is where I’d start.