Riley Home Review

About Riley Home

Riley Home launched in 2018, founded by Heather Kaminetsky (who previously worked as a senior executive at Net-a-Porter). The brand name comes from “The Life of Riley,” an old expression for living well. Their pitch from day one has been luxury hotel-quality bedding and bath at lower prices than legacy brands.

They sell direct-to-consumer through rileyhome.com, and you can also find some of their products at Bloomingdale’s. Everything in the bath line is manufactured in Portugal, which if you know anything about towels, is about as good as it gets for production quality.

What They Actually Sell

Riley has four towel collections, and they’re more different than you’d expect:

Spa Towel Collection ($25 to $76 per piece, $242 for a 6-piece set): This is the flagship. 100% Egyptian long-staple cotton, 700 GSM, 2-ply construction. It’s the one Wirecutter picked as Best Bath Towel. Heavy, dense, spa-like. If you’ve ever stolen a towel from a really nice hotel (no judgment), this is that feeling.

Plush Towel Collection ($18 to $60 per piece, $174 for a set): Zero-twist Egyptian cotton. Softer and lighter than the Spa, with that fluffy feel my kids immediately gravitate toward. Less structured, more cloud-like.

Four Layer Towel Collection ($18 to $64 per piece, $198 for a set): 100% premium combed cotton (not specified as Egyptian), made in Portugal. This one’s the outlier. It’s thin, lightweight, and dries fast. Think Turkish hammam towel meets modern design. Fringe edges give it a distinctive look.

Duo Towel Collection (from $32): A newer addition that falls somewhere between the Spa and Four Layer in terms of weight and feel.

Claims vs. Reality

Riley’s big selling points are Egyptian cotton, Portuguese manufacturing, and OEKO-TEX certification. Let’s check each one.

Egyptian cotton: The Spa and Plush lines use 100% premium fine-combed Egyptian long-staple cotton. They don’t hold the Cotton Egypt Association Pyramid Mark (which is the gold standard for verification), but the specs, the Portuguese manufacturing, and the feel are all consistent with genuine Egyptian cotton. I’d rate this as credible, just not independently verified.

Made in Portugal: Confirmed. Their factories are in Portugal, which has a long history of producing some of the world’s finest towels. This isn’t just a label detail. Portuguese mills use better looms, tighter quality control, and more refined finishing processes.

OEKO-TEX Standard 100: Certified under number 18.HUS.35124 by Hohenstein. This means the towels have been tested for over 100 harmful substances. It’s not an organic certification, but it’s a meaningful safety standard.

What Real Buyers Are Saying

Here’s where things get complicated. The towels themselves get genuinely positive reviews from most people who buy them. Words like “plush,” “luxurious,” and “hotel quality” come up constantly. The Spa Towels in particular get compared (favorably) to towels costing twice as much.

But the customer service reviews are brutal. Riley has a 2.8 out of 5 on Trustpilot across 57 reviews. The complaints follow a pattern: orders go unshipped for weeks, emails go unanswered, there’s no phone support, and returns turn into disputes. One reviewer reported being charged immediately but waiting weeks with no shipping confirmation and no response from any channel. Another said Riley claimed they never received a return despite UPS delivery confirmation.

There are also some durability concerns. A few buyers reported pulled threads after just a few washes, and one mentioned the loops fraying after about nine months. That said, most reviews (including editorial picks from Apartment Therapy and The Daily Beast) praise how well the towels hold up over time.

How Riley Home Compares

Feature	Riley Home Spa	Frontgate Resort	Onsen	Amazon Budget Towels
Cotton Type	Egyptian long-staple	Supima / Egyptian	Supima	Generic cotton
GSM	700	630 to 820	~350 (waffle)	400 to 500
Made In	Portugal	India / Turkey	Japan	China / India
OEKO-TEX	Yes	Varies	Yes	Rarely
Bath Towel Price	$60	$30 to $50	$55	$8 to $15
Trustpilot Rating	2.8/5	N/A	N/A	Varies

Who Should Buy Riley Home

These towels are for you if:

• You want genuinely plush, heavy Egyptian cotton towels made in Portugal
• You’re comfortable ordering direct and don’t anticipate needing to make returns
• You liked the Wirecutter recommendation and want what they tested
• You prefer thick, spa-weight towels (or want the fast-drying Four Layer as an alternative)

Maybe skip these if:

• Easy returns and responsive customer service matter to you (and honestly, they should)
• You’re on a budget, because outfitting a whole bathroom at $60 per bath towel adds up
• You want a brand with the Pyramid Mark for independently verified Egyptian cotton
• You’ve read the Trustpilot reviews and they make you nervous (I get it, they made me nervous too)

The frustrating thing about Riley is that the product is genuinely good. I like these towels. My kids like these towels (the Plush ones specifically won’t stay on the towel bar because they keep dragging them to the couch like blankets). But recommending a brand where this many people have trouble getting basic customer service? That’s a hard yes to give without a big asterisk next to it.