How do you like your paper-towels?

I buy my paper towels by price. Kroger (a large store in my state) has their off brand paper towels for 69 cents as opposed to Bounty at 1.99.

@chyna I buy Kroger brand too! You can’t beat the $.88 cents toilet paper!

I buy the first ones I see

i like mine to be set on fire.

White with select-a-size. I don’t usually care about brand names, but do I tend to buy Bounty. I have tried other brands but am convinced that a half-size Bounty is just as good (or better) than a whole sheet of generic.

The best ones are Viva, but I will not pay that much.

I buy cheap, plain ones.

Bounty, the quicker picker upper.

Thick and soft (like how I like my woman). I kid

Bounty. They have the best patterns and the quality is good. I also buy the Bounty that has half sheet perforations sometimes, because my husband prefers those, but it does not have the pretty patterns. If I like a pattern I will pay more, I don’t care. I will never understand why the other brands have sub-par patterns? How hard is it to draw a decent flower, butterfly, or mushroom in pretty colors? The last roll I bought had fortune cookies on it.

I buy whatever is on sale. Why should I care so much about something that’s going to be used to wipe up a mess and then thrown out?

I don’t care about patterns. It’s nice when the half-sized ones are on sale, but I don’t go out of my way to buy them.

@ JLeslie LOL!

@Seelix totally agree

Here is how it goes down. Wal-Mart has so much power that they require one of two things.
1— Make it cheaper
2— Change it

When the yearly contracts come up you need to do one of these things.

This is why you have toothpaste that is a gel and has sparkles. This way they can claim it is a new product and retain the desired price point.

Cheap stuff.

I only use paper towels for cleaning the toilet and sink because of all the hair. I get generic. Other than that, I use rags, and wash them in the washing machine.

@joni1977 I swear this story is true: one day I am at the supermarket staring at the Bounty patterns and here is this women next to me looking also, with her husband to her side quietly waiting. After a few seconds I say to her, “you’re looking at the Bounty patterns right? It’s all I buy, they have the best patterns.” Without missing a beat she replies, “yeah, me too, they are the best.” I think her husband was in a state of shock, or maybe annoyed, that here was another nut like his wife, gave a little eye roll, and continued to wait patiently while she decided on which two pack to buy. Lol.

So far, I do not buy the paper towels.
But I would like to find someone who retails the ones that we have at work. They’re sturdy. You can literally use one, rinse it, wring it out, use it again, rinse, wring it out a second time, and keep going. I have not yet had the opportunity to find out just how many times a body can do that.

Seriously, look how cute.

“I will never understand why the other brands have sub-par patterns? How hard is it to draw a decent flower, butterfly, or mushroom in pretty colors?”

That was cute and made me chuckle.

@JLeslie holding my head in shame And those are the paper-towels I actually purchased that day while in the Super Target. I normally don’t ever shop there, but it’s closest to my home and I didn’t feel like going to my usual store. And sadly, they were the cheapest I could find, which reminded me why I normally don’t shop there. Gotta admit I’m loving the print: ‘Gardening is a way of showing you believe in tomorrow’ …wow

(We need to put Jeruba in charge of creating paper towel patterns!)

@joni1977 No no. No need for shame. It is an individual thing. Different strokes for different folks.

Any brand in Select-a-Size works for us. plain paper is okay. prints are just a way of attracting your attention to buy it.

I have more to add. Those prints can bleed, so if you are cleaning a spot on a light colored rug, or piece of clothing you can actually get the color of the paper towel on the fabric you are trying to clean. So all white is best in those cases.

@john65pennington I never really thought of the prints as a way to attract my attention, but then the Bounty patterns do attract my attention. But, the crappy pink and purple patterns on cheaper brands are a total turn off to me, I would never want that in my kitchen. I guess I am a paper towel snob. Or, connossieur?

I can’t believe I did this, but I HAD to go look at my $.89 paper towels…I even took pictures….THEY HAVE PRINTS ON THEM! YAY!!.... Wait a second..WTH is THIS?? OMG….. Well…I guess I have Adult Paper Towels. Got it goin’ on, all over teacups and flowers!

@Dutchess_III ROFLMAO!! do you think that was a subtle slip in? pardon the pun

@Dutchess_III Not to be critical, but yours are only two colors.~ Lol JK.

@omph, how do you know that? It clicks as an explanation, but I’d like to know a little more.

Ha ha, @Dutchess_III. I’d love to work up some dudgeon over having my cast deco artwork tagged as being fit for paper towels, just for the entertainment of it, but actually the idea made me laugh. How far away do you suppose we are from being able to upload our own designs to some website and ordering custom paper towels?

@Jeruba Now that is a brilliant idea. Then my paper towels could really coordinate with my kitchen.

When I use paper towels – and I try to avoid it as much as possible – I buy the cheapest available. I prefer to use recycled, reusable, washable t-shirts instead.

How much energy and how much in the way of resources are expended in doing a load of laundry in comparison with what it takes to produce disposable paper towels?

Oh my! There are patterns? I buy the least expensive that work well. My paper towel rack is mounted on the inside surface of the cupboard door under the sink – the one that holds the Windex, bleach, and other cleansers. The towels are not on display.
In my house, after use, paper towels get burned and are converted into heat.

@Jeruba I’d say that the total per-roll cost (incl. resource management) would be less than washing and then drying a load of cotton towels. Though cotton towels may be re-used indefinitely, so it might be cheaper in the long run.

I do a combination of paper towels, sponges and rags. Just depends on the thing; what I am cleaning.

@Dutchess_III OMG, ROFLMAO. I just saw this question and your photos. Subliminal message?

At work, we are prohibited from using cloth for reasons pertaining to sanitation.

I was shocked! Srsly…gotta get that off my photobucket account ASAP! Perhaps it was, as @joni1977 said, a “subtle slip in.” Probly Zen did it!
Well, I suppose you guys could design your own towels…if you’re willing to spend about $500 a roll, and commit to buying 15,000 rolls!
@JLeslie Only two colors? I was amazed it had any colors, ‘cause didn’t even notice till you MADE me go look….wait…it was a set up, wasn’t it..you knew what I’d find, didn’t you!!
@Nullo—Where do you work?

I think it’s absolutely marvelous that a question about the relative merits of paper towels can generate a livelier, more interesting, and longer discussion than a contrived one about the relative meanings of self-preservation and self-destruction.

Too bad this question isn’t in the Social section. Then it might range even wider and deeper. (It could be moved at the OP’s request.)

@Dutchess_III :) The full color makes the pictures more attractive to me. Not that it really matter at all. Lol. I wish my biggest problem was the designs on my paper towels. You get credit from me for actually taking a picture and uploading it. I thought that was great.

@Jeruba thanks!...I think

O…this isn’t in the social section. I forgot!

* puts on sunglasses *
Shaken, not stirred.

@Dutchess_III Sam’s Club, meat department. Where the sanitation standards (once you account for the fact that we deal in dead animals and not medicine) come close to those in hospitals. Watch how your doctor washes his hands the next time you visit. It’s the same for us.