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The claim. The “quicker picker upper” got a face-lift with Bounty DuraTowel, a “cloth-like, durable paper towel that leaves surfaces three times cleaner than a used dishcloth,” according to parent company Procter & Gamble’s website.
The check. We tested DuraTowel against regular Bounty paper towels, America’s Choice paper towels, and Scott Shop Towels (“for tough jobs”). We determined how much water same-sized sections of each product could hold and used a machine to test wet and dry strength (the force required to pull a towel apart) and durability (the number of strokes it took to tear a wet sheet scrubbed over a rough surface).
Bottom line. DuraTowel is stronger than regular Bounty and lasted about 30 percent longer in our scrubbing tests. But Scott Shop Towels were even stronger than DuraTowel when wet and survived scrubbing at least three times longer than DuraTowel, regular Bounty, and America’s Choice. More strength seems to result in less absorbency: Scott Shop Towels were least absorbent, and DuraTowel absorbed less than regular Bounty but more than America’s Choice. Because any clean paper towel is cleaner than a used dishcloth, that claim doesn’t hold much water—kind of like the product itself.
DuraTowel does lead in one area: cost. Below are approximate prices for the products when sold in multipacks, which often go on sale.
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This article appeared in the September 2013 issue of Consumer Reports magazine.
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