Americans are enamored with paper towels. In 2017, for example, we purchased $6 billion worth of rolls—half of the worldwide supply. And, like toilet paper, those single-use sheets gobble up resources and drive deforestation.
There are plenty of alternatives to help ease our reliance on the kitchen and cleaning staple, from sponges to good ol’ rags. One of our favorites is the Swedish dishcloth. Invented in 1949, the cloth is basically a rag-sponge-towel chimera that’s stiff when dry and soft when wet, so it’s able to soak up spills, rub down surfaces, attack stubborn messes, and handle other various paper towel-y tasks.
The cloths are made from a combination of plant-based cellulose (aka wood pulp) and cotton, dry quickly, and can go right into the dishwasher or washing machine to get reused hundreds of times before they fall apart or lose absorbency. Estimates vary, but a single one can replace anywhere from 15 to 18 rolls of paper towels over the course of its life, and, overall, is gentler on the planet.
The market for Swedish dishcloths is saturated with variations. So we pitted five popular options against one another in head-to-head performance tests, evaluating factors like absorbency, dry time, and cleaning ability. We also weighed factors related to each one’s Earth-friendliness, like where companies source their wood pulp and cotton. So which cloth cleaned up the competition and earned the title of best Swedish dishcloth for both you and the planet? Soak up the results below.
Explore
one5c’s pick: Three Bluebirds
An absorbent, durable cleaning companion available in adorable patterns and produced by a company that isn’t just squeezing the planet for profit, Three Bluebirds Swedish Dishcloth (from $7; threebluebirds.com) may be the thing to help you dial back your paper towel habit. Thick and sporting a satisfyingly scrubby texture, it soaked up liquids quickly, dried well, left minimal streaks on glass, and easily cleared dried-on food globs off the countertop. As a company, Three Bluebirds uses minimal packaging, donates a percentage of profits to environmental causes, and sources wood pulp from forests certified to be responsibly managed—the only one of our test subjects to do so.
Why it’s good
A great Swedish dishcloth needs to really bring it in two areas: absorption and drying time, the latter of which is important to fend off bacterial buildup. Three Bluebirds was the second-thirstiest option we tested (Swedish Wholesale’s cloth earned the top marks). It held 12.8 times its weight in water, soaking up a range of liquids quickly, and only dripping a touch afterward, while others, like offerings from Papaya, Wettex, and Superscandi, were definitely messier. And even though it is a bit thicker than the competition, the cloth was bone-dry 4 hours after a spin in the washing machine—the quickest in the pack by 30 minutes.
The cloth’s texture (one side features a diamond pattern, the other a set of ribbed stripes) gave it the versatility to deal with a range of messes. It handled tough jobs like removing dried blobs of honey and ketchup from a countertop, and delicate ones like buffing a mirror without leaving any visible streaks.
Nothing’s perfect. Although Three Bluebirds is our overall winner, it just missed being our top performer. After a run in the dishwasher following a bath in soy sauce, Sriracha, and red wine, the cloth was ever-so-slightly stinky and discolored. And, while it didn’t leave behind any streaks on the glass, there was a little lint. Finally, at $7 a pop and up to $59 for a bundle of 10, the cloth is the second most expensive here after Papaya—though the cost is still way less over time than dropping $20 or $30 on six-packs of Bounty double rolls. The price makes sense given that Three Bluebirds is a small, family-owned company, but it still stings when multipacks from big-box brands like Swedish Wholesale drop the cost to a buck a cloth.
Why it’s sustainable
Three Bluebirds is the only Swedish dishcloth we tested that’s made from organic cotton and wood pulp from Forest Stewardship Council–certified trees, a marker that indicates practices that preserve local biodiversity and protect endangered species. The dishcloths are made in a factory in Germany that’s received a Fair Trade International certification, then travel to Connecticut to get adorned with nontoxic ink. The product also earned an Oeko-Tex Standard 100 seal, which means it’s free from harmful substances like heavy metals. Its packaging is also the definition of minimal: It’s a cardboard tag. As with all the wipers we tested, when a Three Bluebirds cloth is spent, it can go right into the compost pile.
Three Bluebirds is also part of 1% for the Planet, a group of companies that donate a portion of profits to environmental causes. Their funds, for example, have gone toward dam removal and habitat restoration in the Pine Tree Brook in Milton, Mass.
Nothing’s perfect. We’d like to know more about the impacts of Three Bluebirds’ supply chain than we do. The company doesn’t share information on the energy sources its factory uses and doesn’t disclose how it ships products from the Europe-based factory to Connecticut, and from Connecticut to consumers—or any efforts underway to minimize those impacts.
The runner-up
Swedish Wholesale dishcloths outranked Three Bluebirds in testing and are dirt cheap, but we cannot recommend them because their sustainability story is completely opaque. The brand hasn’t published any information about where their raw materials come from, or any details about transportation emissions or their production facility in China. They didn’t respond to our queries, either.
The cloths from Superscandi ($17 for 10; walmart.com) offer a better balance of performance and planet-friendliness than Swedish Wholesale, so they’re our second choice. The soft, thick cloths were able to absorb a respectable 11.5 times their weight in water with only a little dripping, though their textured surface disappeared when the cloth got wet, making it difficult to scrub caked-on goop. The company earned OK marks for sustainability. Cloths come in recycled cardboard and/or cornstarch-based wrapping, and the company claims their wood comes from sustainable forests—though it doesn’t have a certification or specifics to back it up. They’re also not super forthcoming about their production pipeline.
What we tested
We spent a month with five well-reviewed, widely available dishcloths. To make sure we tried the gamut, we included both pricier single-cloth options from smaller companies (Papaya Reusable Paper Towels and Three Bluebirds Swedish Dishcloths) as well as cheaper multipacks from bigger brands (Wettex Original Swedish Dishcloth, Swedish Wholesale Swedish Dishcloths, Superscandi Swedish Dishcloths).
How we picked our winner
Our product recommendations are based on two parallel assessment tracks: one for performance and one for sustainability. These ratings combine to land on our final winner, which represents the ideal blend of a product that’s good for the Earth and for your life. Read more about our assessment process here.
How we tested
We used all five cloths for a month on a variety of everyday cleaning tasks like wiping crumbs off the countertop or grease off a cooktop to get a qualitative feel for each one. We also performed a quintet of controlled tests to get more quantitative measures of performance:
- Absorbency test: After recording each cloth’s dry weight, we soaked it for 30 seconds in a dish filled with 175 milliliters of water. We then weighed each cloth again to determine how much water they retained.
- Dry test: Directly following the absorbency test, we hand-wrung the cloths and set a timer to see how long each took to dry. We also measured drying times for each after a spin in the washing machine and soak in a steam-clean dishwasher.
- Clean/scrub test: We wiped up streaks of dried honey and ketchup on a countertop—the kind of messes that would usually require a fingernail to scrape off.
- Odor/stain resistance test: We generously poured Sriracha, red wine, and soy sauce into each cloth, letting each mess soak in for 30 minutes. Then, we washed the dishcloths and checked for any lingering odor or staining left behind.
- Streak-free wipe test: We spritzed a mirror with Method surface cleaner as well as a water-and-vinegar solution and evaluated the amount of lint and streaks each cloth did or didn’t leave behind.
How we scored sustainability
Our sustainability ratings take into account three factors: a cloth’s environmental impact at its production, what happens at its end-of-life, and the manufacturer’s environmental behavior. Production factors in where, how, and with what a product is made—as well as how it’s transported through the supply chain. End-of-life factors in what happens to a cloth when it’s outlasted its usefulness, and any potential toxicity it might create in a compost pile or should it reach the landfill. The final factor accounts for actions the company takes outside the life of a product to minimize its footprint or benefit the environment—we award bonus points for transparency, as well. These scores are informed inferences based on available information, not full-blown life-cycle analyses.
FAQ: Are Swedish dishcloths better for the planet than paper towels?
The answer here is a qualified “yes.” There’s no head-to-head life-cycle analysis that we’ve been able to track down to determine exactly when using one will get into the “green” in terms of environmental impact compared with paper. But one estimate from Earth911 suggests that making the switch could cut the planet-warming potential of a household’s quicker-picker-upper routine by as much as 92%.
Of course, any major benefits come with a couple important caveats. First, it’s important to throw the cloths in with existing loads of wash to avoid needlessly wasting water and energy. And, lest you want them belching methane alongside their paper counterparts in the landfill in the afterlife, you also need to dispose of them responsibly in the compost or organic waste.
Naima Karp is a professional lifestyle and e-commerce writer whose work has appeared in such publications as Spy, Variety, and Well+Good.
Tyler Santora is a freelance science journalist, editor, and fact-checker. He’s written for publications such as Undark, Scientific American, Popular Science, and more.
one5c does not earn a commission on any product purchased through our reviews.