The Best Towel Warmers for Keeping Away the Post-Shower Chill

During the winter, everything gets just a little more uncomfortable and inconvenient. If you want to drive somewhere, you first have to start your car a few minutes ahead of time to let it warm up. At bedtime, you perform a balancing act between your heat and your humidifier to keep your room warm enough without the air getting too dry. And when getting out of the shower, your life flashes before your eyes as you nearly freeze to death when drying off with your room-temperature towel. Well, there is one easy way that you can improve this chilly inconvenience of the colder months, and that’s by investing in a towel warmer. Towel warmers will keep your towel nice and toasty until you need it, and they make for a seriously luxe upgrade to your bathroom in the colder months —though they’re not exactly unwelcome the rest of the year, either.

Types of Towel Warmers

There are two silos into which the vast majority of towel warmers can be sorted: bucket-style and warming racks. Of the two, we vastly prefer the former. With a bucket-style towel warmer, your towels are stored inside a plastic hamper-like device with a lid. This ensures that the towels heat up evenly, and it keeps them warmer overall. These types of warmers also aren’t blazing-hot to the touch, so they’re less of a hazard.

Rack-style towel warmers are simply less efficient at warming towels. Because only a few strips of heated metal are touching the towel with this type of warmer, the heating is less even. And since they’re open-air, they’re less thorough, too. These racks also get crazy hot, and the heating element is exposed, meaning you need to be careful not to touch them when they’re on. Additionally, many need to be hardwired into the wall, creating a bit of an installation headache. On the positive side, though, if you plan on using your towel warmer to dry your towels and not simply warm them prior to use, then a rack is a better option, thanks to the aforementioned open-airness.

Best Bucket-Style Towel Warmer: Keenray Bucket Style Towel Warmer

Amazon

Best Bucket-Style Towel Warmer

Keenray Bucket-Style Towel Warmer

• $146.99 at Amazon

There are several towel-warmer brands on Amazon with seemingly similar products with nearly-identical features, but some hold up better than others. One of the best is Keenray, and this towel warmer of theirs slots in the “oversized” category thanks to its ability to house two 40″ x 70″ towels at once.

Our tester says this towel warmer “definitely does its job well, but it doesn’t have any wild features to write home about.” In other words, it keeps the stated number of towels warm and toasty, just as it should (it’s capable of keeping them warm for up to an hour). It also accommodates fragrance disks to keep your towels smelling fresh. Our tester did say that if she were to shop for a towel warmer again, she’d get one that was more square-shaped to better fit in the corner of her bathroom. She also noted that the power cord isn’t super-long, so if you have high outlets in your bathroom, expect to use an extension cord.

Best Compact Towel Warmer: Zadro Countertop Towel Warmer

Amazon

Best Compact Towel Warmer

Zadro Countertop Towel Warmer

• $126.95 at Amazon
  $159.99 (21% off)

Zadro is another one of those major towel-warmer brands on Amazon, and they’re largely the most prominent — the larger version of this warmer is the site’s bestselling towel warmer. The countertop version offers much of the same functionality as its popular big sibling, but in a more compact size that frees up some floorspace in your bathroom. Unlike many competitors that are one-touch operation, this warmer features a second button that allows you to change your heating time from four different settings ranging from 15 minutes to an hour. It also looks pretty attractive with its faux wood handle and feet. However, since this is a smaller warmer you’re only going to be able to fit one towel at a time in this, so if more space is needed you’re going to have to look elsewhere.

Best Slim Towel Warmer: Sharper Image SpaStudio Towel Warmer

Kohl’s

Best Slim Towel Warmer

Sharper Image SpaStudio Towel Warmer

• $149.99 at Kohl's
  $249.99 (40% off)

Nearly all bucket-style towel warmers on the market sport the same basic design, but not the SpaStudio from the Sharper Image. Bucking the round bucket trend, this warmer has softly squared-off corners and a slim design, allowing it to easily live right up against a wall or snugly in a corner. Despite its slim design, it’s still got enough room for two bath sheets, and its fast-heating tech will warm them up in just 10 minutes. It also features a few features absent from lesser-known brands, like a lid that opens with just a touch and an external light that changes color to let you know your towel’s temperature. It even looks pretty slick, thanks to its chrome peg legs. Perhaps the only real downside to this towel warmer is that its auto-shutoff kicks in after just 45 minutes, while most competitors can heat for an hour. In other words, you may want to skip the extra-long shower with this one.

Best Towel Warming Rack: Pottery Barn Classic Towel Warmer

Pottery Barn

Best Towel Warming Rack

Pottery Barn Classic Towel Warmer

• $669.00 at Pottery Barn

If you prefer to go the rack route, then Pottery Barn’s Classic Towel Warmer makes for a solid choice. This towel warmer looks good and fits with any style of decor, it’s made from rugged solid steel with a moisture-resistant finish and it doesn’t take up too much space. Since it’s a rack, it won’t do quite as good of a job at warming up your towels as a bucket-style warmer, but you may get more use out of it anyway, as it can pull double-duty as a quick-drying rack for laundry. Four different sizes are available, from 18″ x 40″ up to 24″ x 60″, all of which will need to be hardwired to a 110-volt outlet.

Best Splurge Towel Warming Rack: Rejuvenation Traditional Wall-Mounted Towel Warmer

Rejuvenation

Best Splurge Towel-Warming Rack

Rejuvenation Traditional Wall-Mounted Towel Warmer

• $2,463.00 at Rejuvenation

Once you get passed the initial sticker shock of a towel warmer that costs well over two grand, you’re left with a pretty impressive device. This industrial-styled warming rack from Rejuvenation has actual heated fluid flowing through its pipes, meaning it puts out some serious heat. It throws off so much heat, in fact, that not only will it warm your towels (including large bath sheets), but it will act as an additional heat source in your bathroom. Having this cranked in the colder months will keep your entire bathroom cozy, not just your towel, which is pretty impressive. But due to the very high cost and fairly involved installation, this is not the kind of impulse buy like other towel warmers — this is something to get if you’re doing a major bathroom renovation.

Related Topics