Lifeventure Trek Towel : Soft Fibre, Micro Fibre or Hydro Fibre, which one is suitable for you?

Micro Fibre Towel on the left, Soft Fibre Towel being in the middle and then Hydro Fibre Towel on the right.

What is Lifeventure Trek Towel?
When it comes to sports gear, every single feature matters, but too bad we always couldn't have all the feature in one piece even for something as simple as a travel towel.

Lifeventure came with 3 types of towel built with different material that offer different features. Ranging from Compact Softfibre Towel, Microfibre comfort towel and Hydrofibre ultralight towel, each of them is built with different material, texture, weight, absorbency and drying time. 

What makes Lifeventure towel different to conventional towel is that they are very light in weight, having high absorbing ability, faster drying and has been treated with a permanent antibacterial formula to keep the towel smelling fresh which should last a lifetime.

Soft Fibre, Micro Fibre and Hydro Fibre, which one is better?

To be honest, to seek for the most suitable towel for you is to look for the best balance between the speed of drying, size, weight and the ability of absorbing water that you're looking for because you can't be getting the fast dry towel which is light in weight and also having the highest water absorbing ability and vice verse. Since we have some figures from the table below, why don't we apply some simple maths on the figures to find out?

Too bad all 3 types towel is not made with the same dimension for easier comparison, thus we have no choice but to calculate how many square centimeter each of the towel gets for 1 gram. First of all, let's take the size that is nearest to 9000sqcm (IE : SoftFibre 120 x 75cm = 9000sqcm) to calculate the square centimeter per gram of each type of towel so we can later convert them into a standard 9000sqcm for easier comparison.

Let's start off from how big in dimension the towel can be if it was weighted at 1g with calculation below (Lower number means towel is heavier/smaller in 1 gram):

Softfibre    : (120 x 75cm) /160g = 56.25cm/g (Moderate size per gram)

Microfibre : (124 x 80cm) /350g = 28.34cm/g (Smallest size per gram)

Hydrofibre : (132 x 72cm) /160g = 59.4cm/g (Biggest size per gram)

Let's convert all 3 types of towel to the same 9000sqcm to find out estimated weight at this size:

Softfibre    : 9000sqcm/56.25cm/g = 160 grams (Moderate)

Microfibre : 9000sqcm/28.34cm/g = 317.57 grams (Heaviest)

Hydrofibre : 9000sqcm/59.4cm/g =  151.51 grams (Lightest)

Calculation for water absorbency of each towel at the same size by multiplying its Absorbent to its weight(Highest number means more water absorbed) : 

Softfibre    : 160.00grams x 9 times absorbent = 1440g of water can be absorbed

Microfibre : 317.57grams x 7 times absorbent = 2222.99g of water can be absorbed

Hydrofibre : 151.51grams x 6 times absorbent = 909.06g of water can be absorbed

So based on calculation results above, assuming all towels are made under the same size of 9000sqcm, Microfibre appear to have the greatest absorbent even though it wasn't having the highest absorbent to its weight with only 7 times absorbent to its weight compared to 9 times in Softfibre. This is due to the absorbing capacity is based on the weight of the fibre towel, the heavier they are, the more water they can absorb. In this case, the weight of Microfibre is almost 2 times heavier than the Softfibre and when multiplied by the 7 times water absorbent ability, it actually absorbs 2222.99g of water compared to 1440g of water for Softfibre at the same size of 9000sqcm. This means that more water can be absorbed with the Microfibre than the Softfibre and the least water absorbency among the 3 goes to the Hydrofibre towel due to its light weight material and having lowest of 6 times water absorbent ability at a total of 909.06g at the towel size of 9000sqcm.

However, if you would like to compare the efficiency of water absorbent performance based on weight, then the Softfibre is the clear winner here by absorbing water of 9 times of its weight, follow by Microfibre 7 times of its weight and lastly the Hydrofibre at 6 times only.

Actually, if you look at the relationship between water absorption capacity and quick drying ability, they have a negative relationship among each other, if the towel is having the best absorbing ability (Based on size), you will have to compromise the speed of drying to dramatically reduce. Thus, it is not possible to get a piece of fibre towel that have both highest water absorption ability and also being the fastest drying among all.

So which is the best towel for you? The decision is still highly depending on your needs, let us sum this up for you to decide:

Softfibre - A soft towel with a smooth texture that gets the balance of both absorbing abilities up to 9 times to its weight and fast drying ability up to 8 times faster compared to conventional towel with a weight that is just slightly heavier(Very less) than the hydro fiber towel. However, if you insist for a Softfibre towel that absorb more water you can still opt for the largest size of its variant that can take up slightly more water than the Microfibre, but the trade off is the size for being much bigger than the Microfibre make it slightly more burden to carry.

Microfibre towel - Comfortable towel with a texture like a conventional towel that made you feel like using conventional towel you use at home, it has the highest water absorbing ability(If compared in dimension) and still 6 times faster drying compared to conventional towel. However, it is also the thickest towel than the other two, so this might take up more space compared to other 2 fibre towel. If you are not a fans of Softfibre towel with smooth texture, this could be your alternative option which still dried-up 6 times faster than normal towel.

Hydrofiber towel - Towel with smooth, and soft texture, having the lightest weight and being thinner than the other two, fastest drying with up to 10 times compared to conventional towel, but it has the lowest absorbency than the other two due to its light weight of the towel. Even though the Hydro fibre towel is having the lowest absorbent level than the other 2, but it's still capable to absorb up to 6 times of water of its weight. We also find that Hydro Fibre is significantly thinner than the rest of the fibre towel, this makes the Hydro Fibre towel one of the easiest to carry without taking up much space, dried up faster compared to the other 2 fibre towel and also the lightest of them all. The fast drying ability of Hydro Fibre towel could help a lot when one does not have much time drying up their towel especially camping, besides that its a space saver after all.

Conclusion

As a conclusion, all the 3 Softfibre, Microfibre and Hydrofibre towel have their ups and downs and we can't get all the best feature in one towel, but let's don't forget the fact that all these towel are still miles better than conventional towel in term of its light weight, fast drying and water absorption ability. Last but not least, all Lifeventure Towel is also treated with a permanent antibacterial formula that should not be ignored, this helps prevent mold and unpleasant smell to built up even the towel is not dried-up properly.

Still undecided? Find out the price now from a click of basket below.