By Isla Quinn
Drop a square of towel fabric on water. Count. If it sinks within five seconds, it passes.
The test
The brand’s own site says only towels that pass its standards may carry the Imabari name, and that the five-second test checks whether fabric sinks within five seconds of being placed on water. It says this is how water absorbency is ensured. Japan Objects, a culture magazine, repeats the rule: the fabric must sink within five seconds. Neither says what a towel feels like afterwards. Our reading: it feels like a towel that drinks.
More than one test
A retailer’s guide lists the rest. Besides absorbency, there is pile retention, meaning resistance to shedding; colourfastness, meaning resistance to fading and colour transfer; tensile strength by item type; dimensional change after washing; and checks for restricted substances such as formaldehyde. It says the industry association updates the standards from time to time. Japan Objects groups the tests slightly differently: water absorbency, resistance to piling and light, and durability.
The tag
This is the useful part for anyone shopping. The retailer’s guide says “Made in Imabari” or “Made in Japan” on its own does not prove a towel is an Imabari towel. Only products that pass the association’s tests may carry the tricolour brand tag. On the back of the tag is a four-digit company certification number, which can be looked up in the association’s official database to confirm the maker and the certified product. The brand site describes the red, blue and white logo as symbolism, not as a certificate. Japan Objects says the logo shows the sun rising over the sea.
The place
Wikipedia puts Imabari in central Ehime Prefecture on Shikoku, facing the Seto Inland Sea, and says the city has a large cotton-processing industry, particularly towels. It describes Imabari as Ehime’s second-largest city, with 151,672 residents in the 2020 census. The Shimanami Kaido, a toll expressway with pedestrian and cycle lanes, links the city to Hiroshima Prefecture across islands; the Kurushima-Kaikyo Bridge opened in 1999. Imabari Castle, built in 1604, has a moat filled with seawater, Wikipedia says.
Soft water, pre-dyed yarn
Both the brand site and Japan Objects credit underground water from the Soja River. The brand site calls it soft, with very few impurities. Japan Objects adds soft water from Mount Ishizuchi and says the low impurity level keeps chemical processing down and contributes to the soft texture. It also describes sakizarashi sakizome, a method that dyes the yarn before weaving, saying this gives vivid colours that last through repeated washing. We found no second source for that technique, so it stands on one magazine.
Numbers that do not agree
- Age: the brand site says over 130 years of production. Japan Objects says over 120 years.
- Factories: the brand site says almost 200 in Imabari. Japan Objects gives “almost 200” in one place and “over a hundred” in another. Wikipedia says that as of 1998 there were over 200 towel plants.
- Share: Japan Objects says more than 60 per cent of Japan’s towels; Wikipedia says about 60 per cent.
- Body: the brand site calls the body the Imabari Towel Industrial Association. Japan Objects says tests are set by the Shikoku Towel Industrial Association.
We keep all of these. If you publish one, name its source.
The gaps are the lesson. A trade that has been counted by its own association, by a magazine and by an encyclopaedia, in different years, will produce different totals. Our reading: none of them is wrong so much as dated or defined differently, and a buyer should treat each figure as a claim from a named source, not as a fact about the towel in the hand.
A boom, then a long wait
Japan Objects says the industry boomed in the 1960s and overtook Osaka in production volume. The brand site mentions that a recovery project began in 2006, and that the towels had a booth at the 100% Design event in London in 2014. It does not say what the recovery was recovering from. We leave that gap open.
Washing
The retailer’s guide recommends mild detergent, going easy on fabric softener, washing in net bags where possible, tumble drying at low temperature or line drying, and snapping the towel to raise the pile. It gives no washing temperatures.
Dates in order
- 1604: Imabari Castle built, according to Wikipedia.
- 1960s: towel boom, according to Japan Objects.
- 1999: Kurushima-Kaikyo Bridge opens, according to Wikipedia.
- 2006: recovery project begins, according to the brand site.
- 2014: London booth, according to the brand site.
What kind of sources these are
Wikipedia; the brand’s own site; a culture magazine, Japan Objects; and one retailer’s guide. Three of the four are promotional or commercial in some way.
Questions a buyer would ask
Is the tag the proof? According to the retailer’s guide, yes: the tricolour tag plus the four-digit number you can look up. What does the tag not tell you? How a particular towel feels. Only the test and your hands do that.
Quick answers
What is the Imabari five-second test? According to the brand’s own site, a fabric must sink within five seconds of being placed on water.
How do you spot a genuine Imabari towel? A retailer’s guide says to look for the tricolour tag, then check the four-digit number on its back in the association’s database.
Where is Imabari? Wikipedia says it is in central Ehime Prefecture on Shikoku, facing the Seto Inland Sea.
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