Gaiam Grippy Yoga Mat Towel, Chai

Oh OH OH OH OH OH OH I LOVE THIS TOWEL SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!The low-down: I do a lot of hot yoga, and was really tired of slipping all over the place. I use the Gaiam Chai Premium 5mm mat. This towel is pretty thick and will not fit into a regular yoga mat bag (and I own a pretty big one but it still doesn't fit), but here's the deal. The entire underside of this towel is like one of those small non-slip mats you put on your dashboard, or as a cupboard liner. IT DOES NOT MOVE, doesn't need to be wet to stick, and it stays put wet or dry. It took a couple sessions getting used to how thick everything was, which make balancing poses a little tricky but you get used to it fast. This towel is crazy absorbent, and I'm a super slick and sweaty yoga practitioner. No creasing, no slipping, lovely microfiber, whoever says it's non-absorbent is out of his/her mind. The price is very fair for how great this towel works. Really. Stop hesitating and thinking about spending twice the amount on yogitoes. Don't get me wrong, yogitoes is great. This is just better.I wish the towel came in other colors, and that it's just slightly thinner than is being manufactured right now. Also, if you do a lot of vinyasa and shift between poses by dragging your feet across the mat it can get pretty hot because the towel is so dense.I LOVE THIS TOWEL. LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE. <3

I practice bikram, and this towel is absolutely perfect.In bikram, you're sweating bullets just five minutes into class, so you need a towel that absorbs a lot. I use this towel, and nothing else. I don't lay it on top of a mat, because there's no need to. It stays put on the carpet with absolutely no sliding around.It's material is soft and comfy. It absorbs my sweat and always keeps me from feeling like i'm laying/standing in a puddle. It's also longer than other hot yoga mat/towels i've tried, which is always great because you don't need to be short to be comfortable. The only problem i have with this mat is that it cannot go in the dryer. I need to have multiple of these because i go to class daily and usually have to work before or after, so i often don't have enough time for it to hang dry fully.I've tried the breathe yoga hot towel/mat (it's the most common used mat in my class), but i'm not a fan at all. I feel the material's too rough, it's short, and the edging is so thick that it hurts if my head lays on the edge at all (since it's not very long). I've never tried the yogitoes mat, but have other classmates next to me all the time with them, and from what i can tell, it literally acts like a giant sponge as in .. it's thick and squishy and is quite disgusting when soaked in sweat. Just my opinion though.I love this mat and recommend it to everyone. Hopefully they come out with a variety of colors soon.

This is the perfect towel for Hot Yoga. I've bought the Yogitoes, the Manduka Hot Towel, Manduka Equa, a couple of fake Yogitoes mats and more....This one is the best by far. The very thick microfiber top grips your feet and hands with no slipping like the Manduka Hot Towel, but the Manduka Hot Towel bunches on the bottom when you switch poses because there no grips like the bottom of Yogitoes. The bottom of the Gaiam Grippy grips like the Yogitoes but doesn't have those nubs that can irritate your knees in certain poses. Plus, as you know, the Yogitoes is pretty thin on top. I think Manduka and Yogitoes are really good towels...please don't get me wrong...If they could combine both, it would be a perfect towel. The Manduka and Yogitoes run about $60, and the Gaiam Grippy is about $27-$30 from Amazon including shipping. I just hope Gaiam keeps selling it at this low price, and I hope they will make some different colors even though Brown is fine.

I have 2 of these mats. I bought the second mat because of how thrilled I was with the first. It never budged on my mat, and on top of that I didn't have to wet it down before practicing since my hands and feet didn't budge either!This changed after about 2 weeks. These towels became EXTREMELY slippery and I've found that I've had to basically saturate the towel before practicing if I don't want to be sliding around by the end of class. It's much more slippery than if I just grabbed a towel out of my bathroom! I'm not a beginner yogi, either, so that's not the reason.If you're purchasing this towel because you don't want it to bunch, then it's a great buy and does just that. But if you're purchasing so that your feet don't slide, I'd first go with a cheaper non-grippy variety and wet it down just to see if you're satisfied. I certainly regret dropping $70 on 2 of these.

I decided to give this item a go given the positive reviews, and I was severely disappointed. Yes, this towel sticks to your mat very well thanks to the PVC backing, but the microfiber material the top is made out of is incredibly slick. The instant I tried to settle into a down dog, my feet and hands slid away from me in opposite directions. I can now say I've faceplanted by slipping out of down dog! I was also able to plant my hands and "run" on the surface of the towel by sliding my feet back behind me repeatedly. I tried dry hands/towel, wetting my hands/dry towel, and damp hands/damp towel. None of these combinations were any better than the others. This towel is, however, incredibly absorbent. I guess I have an overpriced bath mat, now.