I am 68 and the first bath mat I have ever written a letter about has a wave and two starfish on it
I am 68 and the first bath mat I have ever written a letter about has a wave and two starfish on it
Six things this soft little mat gets right that forty-odd years of mats that creep across the tiles and stay soggy all day got wrong, from a woman who has already ordered her second.
Pat Holloway · Customer · Leeds · 5 min read
I had better say who is talking before anything else. I am Pat, I am 68, I live in Leeds with my husband Brian and his spaniel Wilf, and I have kept house for forty-odd years without once thinking a bath mat was worth a second look, never mind a letter. A bath mat was a thing you bought in a hurry and replaced in a temper. Well. I have changed my mind.
The mat I am writing about is the Non-Slip Absorbent Bathroom Mat from Manchester Boutique, a small British boutique that has been quietly finding women like me the things we did not know we were allowed to have for a few years now. I call it the seaside mat, because that is what it looks like, and when the boutique asked if they could put my letter up for other women to read, I said yes, on the condition I could be completely honest in it.
I first saw it at a little dog-friendly guesthouse in Whitby that Brian and I go back to every October. Four rooms, walkers and wet dogs in and out all day, and yet every bathroom floor was dry and every mat was lying exactly where it had been put. Then Wilf came in off the beach soaking, shot straight into our bathroom and stood on the mat, and by the time I had found his towel the puddle I was braced for was not there. At breakfast the next morning I asked the landlady about it, plainly. She has the same mat in every room. Read on.
In front of our bath at home. It is the first thing I see in the morning, and it makes me smile before the kettle has boiled.
Here is what forty-odd years of bath mats taught me. They come in two piles. The thin ones that look neat in the shop and then wander across the tiles, ruck up against the bath panel and have to be kicked straight every time you walk in. And the thick fluffy ones that feel lovely for a week and then lie there damp and heavy all day, with a dark ring on the floor underneath.
A bath mat either would not stay where you put it or would not dry out once you had used it. I had stopped expecting one that did both.
This little mat is the first one I have owned that does both, and having lived with it through a wet September, a houseful at the weekend and a spaniel who thinks the bathroom is his, I can tell you it comes down to six things.
The morning it came. I opened it on the bed to have a proper look, which Brian thought was very funny.
It stays where you put it
This was the first thing I noticed at the guesthouse and it is the thing I would put top of the list. The mat has a non-slip base, and on a smooth tiled floor it simply stays put. It does not creep off towards the door, it does not ruck up into a heap against the bath, and I have not had to bend down and straighten it once since it arrived. For a woman who has spent forty years nudging bath mats back into place with her toe, that alone was worth writing about.
The first bath mat in this house that is still where I put it at the end of the day. I did not think that was too much to ask, and apparently it was not.
Rosemary P., FromeIt soaks up the water quickly
You step out of the bath or the shower and the water goes into the mat, not across the floor. It soaks it up quickly and helps keep the floor round it drier, which is exactly what the landlady in Whitby was relying on with four rooms of walkers. At home it has had Brian after his shower, me after my bath and Wilf after a wet walk round the park, all in one morning, and I have not once come in to a puddle on the tiles.
Wilf’s route after a wet walk. Straight to the mat, every time, as though he knows.
Two grandchildren out of the bath one after the other and the floor was still dry. My old mat would have been wringing wet.
Gillian A., WellsIt is soft under your feet
Now the mornings are turning cold, this matters more than I expected. The surface is soft and has a lovely feel under bare feet, so the first thing you step on out of a warm shower is not a cold tile or a thin bit of towelling. It is a small comfort, and it is one you get every single day, twice if you are lucky.
Straight out of the shower on a cold morning. Soft, not scratchy, and no hopping about on the tiles.
So soft underfoot I find myself standing on it longer than I need to. A lovely thing to step onto first thing.
Doreen H., Bradford-on-AvonIt brings the seaside into a plain bathroom
Our bathroom is white and beige and not very exciting, and I suspect yours is too. This mat has a picture across it of a big curling blue wave breaking onto the sand, with a white scallop shell at one end and two little orange starfish, one big and one small. It is cheerful without being childish, and it looks like somebody chose it rather than grabbed it off the end of an aisle. Every visitor we have had has mentioned it, and not one of them has ever mentioned a bath mat before.
It reminds me of holidays at the coast every time I walk in. The colours are just as pretty as the pictures, and it has cheered up a very plain bathroom.
Maureen C., MarlboroughIt fits neatly wherever you need it
It comes in two sizes, 40 × 60 cm and 50 × 80 cm, and it sits neatly in front of a bath, a shower or a basin. The smaller one is about the width of a pedestal basin, and I bought that first for the bathroom. The larger one I have since ordered for in front of our bath, where there is more floor to cover. And because the small one fits so neatly, I took it away in the caravan for the last weekend of the season, where it covered nearly all of the little shower room floor and made it feel like home.
In the caravan shower room for the last weekend of the season. It fills the floor as though it was made for it.
I measured before I ordered and the smaller one fits in front of my shower perfectly. I have since bought the big one for the bath.
Elaine W., Shepton MalletIt is simple to keep nice, and there are four seaside designs
A bath mat that is a trial to look after soon ends up grubby, and this one is simple to clean and keep looking nice for everyday use. The one I have is the wave with the shell and the starfish, but there are four seaside designs in all, including one with footprints walking up the sand and one with yellow shells, all the same two sizes and the same price. The landlady in Whitby has a different one in every room, and I have my eye on the footprints for the caravan next year.
Easy to keep clean and still looks as bright as the day it came. I have bought the footprint one for my daughter too.
Janet R., DevizesThis little mat, against the ones you have been making do with
You can carry on kicking a thin mat straight every morning, or waiting for a thick one to dry, like I did for forty years. Here is the difference, laid out plainly.
Creep across the tiles and ruck up
Leave the water on the floor
Thin and cold underfoot
Plain white or plain beige
One size, never quite the right one
A non-slip base that stays where you put it
Soaks up the water quickly
Soft under your feet
A wave, a shell and two starfish
Two sizes, for the basin, the shower or the bath
About the price
The 40 × 60 cm is £26.95, down from £54.00, and the larger 50 × 80 cm is £36.95, down from £74.00. All four designs are the same.
I will pass on what the boutique told me, which is that these are in the sale while the first autumn stock goes, and once a design sells through in a size, that one is gone. Their words, not mine. What I can tell you from my side is that I have spent more than £54.00 over the years on bath mats that went in the bin inside a twelvemonth, so £26.95 for one I actually look forward to stepping on made it an easy yes.
And I do not trust perfect scores, so I read the reviews before I ordered. Just over three hundred of them, sitting at 4.2 stars, which sounded like real people rather than robots, so I read on. The same six things I have just walked you through come up in them, over and over, in other women’s words.
The small one, in front of the basin. About as wide as the basin itself.
If your bath mat spends more time in a heap than on the floor, or lies there damp until teatime, this is where I would start. Have a look at your size before somebody else takes it, because the first autumn stock will not wait. And if you ever stay at a little guesthouse in Whitby and find a starfish under your feet, you will know where I got the idea.
Pat
THE NON-SLIP ABSORBENT BATHROOM MAT
- Non-slip base, stays put on smooth floors
- Soaks up water quickly, helps keep the floor drier
- Soft surface under your feet
- Fits neatly by a bath, shower or basin
- 40 × 60 cm £26.95 · 50 × 80 cm £36.95
- Four seaside designs, simple to keep clean
- Free UK delivery
Sale on now. The first autumn stock is already going.