Senshu towels

Before towel making, Senshu already had a cotton base: cultivation, spinning, tenugui cloth, and bleached cotton cloth trade grew in a warm, low-rainfall Seto Inland Sea climate in southern Osaka. The materials around Sano village were concrete everyday goods: cotton yarn, flat hand cloth, and white cotton cloth. In 1887, Satoi altered a cotton-cloth loom so it could raise looped threads on the surface. Those loops gave towel cloth a fuller, softer hand than flat tenugui cloth.

The process begins before the cloth looks like a towel. Cotton yarn is wound, treated with starch, dried, and rewound so it gains strength and moves more smoothly through weaving. The loom then produces long, undyed, uncut towel cloth. At that stage, the cloth still carries cotton oils, impurities, and sizing materials, so the next water stage is part of how absorbency is made.

Ato-zarashi means the towel is woven first and washed afterward. Water washing and bleaching remove cotton oils, impurities, dirt, and starch; dyeing, printing, or cutting comes later. This order is tied to absorbency from first use, as well as the clean feel and gentle texture associated with Senshu towels. Finishing companies control washing, bleaching, and dyeing conditions as long cloth becomes a usable daily textile.

Washing and bleaching require substantial water, which gives the Izumi Mountains a practical role in the process. Groundwater from the mountains is soft water suited to white towel making, and it enters the work during washing and bleaching. The connection between Senshu towels and white towels is therefore grounded in cotton cloth, soft water, bleaching, and post-weaving washing rather than color alone.

One Senshu towel moves through several kinds of work. The district includes sizing companies, around 70 weaving makers, and around four post-washing companies; smaller firms carry separate parts of sizing, weaving, washing, dyeing, and finishing. Daiwa Towel Cooperative gives one finishing-side example, with washing, bleaching, and dyeing handled through 36 factory processes and about 100 staff members. The production community is best understood through these linked tasks rather than a single workshop image.

The absorbency created by ato-zarashi ends up in ordinary rooms: at the sink, beside the bath, and under wet feet. A 2022 product group included handkerchief towels, hand towels, face towels, small bath towels, bath towels, and bath mats, while describing Senshu towels as relatively thin, quick-drying, and easy to store. The district also contains maker-specific paths: in Kaizuka, Roshichi Towel has made hotel-use towels since 1935, emphasizing durability through repeated washing and drying, softness, and absorbency in its own work.