I am 63 and the first bath mat I have ever written a letter about has a wave and two starfish on it
I am 63 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 tile and stay soggy all day got wrong, from a woman who has already ordered her second.
Peggy Dalton · Customer · Austin, Texas · 5 min read
Since you are about to spend five minutes with me, you ought to know whose voice you are hearing. I am Peggy, I am 63, I live in Austin, Texas with my husband Frank, 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 grabbed 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 Iris and Nora, a small boutique here in Austin that has been quietly making the ordinary things a little lovelier 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 inn down in Rockport that Frank and I go back to every October, once the summer crowds have gone home. Four rooms, fishermen and beach 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. This year we had my daughter’s labrador with us, and he 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 owner about it, plainly. She has the same mat in every room. Read on.
In front of our tub at home. It is the first thing I see in the morning, and it makes me smile before the coffee is made.
Here is what forty-odd years of bath mats taught me. They come in two piles. The thin ones that look neat in the store and then wander across the tile, bunch up against the side of the tub and have to be kicked straight every time you walk in. And the thick fluffy ones that feel wonderful 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 stormy September, a full house over a long weekend and a labrador 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 good look, which Frank thought was very funny.
It stays where you put it
This was the first thing I noticed at the inn and it is the thing I would put at the top of the list. The mat has a non-slip base, and on a smooth tile floor it simply stays put. It does not creep off toward the door, it does not bunch up into a heap against the tub, 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.
Linda P., CrockettIt soaks up the water quickly
You step out of the tub or the shower and the water goes into the mat, not across the floor. It soaks it up quickly and helps keep the floor around it drier, which is exactly what the owner in Rockport was counting on with four rooms of beach walkers. At home it has had Frank after his shower, me after my bath and the labrador after a wet walk around the block, all in one morning, and I have not once walked in to a puddle on the tile.
The labrador’s route after a wet walk. Straight to the mat, every time, as though he knows.
Two grandkids out of the bath one after the other and the floor was still dry. My old mat would have been soaking wet.
Brenda A., HuntsvilleIt is soft under your feet
Now the first cool mornings are finally here, this matters more than I expected. The surface is soft and has a nice feel under bare feet, so the first thing you step on out of a warm shower is not a cold tile or a thin old towel. 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 cool morning. Soft, not scratchy, and no hopping around on the tile.
So soft underfoot I find myself standing on it longer than I need to. A nice thing to step onto first thing in the morning.
Darlene H., LivingstonIt 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 trips to the coast every time I walk in. The colors are just as pretty as the pictures, and it has cheered up a very plain bathroom.
Shirley C., LufkinIt fits neatly wherever you need it
It comes in two sizes, 15.7 × 23.6 in and 19.7 × 31.5 in, and it sits neatly in front of a tub, a shower or a sink. The smaller one is about the width of a pedestal sink, and I bought that first for the bathroom. The larger one I have since ordered for in front of our tub, where there is more floor to cover. And because the small one fits so neatly, my sister Sue borrowed it for her travel trailer on their last trip to the lake, where it covered nearly all of the little shower room floor. She has not given it back.
In Sue’s travel trailer shower room. 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 tub.
Carolyn W., JasperIt is simple to keep nice, and there are four seaside designs
A bath mat that is a chore 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 owner in Rockport has a different one in every room, and I have my eye on the footprints to replace the one Sue has not given back.
Easy to keep clean and still looks as bright as the day it came. I have bought the footprint one for my daughter too.
Judy R., East TexasThis little mat, against the ones you have been making do with
You can keep 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 tile and bunch 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 sink, the shower or the tub
About the price
The 15.7 × 23.6 in is $45.95, down from $92.00, and the larger 19.7 × 31.5 in is $60.95, down from $122.00. All four designs are the same.
I will pass on what the boutique told me, which is that these are on sale while this stock lasts, 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 a good deal more than $92.00 over the years on bath mats that went in the trash inside a year, so $45.95 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 sink. About as wide as the sink itself.
If your bath mat spends more time in a heap than on the floor, or lies there damp until suppertime, this is where I would start. Have a look at your size before somebody else takes it, because once this stock is gone, it is gone. And if you ever stay at a little inn down in Rockport and find a starfish under your feet, you will know where I got the idea.
Peggy
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 tub, shower or sink
- 15.7 × 23.6 in $45.95 · 19.7 × 31.5 in $60.95
- Four seaside designs, simple to keep clean
- Free shipping
Sale on now. Once this stock is gone, it is gone.