We Read 100 Reviews of the Sukeen Cooling Towels So You Know What You're Snapping Into

The cooling trick is evaporation, not magic ice

This is the single most important thing to grasp before you buy, because it explains nearly every disappointed review. The towel doesn't contain any gel, chemical or hidden ice pack. The listing is clear that no chemicals are used. What you have is a hyper-evaporative mesh fabric that holds water and releases it slowly. As that water evaporates off the fabric, it pulls heat away from your skin. That's the whole mechanism.

One reviewer, JackTheManc, summed it up better than the marketing does: "When placed on the skin the cooling effect comes from evaporation rather than temperature, so being able to keep it wet in a pouch is convenient." Once you know that, two things follow. First, the towel will feel cool rather than ice-cold straight from the freezer. Second, it stops working the moment it dries out, which is why you give it a snap or a shake to kick the evaporation going again, and re-wet it when it warms up for good.

The few one-star reviews almost all miss this. "Any cloth that is soaked in cold water would do the same job," wrote Simon Burns. He's not entirely wrong that a wet cloth cools you, but the mesh weave here holds water and stays damp far longer than a normal flannel, which is the actual point. Manage your expectations and you'll be far happier than the reviewers who wanted a personal air conditioner.

How long does the cool actually last?

Here's where reviewers really disagree, and it's worth laying out both sides fairly rather than picking the flattering version. The listing claims the towel stays chilled for up to three hours depending on conditions. Real-world experience varies a lot with heat and humidity.

At the happy end, Kirstin Sutherland said it "keeps you cool for ages even in the baking heat," and Kelly Oakley raved that "when you think they've lost the cool give them a good shake and then ice cold again." Several Florida and Dubai holidaymakers reported the cooling lasting a couple of hours before needing a refresh.

At the sceptical end, Simon Burns got "7 to 10 minutes of cooling at the absolute maximum," and paula in 35-degree heat found they "provided little relief." The pattern that emerges from the reviews is that the hotter and drier the air, the faster the water evaporates and the shorter each cool spell lasts. Lorna Mulvihill, who used hers running a marathon at 33 degrees, gave a brilliantly precise account: "in the blistering heat after midday they dried out every 3 miles but before that the coolness lasted longer." For typical UK camping conditions, where we're rarely above the high twenties, you can reasonably expect a good while between top-ups. In extreme heat, keep water handy and re-wet often.

Where these earn a spot in your kit

What surprised me reading through the reviews was how many different situations people use these for, well beyond camping. The towels clearly travel.

For tent and festival use they're close to ideal. Melissa42 said "these saved my friend and I at a summer festival! You have to get them really wet and they get icy cold. Wonderful stuff when you have no other way of cooling yourself." That last bit is the key: at a festival or a wild camp there's no shade and no power, so a towel you can wet at a standpipe is one of the few cooling options you've got. Ms. TL Roberts used hers at a Scout Jamboree in the UK, indoors and out.

Day hikers like them because they weigh next to nothing and clip onto a pack. Bradley Miles noted it "weighs next to nothing, comes in a waterproof bag so when not in use it stays damp and doesn't ruin anything in my backpack." Mrs Cooper takes hers hiking and to the shops, draped on like a scarf. Then there's the long list of off-camp uses reviewers volunteered: the gym, spin classes, lawn bowls, gardening, hot offices, and a notably large number of menopausal women who swear by them for hot flushes. Several reviewers bought extra sets purely to gift to friends and family, which tells you something.

The four-pack, the pouches, and the carabiner clips

You get four towels, and that quantity is a real selling point for families and groups. JackTheManc put it plainly: "This pack of 4 is ideal for a family or group of friends." One towel each for a family of four, or a couple of spares to lend out, works out at under £5 a towel.

Each towel comes with a small waterproof plastic pouch and a carabiner clip in a matching colour. The pouch is properly useful: pop the damp towel inside and it stays cool and ready, and it won't soak the rest of your bag. The clip lets you hang it off a belt loop or rucksack strap. The colours also got a few mentions as a nice touch, and they make it easy to tell whose is whose.

One thing to flag on the towels themselves: a couple of reviewers found darker colours can run if you don't pre-wash. Robert mentioned "the colours ran onto clothes (it did come out after a wash)," so giving them a quick wash before the first trip is sensible.

The complaint you can't ignore: those storage pouches

If there's one recurring problem in the reviews, it's the plastic storage pouches, not the towels. The towels themselves get praise even from people who mark the product down. The pouches are a different story.

"The bags just rip straight away. Poorly made," wrote Tom Maxwell. Babs King found "the packets they come in split down the sides very easily," and sbhilton had "3 out of 4" rip. Alex Turton even reported the metal loops rusting after a week. M. S. W, who used the towels successfully across a Disney trip, noted the pouch "is rather on the fragile side and can split, especially if kids are stuffing them in." There's also a separate gripe from Gary R, who gave one star because his set didn't come with individual carry bags at all, so it's worth checking exactly what your variant includes.

The workaround the happy reviewers landed on is simple and cheap: keep the towels in zip-lock freezer bags instead. M. S. W and the original Kindle Customer reviewer both did exactly that. If you treat the included pouches as a bonus rather than the main event, the weak point stops mattering much. It would be better if Sukeen used tougher bags, and that's a fair mark against an otherwise solid product.

Keeping them fresh: the maintenance you'll actually do

Because the towel lives damp, hygiene is the one ongoing job. Leave a wet towel sealed in a pouch for days and it will start to smell, and a few reviewers learned that the hard way. The fix is easy.

Catherine Ann Holder's advice is the practical version: "You need to remove them from the bag every day because they will go smelly if you don't. This happened to me but a quick wash refreshed it." Lobbylin goes a step further, rotating towels and keeping them in lidded boxes with the lid off to let air circulate, washing every couple of days. These are hand-wash only, and they wash and dry quickly, which most reviewers confirmed. A spare dry towel in the bag is handy too, as Lunarkim pointed out, since the fabric is absorbent enough to double as a normal travel towel.

A couple of inventive tips worth stealing: vlucy adds peppermint oil to the water for extra freshness, and Oaten3 tucks an ice cube into the middle of the towel before training so it works as a cool pack as well.

So, should you pack these for your next trip?

For UK camping, festivals and hot-weather holidays, yes, with eyes open. The towels do the job they're designed for, the four-pack is good value at £18.99, and they pack down to nothing. The bulk of the 100 reviews we read are positive, with 80 of them landing at five stars, and the overall 4.5 rating across more than 32,000 buyers backs that up. The cooling won't feel like an ice pack, it works by evaporation, so go in expecting cool-and-refreshing rather than freezing-cold and you'll get on well with them.

The two real caveats are the flimsy storage pouches, easily solved with a zip-lock bag, and the need to keep them clean so they don't go musty. Neither is a dealbreaker. If you camp, hike, hit summer festivals, or just suffer in the heat, a set of these is a cheap, light bit of insurance against a sweltering night under canvas.