3 Best Paper Towels, Tested and Reviewed

Some paper towel users online recommend placing a roll of paper towels in the refrigerator to absorb excess moisture, prolonging the life of produce and other items stored there. Other users are also lining their fridge shelves with paper towels. We spoke to three CR experts to see what they thought about using paper towels this way. What they say may make you reconsider trying this at home.

Jim Rogers, director of food safety, raised concerns about using paper towels as shelf liners in a refrigerator. “If you use paper towels as a shelf liner and there is leakage, especially from meat, that paper towel could become contaminated with bacteria, and I am not sure how that would help with cleanup because the surface under the contaminated towel would still need to be cleaned,” he says.

Breann Chai, who oversees refrigerator testing, says that placing a roll of paper towels in the fridge would likely not damage the appliance, as long as it isn’t blocking any vents or interfering with airflow. Still, she doesn’t recommend this hack, as refrigerators are designed to manage humidity and condensation on their own. “If someone consistently has moisture issues in their refrigerator, it would be better to check the temperature settings, door seal, or drains for any issues,” she says. “It’s also possible they’re not storing their food in the proper locations. Meat should be in the meatkeeper drawer or lower in the refrigerator if there isn’t one. Leafy greens are better in high humidity drawers (vents closed) while fruits are better in low humidity drawers (vents open).”

Paul Hope, home & DIY editor and trained chef, shared how he uses paper towels in his fridge: to line a bowl of freshly washed berries to prevent premature rotting and under a rimmed sheet pan holding thawing meat to catch any possible spills. When he uses paper towels under a sheet pan of raw meat, he still makes sure to clean the area with an antibacterial spray and fresh paper towels.

While our lab tester José Amézquita found that all the paper towels evaluated could be reused after light use, you probably will not be able to reuse a paper towel after it’s been wet, wrung out, and dried more than once or twice. By then, they begin to rip or become too soiled to use because they aren’t designed to be washed and reused, unlike reusable paper towels. Paper towels are also not the most ideal tools to clean furniture, especially pieces with glass surfaces. They often leave behind bits of paper on the surface, making the glass look less than pristine. In this case, microfiber cloths are a better option because they won’t leave any residue behind. Finally, paper towels aren’t recyclable. Every sheet you use is another piece of paper that will end up in a landfill.

Price: The prices of the six products we evaluated ranged from less than $2 to almost $5 per roll (when purchased in a six-pack). While Bounty, the most expensive, came out on top in our evaluations, the runner-up, Brawny, was half the cost and lagged behind the best overall by just a few points. Purchasing paper towels in multipacks instead of individual rolls is usually a good way to save a few dollars, too. 

Availability in stores: If, like me, you don’t have the space to store a multipack of paper towels, look for the products that are available at your local stores in packs of two or three. Not all of the paper towels we evaluated can be purchased in person, though, so if you want to buy in stores, you’ll want to stick to one that isn’t from an online-only brand, like Amazon.

Tearable sheets: There are some messes you just don’t need a full sheet of paper towels for, while others require more than one. Consider paper towels with detachment lines that allow you to use just half a sheet at a time. All of the paper towels we evaluated had some version of this feature.

Sneak peek: Brawny recently replaced its 2-ply paper towels with a new 3-ply product. The new paper towels are stronger and more absorbent, but they still did not earn the top spot in our tests. Still, they were the strongest when wet and absorbed the most amount of water.