There are several reasons why we absolutely love our Turkish towels but we wanted to take the time to share with you all the great benefits, and what makes a Pestemal, a Pestemal with you.
To begin, all of our pestemals are hand-made, one piece at a time, making them all unique, one of a kind products. Our Pestemals come in limited collections that are imported from abroad, beginning from their countries/regions of origin. Ella Lou Pestemals are made using traditional, small production techniques by artisans. All our pestemals are handwoven and each pestemal takes from 1/2 to 2 days to weave, it is a labor intensive process which results in very high quality products.
We only use the best quality organic cotton for our towels, which is softer and more durable than non-organic cotton. Not only does organic cotton have a much less harmful impact on the environment, but it is much better for the people who cultivate and produce the products you are buying because it is not produced with the use of harmful chemicals.
Ella Lou strongly believes that handmade and/or artisan-made products are in no way comparable to the touch and quality of traditional terry cloth or mass produced cotton towels. Not only do handmade products preserve traditional handicrafts that would otherwise die out in many places, but they are also of higher quality than mass-produced goods. Empowering artisans by providing them with a market for their products while offering a collection of stylish, well-made goods consumers can feel good about purchasing is our goal at Ella Lou.
A few of the benefits of pestemals are:
- They are simply beautiful and far more practical than traditional terry-cloth towels
- They are multi-purpose: on a trip to the beach last weekend, I used my pestemals as a beach towel, beach blanket, picnic blanket, scarf, wrap, and tablecloth (oh, and at the end of the weekend, I tied all our sandy laundry up in the pestemal to take it home to wash)
- Pestemals are far lighter than traditional terry towels yet extremely absorbent
- They dry quickly in the sun, but can also be washed in cold water and dried on low heat
- They are incredibly soft, and grow softer with each wash
We could go on and on, but hopefully this answers some questions you may have, and give you some more background on our incredible pestamels. More information can be found on the Ella Lou website here.
I guess its true what they say, “April showers bring May flowers” because we sure have been getting some rain these past few days. But we have been lucky enough to get some nice sunny days, which means, take a guess…give up? Photo shoot days, thats right! We don’t want to give away too much but just enough to keep you on your toes. What we can tell you, is that we are very excited about what is to come (hint: who says you can ever have enough pestamels?).
With nice weather ahead of us there are so many great activities to do outside, and especially in the Bay Area the adventures never run out. Its a great time to pack a picnic basket, take a quick drive to the beach, visit the redwoods for a nice hike, and our lightweight pestamels are the perfect accessory taking up minimal space in your bag! As great as they are to sit on, lets be honest, here in San Francisco once that fog rolls in you may need a blanket as well, good thing you packed your pestamel right? I recently took a quick trip over the weekend to Yosemite and it was perfect planning I had a Bonbon towel with me. For starters I rolled up my pestamel and used it as a pillow for the 4 and half hour drive to the park what can I say, car rides put me to sleep!). Once we got to the hotel the towel situation was not up to par, I mean super scratchy and over used, again luckily I had my Bonbon with me so I had no objection to drying off with my super soft turkish towel (everyone was quite jealous). I even used my pestamel to wrap up on a sunset hike up to a waterfall, the uses are unlimited when it comes to your imagination.
Stay tuned for more posts leading up to our big announcement, you wont want to miss this one!
From sunshine to rain all in one week, we were lucky to get in the last shots of our newest collection the Breezy. Photo shoots are always fun, especially when the weather cooperates. Not only did we shoot the new Breezy line, we also got in some great shots of the newest colors of the Bonbon collection. Breezy and Bonbon have just launched on our website so check them out now before they’re gone. We are loving the bright new colors, and we are sure you will too. Like all Ella Lou pestemals, our Breezy and Bonbon collections are hand-loomed from organic cotton by artisans in Turkey. They are made on looms which families have been using for decades using weaving techniques passed down from generation to generation.
These pestamels are being introduced just in time for spring and summer, a mix of bright colors and multi functionality make these the season’s perfect accessory! From beach trips, picnic’s in the park, garden parties, wrapping up on a cool spring night, to lounging by the pool the possibilities are endless when it comes to our Turkish towels. Did we mention they are 100% organic cotton, very eco-friendly (wash cool, dry low, its as easy as that)? They only get softer and cozier with every wash!
You can find all the shots from our recent photo shoot on Ella Lou and our Facebook page. Here is a sneak peek of the shots we took recently in Hawaii that haven’t made it to the site yet.
Shop our full collection of pestemals here. Quantities are extremely limited so shop early for the best selection.
Wow, it has been a crazy couple of months! We hope you haven’t missed us too much. Some new and exciting things have been going on with Ella Lou and we want to hare all the happenings with you.
To start off this past week we were invited to attend the Junior League of San Francisco Fashion and Trunk Show event. The event took place in Fort Mason, and they did a fantastic job of setting up and decorating the place. We took all of our product lines to the show and even some new products! We were very pleased with the amount of traffic that came by and had a great time sharing all of the Ella Lou products. Let’s just say everyone was just as excited about our new collection as we are! We cannot wait to share the new Turkish towels on our website in the upcoming weeks, so stay tuned. Overall the event was exciting and hectic at the same time but we cannot wait to do it again next year and go to more fashion/trunk shows in the future.
Now that the show is over we have big plans this week to have a photo shoot with our new line to put on the website. The new line of pestamels is full of color and beautiful combinations like you’ve never seen. Aside from the beautiful patterns, this new collection is also extremely versatile with dozens of uses. We reached out to our followers on Facebook and Instagram to help us come up with a name for the new line and we got tons of good suggestions. With your help we decided to name the collection Breezy. Let’s cross our fingers that the weather behaves for us to get some good shots in this week. Stay tuned for more posts from Ella Lou!
Lindsay at the JLSF Trunk Show
