Cruising with the Towel Animals

Towel animals are, as the name suggests, animals made from towels. They are especially popular on cruise ships and in luxury hotels, but people also enjoy making their own at home as a hobby.

Like real animals (if you happen to believe Charles Darwin), towel animals have evolved. It is thought the idea grew from the delicate Japanese art of origami – folding paper to make sculptures. Around much longer than towel animals - napkin animals perhaps followed ancient origami. Restaurants and hotels have for a long time liked to make animals from the napkins on their tables, and everybody has probably seen a napkin swan at some point.

Sadly, napkin animals seem to be dying out now, an endangered species (although probably more due to restaurant fashions than climate change), but happily towel animals are going strong.

Passengers on cruise ships will come back to their room to find staff have created any number of animals from their towels. Some of the most popular are swans (the old classic) elephants, seals, monkeys (which hang from coat hangers) and bunnies. As well as being the shape of animals, towel animals are often decorated with little eyes or other delicate additions that bring them to life.

One cruise line even allows passengers to pre-order what animals they would like in their room!

So how do you make a towel animal? First, of course, you need a towel. Luxury bath towels for elephants, foot or hand towels for monkeys, or if you’re feeling particularly dextrous you could use a face flannel to make a mouse (this should maybe be left until some expertise in the craft has been gained though! And we are not aware of anyone who has yet been able to craft a towel ant).

Once you have chosen your towel, it’s time to start making your chosen animal. We will give the example of an elephant:

1) Fold the towel in half

2) Roll both sides towards the middle

3) Tug the middle out to make the ears

4) Roll the long part upwards to make the trunk

That’s the head – done!

Now for the body (use a second towel):

1) Using tight rolls, roll each side towards the middle

2) Fold the towel in half, making 4 rolls in total

3) Pull the corners out of each roll

4) Pull the bottom and top corners away from each other. This will make the body.

Don’t forget to decorate with eyes and noses from buttons or whatever you have available, and to give your towel animal a name! Oh, and freshly washed towels are best – they are easy to mould (as well as more pleasant, obviously).

It’s nice to think of towel animals on cruise ships really being the ones who run the show on board ship. Or maybe they just do as they please, sneaking out of rooms and meeting up for a party below deck, where the champagne and oysters flow while they dance to old sea shanties until the sun comes up (by which time they have to slyly slip back into the rooms without being noticed).

Some cruise ships can carry around 3,000 passengers, and are around 1,000 feet long – that’s room for a lot of towel animals! Even with the elephants. The towel animals are good, fun way to make passengers feel more comfortable and relaxed on their long journeys. But if cruising isn’t for you, or if you just can’t wait until your next one to see your favourite animals, why not have a go at making towel animals at home.

Written by Juliet Wood. The Towel Shop residential Copywriter. You can follow her on Google+ or leave a comment below for a response to this article.