Bounty Paper Towels vs Generic Paper Towels: Is the Difference Worth the Price?

 

Quality toilet paper is important to me, but it doesn’t always matter to me about the quality of the paper towels I buy. Everyone is different. I like cheap paper towels–they get the job done just like every other paper towel. Others can’t live without Bounty.

I do love Bounty. I don’t buy it all the time due to what else…cost. In dire need of paper towels, I headed to the store and couldn’t decide whether to try out the new Bounty DuraTowel or just get regular ol’ cheap store brand. I bought both.

ShopRite 2-ply Economy Towel Roll/60 sheets per roll: .69 cents a roll (regular price)

vs

Bounty 2-ply DuraTowel King Roll/49 sheets a roll: $2.19 a roll (no coupon used and it wasn’t on sale)

Typically, I like to spend under .60 cents a roll for paper towels, so paying regular retail price for the Bounty DuraTowel made me cringe. (And as always, I did not receive any incentive from Bounty or ShopRite or anyone else to write this post .) Here are the results:

Without packaging, the two rolls look identical.

Up close, they look pretty similar, too. Bet you can’t tell which is which…

So, I used both paper towels to clean the glass table on the porch (yuck).

And they both picked up dirt well, but of course Bounty is the bigger picker upper or the larger piece on the left.

Then, I washed each piece to see if Bounty would really hold up like it promises.

…and it washed out beautifully and it was ready to be reused.

And I washed out the generic paper towel…

…and of course it didn’t hold up well. It washed out the dirt, but couldn’t be reused.

But what do you expect for .69 cents a roll?

So…the verdict–if I have a coupon for Bounty, I may opt for that over the generic just for a change of pace. I can buy three rolls of generic for one roll of Bounty (without coupon). And, the Bounty towel fell apart after a second washing. So, if I had a coupon for say .25 cents off a roll, doubled to .50 cents, I can buy a Bounty for around $1.69 (which is 2.5 rolls of generic paper towels).

Bottom line: it seems to all even out. Bounty feels soft, great, hefty and can be washed. But would I wash the paper towel every time I used it? Not on your life! I wipe up cat vomit with paper towels, and those would go right in the garbage!

(I’m sure I’ll get some “hate” mail from Bounty fans :–)

Now, if I can get a roll of Bounty DuraTowel for $1 a roll, heck yes, I’d stock up!

~Marilyn, TFF