Oval Loofah Pad with Cotton Terry Back and Hand Strap

An oval pad that sits along the palm rather than across it. At 16 × 12.5 cm and 20 g it is the smaller of our two loofah discs, and the elongated shape is the reason: your hand runs the length of it, so the pad goes where your fingers point.

The front face is dried loofah — the fibrous skeleton left behind when a Luffa aegyptiaca fruit matures and dries out. The back is cotton terry. Sewn across that terry face is a single diagonal cotton strap: slip your fingers under it and the pad stays put without being gripped. A cotton loop at one end is there for hanging.

The whole perimeter is bound with cream cotton bias tape, which is what stops the cut edge of the loofah from fraying. It is the detail that decides whether a loofah pad lasts three weeks or falls apart in one.

Loofah works by abrasion, and it works with soap. Soak the pad in warm water for half a minute first — the fibre is stiff when dry and softens as it takes on water, so how firm it feels is up to you. Then work a bar of soap or a little body wash into it and use it on damp skin.

Turn it over and the terry face is a washcloth: lather, rinse, or a gentler pass over skin you have just worked. Two surfaces, one pad, no swapping tools mid-shower.

Arms, legs, chest, shoulders — the places you can reach comfortably. For the middle of the back you want length rather than a disc, which is what our back straps are for.

The smaller face is the point here. A big pad covers ground faster but it also skates over the places that are not flat — an ankle, a collarbone, the inside of an elbow. An oval this size stays in contact on those.

On first use it will feel firmer than you expect. Soak it longer than you think you need to, the first few times. Dried plant fibre takes a little while to learn how much water it can hold, and a pad that has been soaked properly feels like a different object.

This is a loofah, not a kese, and the two are used differently. A kese grips clean unsoaped skin and rolls the surface layer away in visible ribbons. A loofah abrades with soap and lifts that layer more gradually while it cleans. In a hammam they are two separate steps.

Care is simple and it is almost all about drying. Rinse after your shower, squeeze the water out and hang it by the cotton loop where air moves. Loofah dries quickly when it can breathe and slowly when it sits flat on a shelf. Machine washable on a delicate cycle. Replace every three to four weeks with regular use — a loofah that has gone soft and stays damp has finished its working life.

Made by hand in Türkiye. The loofah is grown, dried and cut rather than moulded, so fibre density and the exact shade of the front face vary from one pad to the next. There is no plastic in it: no nylon mesh, no polyester thread, nothing that sheds microplastic into the drain. Undyed throughout.