Hooded Poncho Towel

It was a day around the time my second child was becoming a one-year-old. After taking a bath the two children, took them out of the bathtub and were about to dry them with a towel - neither of them could stand it any longer and ran out naked. (I am a mother of two sons...) One runs into the living room and the other runs into the master bedroom. It was winter, and I was so anxious about them catching a cold.

As you know, this is how it goes - If one of the two children catches a cold, one of the parents ends up sick after being unable to sleep for a week and having a weakened immune system while nursing a series of colds... I hurriedly picked up a random towel and ran to the second child to dry him, shake off his hair, find a new towel, hold the first child, and dry him off... What a mess. The floor was soaked with water spilled by the children, my clothes were half-wet, my hair was messy, and both children were rolling around naked playing with the toys. I had no idea where I was or who I was. And then I realized. 'This is the scene I will face every evening from now on as I raise two sons... '

As a side note, both of my kids walk fast. My oldest child started walking well at 9 months, and as expected, my second child started walking in the same way, and by the time he turned 1, he could walk well on his own. And once he started walking better, bathing him became more difficult than ever. The kids suddenly run away... And we are just coming to catch them and they think it's the new game of catch...

Appropriate products are essential as children grow and parenting enters a new phase. I searched the internet and found out about the existence of hooded towels. They say it is a type of towel that is worn over the head. I bought a hooded towel that was highly sold on the internet. It was a cozy looking towel made of microfiber. But for some reason, because it is made of microfiber, it did not absorb the moisture well. I pressed it hard and wiped it thoroughly, but his crotch area was so wet! (A mother with a son who can't stand wet groin...)

I'm not giving up here. I'm the type of person who persistently keeps buying until I find something I like. Next, I purchased a hooded towel made of gauze material. The material used in towels for wiping newborn saliva is gauze, right? The absorption was really excellent. However, due to the nature of the gauze, it was too thin and had no elasticity, which made it difficult for my hefty second child to put it on and take it off. Next, purchase additional hooded towels made of 100% cotton terry. Terry fabric is a fabric that has one side woven into a loop like a towel. The problem is that the hooded towel fabric I purchased is made for clothing, not towels, so it is too thin to be used as a towel. Once the cloth was wet, he was becoming cold so quickly.

Since I can't find anything I like in Korea, I search overseas websites to buy towels - a famous brand of hooded towels. It was 100% cotton and made of actual towel fabric, and the design was fairy-looking! I was happy that I could finally settle down with this product.

However, this cute towel also had two fatal flaws.

1) Every time it is taken off, he cries as his head gets stuck. (For reference, my younger son's head size is in the top 5%.)
2) It is 100% cotton and absorbs moisture well but is not soft. (Just like the one in our parents' house, they look a bit stiff - perhaps because they were dried in the sun instead of in the dryer? That's how it feels)

At that time, there was an idiom that passed through my head - A thirsty man digs a well. I desperately needed an excellent hooded towel to ease my suffering. so I decided to make something that didn't require me to scream at my kids after bath time, and that I didn't have to wrestle with every time he took it off. There was no hooded towel on earth that I was satisfied with.

To sum up, it took a year to develop a hooded towel that I liked. As those of you who know Konny may understand the process of us making products is quite persistent - by making clothes out of fabric on a mannequin, you skip the basting process to see how they fit, and you make what you thought into real clothes and then we try them on to the kids. Through my real experience and time of raising my kids, I was dressing them, taking them off, washing and folding them every day, analyzing the materials and adjusting the fit. As a result, it takes quite a bit of time. However, developing items this way has a high chance of success. From the customer’s perspective, I get to know firsthand the good and the bad since we can fix any shortcomings before launching, which leads us to only provide good things to our customers.
Since we decided to make the world's coolest hooded towel, we had to find excellent materials first. There was a valuable learning lesson I learned while experiencing numerous failures during my time as a non-satisfied hooded towel user.

1) Long-haired microfiber towels are soft but have poor absorbency
2) 100% cotton towels have good absorbency but are not soft enough.

Since I have experienced shortcomings in both materials, I started searching excluding microfiber and 100% cotton. In terms of materials, the two things that could never be compromised were ‘excellent absorbency’ and ‘softness’. When a baby comes out of a bath in warm water, the baby's tender skin becomes even softer which is why the towel it touches the skin must be fine and soft. After consulting with our product team, we finally narrowed down the direction to Bamboo materials. Although bamboo material is more expensive than cotton, it is dramatically absorbent and softer.

We selected the highest quality bamboo cotton towel material and tested it for four months, modifying the shape and fit. However, the material was ultimately dropped. When we increased the weight to the desired thickness, the towel became heavier, and the price became too expensive. Even though we have no distribution margin, customers need at least two hooded towels to raise a baby - and 70,000 won (US$ 70)for each hooded towel was nonsense. I didn't want to make a product where people had to buy only one because of the price even if they wanted to buy two.

I was racking my brain with the product team for about two days and a good idea came to me. When weaving the fabric, all you had to do was weave the inner and outer materials differently! I decided to use the same bamboo cotton blend material for the lining that touches the skin, and use light and fluffy microfiber for the outer surface. That's how we created a thick yet lightweight towel material with excellent absorbency and softness. Thanks to the microfiber that densely covers the outside, body temperature remains warm even when the inside gets wet. We were able to meet the unit price by moving the fabric production overseas and testing weaving with various specifications.
The most important thing I focused on when designing the hooded towel was that it had to be easy to put on and take off. My youngest son has a rather large head, and every time I tried to take the hooded towel off that was fixed around his neck, he had to cry at least once. So, I researched a form that could be removed 'like peeling off' a child when he or she is obsessed with a toy. We decided to attach a total of 5 snaps, 3 on the shoulders and 1 under each armpits. When you open all the snaps, the clothes just slurp to the side.

Originally, the hooded towel was made because bathing my youngest son was too difficult, but my oldest son asked if he had one of his own. At the time, my oldest son was 5 years old and quite tall, so I ended up making a kids robe... The kids' robe was made with a lot of reference to the design of 5-star hotel robes, including the double hemming technique where the ends are double rolled and sewn.

We made a separate waist strap attached to the robe, unlike other adult robes. In the first sample, the waist strap was made to be detachable like an adult robe, and it was quite annoying to find and attach the separated waist strap every time I washed the laundry. If I didn't get it right in the center, the strap would hang down on one side and get dragged on the water-soaked bathroom floor, causing only the waist strap to get wet. Once I attached the waist strap, which I had always had trouble with, it became very convenient.

How would my life change after completing the Hooded Towel and Kids Robe? I feel like I live in a whole new world! When there were no hooded towels, I couldn't comfortably take a bath with my kids - always busy chasing after naked sons running outside.

But now it is so easy! Just put on a hooded towel and send them out, and I can take my time even cleaning up the bathroom. When I go out, my kids play for 5 or 10 minutes in a hooded towel and kid's robe. They're enjoying yogurt and having fun, regardless of the summer air conditioning or the cold midwinter draft. Since I don't have to worry about them catching a cold, I can slowly dress them when I'm ready. Control of time has been completely handed over to me. So even if I go on a short trip with my family, I always bring a hooded towel and kids robe.

Konny is a brand that aims to make life easier and better as a parent. This hooded towel and kid's robe are products that make parenting easier. As a parent who wants to buy multiple sets, I set the price reasonably. Our material is better than the 100,000 won robe I saw at a 5-star hotel gift shop. Selling a lot of these products is a way to contribute to the parents in the world. This is because it is a product that relieves the worries and troubles of caregivers. I can confidently recommend these products. You won't regret it :)