Our story
The most-touched thing in the kitchen, finally considered.
It's picked up before the kettle's boiled and put down after the last plate is dried. And for decades it's been the one object on the bench nobody actually designed — a supermarket sponge in a plastic sleeve. We started dishcloths.com.au to give it the thought it was always owed: the genuine cloth, original Australian artwork, nothing left as an afterthought.
Where it began
A Swedish invention, an Australian idea.
The reusable dishcloth was invented in Sweden in 1949 — a simple, clever blend of cellulose and cotton designed to replace the kitchen sponge and the paper towel roll in one go. Seventy-odd years on, it's a fixture of European kitchens: sold in butcher-paper bundles, printed with everything from folk art to contemporary illustration, given the same care as a good tea towel or a decent knife.
In Australia, it never really arrived. What did turn up was under-designed and under-loved — plain colours, no story, sold as a vaguely eco-friendly substitute rather than something you'd actually choose. We thought the cloth deserved better than that, and so did the kitchens it was going into. Dishcloths.com.au is our attempt to bring the two together: the craft of the Swedish original, and the design sensibility of a country that's always been better at art than at packaging.
Designed in Australia
Original art, not stock art.
Every design starts on a blank page, not a template library. We commission original artwork from Australian illustrators — native flora and fauna, coastlines, folk motifs, the odd bit of dry Aussie humour — and release it in small, rotating collections rather than an endless, forgettable catalogue.
Where the subject calls for it, we license original work from First Nations artists through the Indigenous Art Code, with the artist named on the cloth and paid properly for the use of their work — not a "First Nations-inspired" print with no artist behind it.
Meet the collectionsThe genuine article
Why the cloth itself matters.
Anyone can drop-ship a generic sponge and call it a Swedish dishcloth. We hold to the real thing the Swedes invented in 1949 — a pressed blend of cellulose and cotton that holds up to sixteen times its own weight in water and dries stiff instead of sour.
It's a small, unglamorous decision that shapes everything else: the cloth wipes streak-free, takes a print properly, survives being boiled, and breaks down cleanly at the end of its life. A cheap generic sponge cloth can't do any of that as well — the spec isn't a marketing line here, it's the reason the thing works.
Read about the materialsFrom sketch to sink
How a cloth actually gets made.
Draw
Every design starts as original artwork — a commissioned illustrator, months of drafts, a banksia or a galah signed off by hand. No clip-art, no AI filler, no reprinting someone else's classic.
The art is set up for water-based pigment printing, driven deep into the weave rather than sublimated onto the surface. That's the difference between colour that fades in a fortnight and colour that survives hundreds of washes.
Cut & pack
Cloths are cut, trimmed and packed with care — paper bands, no plastic sleeve, no foam insert. What leaves the print floor is exactly what turns up in your kitchen.
Use & compost
Wipe it down for six to twelve months — dishwasher, washing machine, boil, repeat — then cut it up and drop it in the home compost. No microplastics, no landfill, nothing left behind.
The specification
What's actually in the cloth.
Nothing here is a trade secret — this is the whole spec, plainly stated.
- 70% FSC-certified cellulose, 30% cotton. The same blend as the original 1949 Swedish cloth, chosen for absorbency and a stiff, streak-free dry.
- Water-based, OEKO-TEX inks. Printed into the fibre rather than coated on top, so there's no plastic laminate sitting between the art and the compost bin.
- Wash-fast through hundreds of cycles. Dishwasher top rack, washing machine, or a two-minute boil to sanitise — and the artwork still looks like day one.
- A working life of six to twelve months. Depending on how hard it's used, genuinely replacing dozens of rolls of paper towel along the way.
How we operate
Some things we think are worth saying plainly.
Australian-owned, start to finish
Dishcloths.com.au is designed, run and shipped from Australia. When you write to us, an Australian reads it and an Australian answers.
Honest about where things come from
The art is drawn in Australia, and we're straight about the cloth — what it's made of and how it's printed — rather than hiding behind vague "ethically sourced" language that says nothing.
No greenwashing
"Compostable" is a claim we intend to prove, not print on a label and hope no one checks. Our sustainability page sets out exactly what we can back up today — and what we're still working toward.
See for yourself
Meet the designs.
Browse the collections, or read exactly how we think about materials and compostability.