Blog readers ignored my advice from last month and bought even more bath towels. The Frontgate Resort Cotton Bath Towel was once again our top-selling item. I’m out of jokes and eating my words now, because I too purchased a new towel set in August.
Summer may be ending, but a few of our top picks for travel (namely travel pillows, travel plug adapters, and carry-on luggage) hit the top of the Wirecutter charts this month. Readers also remembered to grab backup Lightning cables, USB phone chargers, and water bottles, all of which are useful accessories for a trip near or far. And if you, like so many other people, are still stocking up on insect repellent, be advised that our favorite brand offers a 3-ounce size that’s safe to pack in your new carry-on bag.
Also popular this month: nonstick pans, bed pillows, air purifiers, umbrellas, mosquito control gear, cable modems, USB-C hubs, surge protectors, electric toothbrushes, robot vacuums, travel mugs, and wireless earbuds.
These are the top picks our readers purchased in August:
1. Turkish Cotton Bath Towel
The Turkish Cotton Bath Towel was the softest and most comfortable plush towel we tried. Thicker than our other picks, it feels luxe and substantial, like a high-quality hotel towel. In our tests, with each wash it felt fuller and plusher, and after a year of use we’ve found that it has held up better than any other towel we’ve tested. It comes in a wide range of rich colors—more choices than any other pick.
In our tests, the Tramontina 10-Inch Professional Restaurant Fry Pan distributed heat more evenly than other nonstick pans thanks to its thick cast-aluminum construction. The flared edge let us easily scrape the corners with a spatula, flip fried eggs, and slide omelets onto a plate. This lightweight pan was easy to maneuver, and we appreciated the comfortable handle, which comes with a removable silicone sheath for heat protection.
The MFi-licensed Anker PowerLine Lightning cable offers everything we look for in a cable at a great price. It can charge every Lightning-equipped device except the iPad Pro at full speed, and it’s built to be sturdy. Plus, Anker stands behind its products more than most companies do.
Our experts agree that there’s no one best pillow for everyone, but in the course of our testing since 2015, we’ve found that the shredded-memory-foam Xtreme Comforts pillow performs very well for side- and back-sleepers. Our testers found it supportive yet not too stiff or firm, and its moldability made it more comfortable than you might imagine for a pillow filled with cut-up foam. A few of the stomach-sleepers on our panel also really liked this pillow.
For a bug blocker that’s safe and effective—and won’t stink or leave a puddle of oil on your skin—skip the DEET and get a picaridin formula like Sawyer Products Premium Insect Repellent with 20% Picaridin. It’s the best bottle of bug spray we found after testing 15 repellents and talking to everyone from the EPA to the American Mosquito Control Association.
and the 
Stand, failed to earn our recommendation simply because they tended to go out of stock often or had fluctuating prices.
turns your charging puck into a cute-as-a-button miniature classic Macintosh, yet it’s still functional, quite stable, and affordable.
, the 
is your only option.
, from one of Best Buy’s in-house brands, works well but is a bit more expensive than the Ugreen cable and offers no extra benefits or improvements.
looks similar to the Dodocool model we recommend but is more expensive without being faster or having any other material benefits.
is less of a stand and more of a charging puck with a USB-A connector attached. It may be useful for travel, but we think most people would be better off buying a cable for half the price.
has some features that are appealing on paper but not so much in practice. Two USB-A ports reside on the back, for example, but the combined output is only 2.1 amps. (The Amazon listing suggests not charging three devices at once because it will be “very slow.”) The dock also has a 600 mAh battery inside, but that’s rather superfluous for something that’s meant to be plugged in and is too large to travel with.
performed almost identically to the Choetech power bank, we found the latter’s charging dock more valuable since it could double as a stand.
is a good choice if you need a dedicated backup for your Apple Watch, as it offers a charge and a half in a compact design. But it has no USB-A output, a feature we think is useful enough to pay extra for.
typically costs more than the Choetech model we recommend but provides less than half the charging power and doesn’t offer USB-A output.
, which looks very similar to the Spigen S350 but adds two nifty cable-management grooves—instead of sticking out the side, as on the S350, the charging cable routes neatly out the back. The Moko stand was a contender to be our top pick, but we decided against it because of inconsistent availability. If it’s available when you’re shopping and you prefer its aesthetics, the Moko stand is a very good alternative to the Spigen stand.
is similar to the Spigen S350 but has no support ledge, so your watch can fall off the stand if you press the snooze button too firmly when the watch is in Nightstand mode. Typically it’s also quite a bit more expensive than the Spigen.
looks like a nice combination of the best features of the Spigen and ElevationLab stands, though it’s a bit larger than each. Unfortunately, instead of a nanosuction bottom or silicone feet, it uses a 3M adhesive base that’s essentially permanent. We don’t think most people want an adhesive base, making this model difficult to recommend.
is made of a material similar to that of the 
looks nice for an inexpensive stand and has a ledge on the front to set your iPhone (though you’ll then have the iPhone’s cable also sticking out the side). But it holds an Apple Watch with the screen facing the ceiling, making it difficult to see the screen while the watch is charging. In addition, the design of the cable groove makes it too easy for the charger cable to slip out, and if you have a closed watch band and you use the ledge for your iPhone, you have to move your phone out of the way to take your watch off the stand.
is a heavy and expensive option, but it’s a good choice if you want something more premium.
is attractive and stable thanks to a heavy, leather-covered base and chrome-covered hardware. Its curved arm lets your watch sit in either portrait or landscape orientation. However, despite its high price, it requires you to use your watch’s own charging cable and puck, and because the cable isn’t firmly attached to the stand—you just press it into a groove in the back of the arm—the cable works its way loose over time.
is one of the nicer-looking models that use the watch’s own charger, and it’s very stable thanks to its wide base. However, the watchband slot in the HiRise’s pedestal looks somewhat unsightly without a band threaded through it. We’d rather spend a bit more for something like Belkin’s Watch Valet, which looks even nicer and includes its own charger.
is an attractive metal stand that uses the watch’s own charger. And like the HiRise, it costs too much for a stand that doesn’t include a charger.
costs less than many premium stands, but its plastic body looks less expensive, the stand requires you to use your own charging cable and puck, and we didn’t like how high (nearly 6 inches) it lifts the Apple Watch off the stand’s base.
is handsome but lacks any sort of alignment indicator.
doesn’t work with iPhones from 2018, including the iPhone XS.
requires you to provide your own cables for both the iPhone and the Apple Watch.
looks great and is as fast as any other watch-and-phone combo charger. It features a 7.5-watt wireless charging pad for an iPhone, a 5-watt charging pad for an Apple Watch, and a USB-A port for charging other devices. But itʼs just too darn expensive for us to recommend.
takes Twelve South’s HiRise 2 Deluxe (
is similar to our top phone-and-watch pick, as it uses the same MFi-licensed phone and watch chargers, but we like the look of the Zens model better. If you prefer the Belkin PowerHouse’s white-plastic design, it’s a solid option that costs a bit less.