World News – Page 9

Emerald Fennell’s film of Wuthering Heights, starring Australian actors Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff and Margot Robbie as Catherine, bills itself as the “greatest love story of all time”. A poll of British readers agreed.

But what would Heathcliff think?

Heathcliff, if you’ve not read the book, seen one of the many adaptations, or heard Kate Bush’s iconic song, is the protagonist of Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë’s sole novel (published originally under the pseudonym Ellis Bell). He’s the ethnically ambiguous foster child of the Earnshaw family, who live in the titular Wuthering Heights on the windswept, desolate Yorkshire moors: the backdrop for his obsessive, doomed relationship with his foster-sister Catherine.

The new film poster evokes a romance ‘clinch cover’.

Supplied

. The novel’s narrator, housekeeper Nelly Dean, chastises him for how badly he’s treating her. Isabella loves him, Nelly tells Heathcliff reproachfully, or she would not have abandoned the comforts of her home in the warm, welcoming, comfortable Thrushcross Grange to marry him and live him in the cold, dreary Wuthering Heights.

“She abandoned them under a delusion,” Heathcliff sneers in response, “picturing in me a hero of romance, and expecting unlimited indulgences from my chivalrous devotion.”

Here, Heathcliff explicitly rejects the idea he is any kind of romantic hero. However, for more than a century, he has been interpreted as one, with his intense connection with Catherine – a passion that endures long past her death – captivating audiences.

Indeed, this kind of romantic positioning is evident on the film poster, depicting Heathcliff and Catherine. It is strongly reminiscent of a “clinch cover”: common among historical romance novels published in the late 20th and early 21st century (most infamously associated with male model Fabio).

Plenty of modern readers agree with Heathcliff’s self-assessment, though. “Heathcliff from ‘Wuthering Heights’ isn’t a romantic anti-hero,” reads the headline of one article by Christopher Shultz, “he’s a f#$%ing monster”.

A romance?

People regularly claim Wuthering Heights as their favourite romance novel, to the exasperation of romance readers and writers. It might be considered a love story, but Wuthering Heights is not a romance.

This is clear if we look at it against the (embattled) Romance Writers of America definition: a romance novel needs a central love plot and an emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending. Other 19th-century classics fit the bill – Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, for instance – but Wuthering Heights does not.

Even the biggest fans of the book would probably not argue Heathcliff and Catherine’s relationship is in any way healthy.

Warner Bros Pictures

The love story between Heathcliff and Catherine is certainly the element of the book most readers remember – and, indeed, many adaptations focus on it almost entirely. However, the couple are never actually together in any formal way, and their tortured relationship consumes surprisingly little page space.

Notably, Catherine dies approximately halfway through the book. While Heathcliff is tormented by grief for the rest of it, the primary action shifts to their children. This makes it difficult to argue theirs is a “central” love story.

Given Catherine’s death and Heathcliff’s subsequent misery, it is also difficult to make a case that Wuthering Heights has an optimistic ending.

The book ends with a potentially happy union between Catherine’s daughter (also named Catherine) and her cousin Hareton, and the suggestion Heathcliff and his Catherine might be wandering the moors together as ghosts. This is arguably emotionally satisfying – they are together in death the way they were never in life – but not really optimism, especially taking into account the many lives they destroyed along the way.

Dark dynamics

So – if Wuthering Heights is not a romance per se, can we argue that it is romantic?

This hinges on how we define romantic. There’s no doubt that it’s Romantic, with a capital R. Wuthering Heights is deeply influenced by Romanticism, a literary and artistic movement which emphasised intense feeling and passion over logic and reason.

Modern conceptions of romance, though, place more of an emphasis on intimacy, closeness and overall functionality. Britain’s Romantic Novel of the Year awards, for instance, require a “healthy relationship dynamic between the main characters” – and even the biggest fans of the book would find it hard to argue Heathcliff and Catherine’s relationship is in any way healthy.

This said, some of the most popular romance subgenres at the moment revel in dynamics which are – like Heathcliff and Catherine’s – dangerous, intense, destructive and toxic. Dark romance is the most notable example.

Amoral people, illicit passion

As English professor David Shumway notes in his book Modern Love, romantic love was long considered a “destructive passion” – something that was a threat to marriage, rather than its building block. He writes:

In the nineteenth century, romance became grafted onto marriage, but it has never become entirely at ease with the union. This combination produced a tension within the discourse because [romance’s] essential characteristics derive from adulterous love.

Wuthering Heights was published in 1847, right in the middle of the 19th century. In it, we see this tension between companionate marital love and adulterous passion played out. Catherine swears repeatedly that she loves her husband Edgar, but this is at best an uneasy love: a pale shadow of the immense, destructive passion she has for Heathcliff.

“You loved me — then what right had you to leave me?” Heathcliff demands of Catherine on her deathbed.

you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine.

The appeal of a genre like dark romance – of which Wuthering Heights is surely an ancestor – is its excessive intensity. While dark romance today ends happily, the intensity of Heathcliff and Catherine’s adulterous passion might have been muted if they had ended up together in romantic bliss – and, as a result, this book might not be half so compelling.

Speaking broadly, Heathcliff and Catherine are two mostly amoral people who bring destruction to the lives of everyone around them (as well as each other). Whether or not we consider it “romantic”, it is the force of their illicit passion that has made Wuthering Heights memorable.

Jodi McAlister received an Romance Writers of America academic grant in 2019.

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

February 14, 2026

Why being hopeful is more radical than ever now

Source: Radio New Zealand

The most radical thing that you can do right now is hope, according to acclaimed British playwright Simon Stephens.

Best known for his Tony and Olivier award-winning adaption of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Stephens says sharing an experience with people who you might disagree with politically, ideologically or culturally has never been more radical than now.

“It’s an increasingly rare thing nowadays to go and sit in a room with people you don’t know and share an experience, to look in the same direction and engage in the same story together … to turn your phone off and look in the same direction with people who you not only might not know, but if you did know them, you might not agree with them about some things,” Stephens told Saturday Morning.

Playwright Simon Stephens accepts the award for Best Play for “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” onstage at the Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall on 7 June, 2015 in New York City.

Theo Wargo / Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions / AFP

.”

He admits it may sound “hopelessly romantic”, but he truly believes it.

Despite the challenges theatre has faced, especially since Covid, it needs to persevere, he says.

He draws a parallel with the decade following the World War II – a period when playhouses across Europe were physically and financially devastated. Yet by 1956, the works of the likes of Irish playwright Samuel Beckett and German playwright Bertolt Brecht felt like a creative revolution, he says.

“Part of me thinks 2026 could have the same optimism.”

Simon Stephens: World’s most hopeful playwright

Saturday Morning

Stephens is drawn to the observations of actor and writer Peter Ustinov, who reiterated that an optimist was a person who understood how sad and miserable the world could be. But facing the world with that knowledge is brave, Stevens says.

“I always take the notion that optimism and hope will always be the radical option,” he says.

“It’s always been difficult. It’s not the most difficult time ever. It’s a time which is kind of charged with a grip of a kind of neoliberal technology that’s like paralysing people’s imagination and leading people into a polarised position of fear, and that is monetising fear and monetising polarisation.

“There’s a rank dishonesty and a kind of like unapologetic capital drive to that that I kind of have a fair contempt for, but I think what happens when you go to a theatre, what happens when you go to a gig, what happens when you look at art, proper art, what happens when you engage in real storytelling is you realise the complexities and the nuance of the world, and you realise that there is a determination in the kind of human spirit to keep going.

“You realise that polarisation is a pernicious lie and that the nature of the human animal is really one of contradiction and complexity and uncertainty and that’s the thing that theatre can provide. That’s what theatre is for. It’s what it’s always been for.”

Now one of the world’s most performed living writers for theatre with over 45 plays to his name, Stephens didn’t actually aspire to have a show on in London’s West End when he was younger.

“The writers who most inspired me when I was a teenager, when I was a kid, were songwriters. I kind of went to the type of school that if you kind of like admitted to somebody that you wanted to be a writer or that you liked English or you like reading or you like writing, you just get thumped.

“So, the one art form that allowed a kind of celebration of linguistic expression was songwriting.

“It was only when I was in my 20s that I realised that I had a really quite singularly terrible singing voice and that I was never going to make it as a singer-songwriter. And it was also then that I started going to the theatre for the first time and realised the kind of like kinetic connection between the two art forms, the liveness and the unpredictability, the volatility.”

Stephens is hosting the inaugural Playwrights Workshop as part of the Auckland Theatre Company’s new three-year masterclass project.

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

February 13, 2026

The dangers of living by your ‘love language’

Source: Radio New Zealand

Do you need words of affirmation? Quality time? Acts of service? Gifts? Or physical touch?

Figuring out your “love language” has become one of the most successful relationship ideas of the past two decades. Why? Because the idea is simple, flattering and easy to apply.

While incredibly popular and often used as a “go-to” tool on first dates, recent research suggests that the idea lacks strong scientific evidence for its central claims.

Gary Chapman’s five love languages – words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service, or physical touch – are based on his reported experience working with couples as their pastor.

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Introduced by Gary Chapman, an American Baptist pastor, author and marriage counsellor, in his 1992 book The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts, the idea is now a dominant framework in modern relationship advice.

Instead of scientific theory, love languages function like a culturally appealing system that individualises relational strain, obscures power and substitutes a checklist for the harder work of understanding how relationships actually function over time.

A simple idea replacing scientific evidence

The popularity of love languages is exactly what makes them an archetype of bad pop psychology as they package a complex set of relational processes into a simple idea, providing a memorable vocabulary, and then get treated as explanation, diagnosis and solution all at once.

Most notably, this framework emerges from a pastoral counselling context rather than systematic research, and its core claim — that people have a stable primary language that should be matched for relational success — doesn’t apply well to how relational needs operate.

Figuring out how you give and receive love has become one of the most successful relationship ideas of the past two decades.

Hiveboxx / Unsplash+

People typically value all five domains: quality time, words of affirmation, receiving gifts, acts of service and physical touch. They shift depending on stress, life stage, illness, caregiving demands and conflict history.

What gets named as a “primary” language is often better understood as a moving indicator of current deprivation – “this is what I’m not getting” – and not a durable trait. Because the categories are broad and emotionally resonant, they also invite the Barnum effect, in which the model feels deeply accurate precisely because it is flexible enough to fit most people most of the time.

When intimacy becomes a simplified checklist

Another problem with the five love languages is what they do to how people think about relational support. They turn intimacy into a problem of translation: if you just deliver the right behaviours in the right format, your partner will feel loved.

That can push couples toward transactional care (“I did your language, so you should be satisfied”) and away from curiosity and context (“What is happening for you this week? What support do you actually need?”). It also promotes a form of individualisation in which relational issues become framed as mismatched preferences instead of relational processes that require ongoing work.

Once the label enters the relationship, it can function like a conversational dead end.

It also doesn’t seriously address conflict regulation, responsiveness or how couples cope under stress, all of which are areas where relationship science has far more to say. Many “love language” conflicts are not actually about the absence of gifts or affirmation, but are about chronic misattunement, uneven emotional labour, perceived disregard or an unsafe climate.

The structural conditions love languages ignore

Love languages can also obscure power and normalise inequality.

Some categories are easily folded into gendered divisions of labour, like how acts of service and emotional affirmation often land on women as feminised care work, while other partners receive the benefits without addressing uneven burdens.

The framework also sidesteps structural constraints like poverty, disability, illness, class and religious norms that shape what is possible.

When someone is overworked, sick or carrying the relationship’s invisible labour, the problem is rarely that their “language” is being spoken incorrectly. It is these relational and structural conditions make mutuality difficult, and “speaking languages” can become a way to manage the symptoms while leaving the conditions untouched.

The model is also particularly risky where consent and vulnerability are involved. Physical touch as a love language, for example, can be used to moralise access to someone else’s body, especially in contexts of sexual pleasure, coercion, post-partum recovery, trauma or chronic pain.

The love languages framework tends to treat touch as an unambiguous good instead of a context-sensitive practice shaped by consent, safety, timing and bodily autonomy.

Getty Images / Unsplash +

The love languages framework tends to treat touch as an unambiguous good instead of a context-sensitive practice shaped by consent, safety, timing and bodily autonomy. (Unsplash)

What sustains relationships beyond labels

The love languages framework tends to treat touch as an unambiguous good instead of a context-sensitive practice shaped by consent, safety, timing and bodily autonomy in health contexts like having cancer, disability, medication changes and depression. Intimacy largely shifts because bodies and conditions shift.

A model that encourages partners to “deliver touch” can easily misfire when what’s needed is patience, alternative sexual scripts and coordinated coping, not increased physical contact as proof of love.

Above all, love languages only thrive because they are marketable. They offer the satisfaction of self-knowledge, compatibility narratives and quick fixes.

Relationships, of course, are not solved by personalisation alone. Importantly, they are shaped by mutual responsiveness, practical and emotional equity, the ability to repair after harm and the capacity to adapt to changing bodies and lives.

If love languages are useful at all, it is as a thin starting vocabulary for talking about care, and not as a diagnostic framework or substitute for confronting misattunement, power and the real conditions that make intimacy sustainable.

Maha Khawaja is a PhD Student at McMaster University.

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

February 12, 2026

James Van Der Beek was synonymous with Dawson. This is why he embraced it

Source: Radio New Zealand

A beloved early 2000s heart-throb, Dawson’s Creek actor James Van Der Beek never shook off the character that shot him to fame.

But how he leaned into it, playing himself in Don’t Trust the B in Apartment 3 and numerous other cameos, enshrined his legacy as one of TV’s most sensitive leading men, baring his soul on and off the screen.

“It’s tough to compete with something that was the cultural phenomenon that Dawson’s Creek was,” he told Vulture in 2013.

“It ran for so long. That’s a lot of hours playing one character in front of people. So it’s natural that they associate you with that.”

James Van Der Beek, star of Dawson’s Creek, has died. The news was shared in an Instagram post.

Instagram

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Van Der Beek’s family announced on Thursday morning that he died of colorectal cancer, which he told fans he was receiving treatment for in 2024.

“Our beloved James David Van Der Beek passed peacefully this morning,” a statement from the actor’s family on Instagram read.

“He met his final days with courage, faith and grace. There is much to share regarding his wishes, love for humanity and the sacredness of time.

“Those days will come.”

Iconic characters

Van Der Beek’s first major film role was in Varsity Blues, playing a second-string high school quarterback who rises to the challenge when the star suffers an injury.

His character, Mox, yearns for a college education to escape his small Texas town, where football is everything.

“I don’t want your life,” he screams in one of the film’s most recognisable lines.

While still a cult classic to many ’90s kids, for most people, he will be forever tied to Dawson’s Creek, playing the titular character Dawson Leery from 1998 to 2003.

The clip of Dawson bursting into full, body-shaking tears as the breeze blows through his hair in the finale of season three became one of the most infamous GIFs of all time, replicated millions of times in online conversations.

The scene was the peak of a seasons-long story arc about Dawson watching his soulmate, Joey, played by Katie Holmes, get together with his best friend, Pacey.

The stars of Dawson’s Creek: Joshua Jackson, Katie Holmes, James Van Der Beek, and Michelle Williams.

Photo12 via AFP

“It wasn’t scripted that I was supposed to cry; it was just one of those things where it’s a magical moment and it just happens in the scene,” Van Der Beek told Vanity Fair.

“All of a sudden, six years of work was boiled down to one seven-second clip on loop.”

Yet in life after Dawson’s Creek, he came around to embracing the character that resonated with so many, even recreating the scene for a skit on Funny Or Die.

Van Der Beek played a fictionalised version of himself as well as cameos as Dawson Leery in several shows and movies.

The most prominent was his role in Don’t Trust the B in apartment 23, which ran for two seasons from 2012.

As a parody of himself, his character was arrogant, self-centred, and shamelessly self-promoting, taking on increasingly bizarre roles to try restarting his career.

James Van Der Beek plays himself in Don’t Trust the B in Apartment 23.

Getty Images/Kelsey McNeal

‘Clown in a leading man’s body’

He also made a cameo as himself in the movie Jay and Silent Bob Reboot, and played Dawson Leerey in Scary Movie.

“The more you make fun of yourself and don’t try to go for any kind of respect, the more people seem to respect you,” he told Vanity Fair in 2011.

“I’ve always been a clown trapped in a leading man’s body.”

Between 2003 and 2013, he made appearances in shows like Criminal Minds, One Tree Hill, and How I Met Your Mother.

He also co-created and played Wesley “Diplo” Pentz, a dull but likeable music producer in the mockumentary satire on Viceland, What Would Diplo Do?

Van Der Beek tried his hand at several reality television competitions, too, becoming a fan favourite on the 28th season of TV contest Dancing with the Stars, finishing fifth overall.

His dance partner, Emma Slater, wrote a tribute on Instagram about their lasting friendship.

“I’m so grateful for you and all you have done for me. Your kindness, patience and empathy for others is unmatched,” she wrote on Instagram.

Last year, he was revealed to be the Griffin on The Masked Singer after two performances.

James Van Der Beek shared this photo with his daughter two weeks before his death.

Supplied/Instagram

Vulnerability shared online

His emotional side, which was immortalised in many tributes from former co-stars and friends, came across in his personal social media accounts, depicting his family’s life in Texas with wife Kimberly Brook and six children.

Van Der Beek’s Instagram account was known for beautifully shot photos of his children and long, heartfelt captions.

“She turned 7 yesterday. My little gem of a human,” he wrote in a post about his daughter’s birthday last year.

“Every time you wrap those tiny arms around my neck for a hug, I revel in how blessed I am to be your dad, and how lucky I am to know you at this age.”

A photo of his family shared on the star’s Instagram.

Instagram/James Van Der Beek

In March last year, he wrote a long tribute to his wife for helping him through his illness.

“There were many moments this past year when the only thing you could’ve done … and the most helpful thing you could’ve done … was to just allow me to be exactly where I was at in my process,” he wrote.

“As agonizing as it was for you. That took a strength I don’t know that I have. As much as it’s sucked to be me at times… I’d wouldn’t for a second have traded places — and not because I’m that altruistic — because I don’t think I could have taken it.”

In his final months, he continued to share about navigating his illness online.

In a post late last year, Van Der Beek spoke about how he found comfort in meditating outside and urged people over 45 to get an early detection test for colorectal cancer.

“If I had caught it early.. The what ifs are a slippery slope,” he said in a video while sitting cross-legged under an oak tree on his property.

“I would like to save anybody I could from having to go into that what-if spiral.”

He walks with one of his sons, tossing a football around.

“The sooner you know it when it comes to cancer, the better off you’ll be.”

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

February 12, 2026

A new wave of romance scams is washing across the internet – here’s how to stay safe

Source: Radio New Zealand

Romance scams are among the most emotionally damaging forms of cybercrime because they combine carefully manufactured intimacy with financial theft – the scammers go after your heart, and then your wallet.

Scammers use common dating apps to find victims and start online relationships, then trick their victims into buying fake cryptocurrency.

Importantly, the romance scammers’ toolkit has changed in recent years. Artificial intelligence (AI) has lowered the cost of impersonation. Convincing profile photos can be generated in minutes, affectionate conversations can be auto-generated, and “proof” of identity can now be faked through voice and video.

These days, convincing profile photos can be generated in minutes, affectionate conversations auto-generated, and “proof” of identity faked.

cottonbro studio / Pexels

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In the lead-up to Valentine’s Day, dating apps get busier. So how can we stay safe from romance scammers?

Anatomy of a romance scam

Romance scams rely on a small number of psychological levers, applied repeatedly. Finding their victims online through various platforms, romance scammers accelerate intimacy, often expressing strong feelings unusually early. Then, they isolate their target.

Often, the entire romance scam quite literally follows a script and plays out like this.

First, the “dating” profile of the scammer appears highly credible. Scammers use attractive photos – increasingly AI-generated or stolen – paired with plausible personal details and consistent messaging.

Second, the scammer pushes to move the conversation off the app. WhatsApp, Telegram or text messages are pitched as more convenient or more private. This shift is key. Once the victim has been persuaded to move the communications off the dating app, they lose access to built-in safety features that could help to protect them. If they’re using their real email address or phone number, this also potentially exposes more of their personal details to the scammer.

Third comes the financial request. The scammer may cite a believable excuse – travel problems, banking issues, family emergencies. But it’s not always an urgent plea for help. Many scams now evolve into investment fraud, where victims are steered into fake profit-making opportunities, often involving cryptocurrency.

Victims may be encouraged to invest “together” or are shown screenshots of supposed past profits. Because the scam is framed as a shared future rather than a request for cash, it can go unrecognised.

It’s harder to tell who’s a real person

Treat investment advice or requests for money as a bright-red flag.

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AI strengthens these tactics by making the scams much easier to scale up. Automated tools allow scammers to maintain frequent, emotionally warm conversations across multiple victims with minimal effort.

For years, video calls functioned as an informal identity check. If you could see someone talk and respond in real time, you would feel confident you were talking to a real person.

Now, generative AI-powered deepfakes – artificial video or audio designed to imitate a person – are increasingly accessible for scammers to use.

A simple face-swapping or voice-cloning tool can be persuasive over a short call. The scammer only needs enough plausibility to move a conversation past doubt. When the victim is already emotionally invested, they ignore red flags more easily.

How can you stay safe online?

While AI makes romance scams more convincing, effective defences do exist.

You can still date online safely – as long as you stay vigilant and follow some easy steps to verify the people you engage with.

Slowing the relationship down remains one of the strongest ways of protecting yourself. If you spend more time talking to the person, there’s a chance some inconsistencies will surface. Besides, scammers get tired quickly.

Keep conversations on the dating platform for longer. Don’t cave into early pressure to move off-platform, and treat this as a potential red flag.

Make sure you identify the person across different platforms. Use reverse-image searches, which can expose stolen or synthetic photos. A genuine person usually has a broader, consistent digital footprint beyond a single curated profile.

Treat investment advice or requests for money as a bright-red flag. This is the most important advice. If someone you have never met in person begins steering you toward cryptocurrency, trading platforms or guaranteed returns, disengage.

Never send intimate images to someone you haven’t met and verified. Financial scams can also quickly pivot to blackmail.

If you have already transferred money, acting quickly matters. Contact your bank immediately and report the incident to Scamwatch or the National Cyber Security Centre. Early reporting can reduce losses and help authorities disrupt larger networks.

Remember that romance scammers are highly skilled at appearing trustworthy, so “trusting your gut” or relying on your feelings won’t necessarily help you.

As generative AI tools proliferate, verifying what’s real online is getting harder. So take things slowly, check details in different places, and – by far the most important step – avoid anything that turns a romance into a money request, no matter how infatuated you might be.

Tony Jan is a Professor of Information Technology and Director of Artificial Intelligence Research and Optimisation (AIRO) Centre, Torrens University Australia.

Where to get help

Help

Need to Talk? Free call or text 1737 any time to speak to a trained counsellor, for any reason.

Suicide Crisis Helpline: 0508 828 865 / 0508 TAUTOKO. This is a service for people who may be thinking about suicide, or those who are concerned about family or friends.

If it is an emergency and you feel like you or someone else is at risk, call 111.

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

February 12, 2026

Dawson’s Creek star James Van Der Beek dies aged 48

Source: Radio New Zealand

Actor James Van Der Beek, best known for his role in popular 90s TV show Dawson’s Creek, has died.

“Our beloved James David Van Der Beek passed peacefully this morning. He met his final days with courage, faith, and grace,” read a statement shared to Van Der Beek’s official Instagram page on Thursday (NZ time).

“There is much to share regarding his wishes, love for humanity and the sacredness of time. Those days will come. For now we ask for peaceful privacy as we grieve our loving husband, father, son, brother, and friend.”

Source: Radio New Zealand

There’s a peculiar ritual in many kitchens: reaching past the crisp, pristine tea towel hanging on the oven door to grab the threadbare, slightly greying one shoved in the drawer.

We all know that old faithful dries dishes better, even if we can’t quite explain why. It seems counter-intuitive – shouldn’t brand new towels, fresh from the packaging, outperform their worn-out predecessors?

Yet here we are, instinctively choosing the frayed over the fresh.

That “worn in” feeling we associate with our favourite bath towels, tea towels and even bed linens isn’t just nostalgia.

Arina Habich

. There’s genuine science behind why your tea towels actually improve with age, and understanding it might change how you think about all your household textiles.

The science of soaking it up

Tea towels are typically made from cotton or linen fibres, chosen specifically because these natural cellulose fibres are inherently hygroscopic, or water-loving.

But fibre type alone doesn’t determine how well your towel performs. A textile’s absorption is the result of a complex interplay between fibre, yarn, fabric structure, and any finishes applied during manufacturing.

Textiles absorb and hold water in two key places: within the fibre structure itself, and in the spaces between fibres and yarns. This is why fabric structure matters so much.

Think about bath towels – when was the last time you used a smooth, thin one? Bath towels are typically thick terry pile construction with lots of small loops on the surface. These loops dramatically increase surface area, allowing water to be easily wicked into the fabric.

Tea towels come in various constructions: plain weave, twill weave, waffle cloth, or terry. Plain weave towels – the kind you see with printed designs – require a smooth surface for clean, crisp screen printing.

Waffle cloth, which looks exactly as its name suggests, has a three-dimensional texture that makes it incredibly effective. Like with terry towels, this structure increases surface area and enhances water absorption.

Why old beats new

So what makes your battered old tea towel superior to its pristine replacement? Three key factors are at play.

Silicone finishes. Many brand-new textiles arrive coated in silicone softeners that provide softness and wrinkle resistance, making them appealing on store shelves.

But here’s the catch: these same finishes are often water resistant. Your brand new tea towel may literally have a water-repellent coating. The fix is simple – always wash new tea towels in hot water before first use.

The impact of laundering. Fabrics undergo significant changes during their first several washes – typically up to six cycles. During manufacturing, whether knitted or woven, fabrics are held under tension. Washing causes the yarns to relax in what’s called “relaxation shrinkage”, reverting to their natural, tension-free state. Industry typically tolerates up to 5% shrinkage.

Here’s where it gets interesting: while your tea towel’s dimensions may shrink slightly, its mass stays the same, meaning the fabric becomes thicker and denser. In waffle weave towels, this shrinkage can make the three-dimensional texture more pronounced, increasing surface geometry and absorption. This phenomenon has been documented in terry bath towels, as well.

Fabric ageing. Repeated washing and drying causes minor surface damage that actually improves performance. Small fibres gradually raise up from the fabric surface, creating a fluffier, “hairier” texture.

Really smooth tea towels aren’t very absorbent because water struggles to wet the surface – it can almost bead up due to the contact angle between water and the smooth fabric.

But as washing raises more fibres off the surface making a “rougher” textile, the contact angle decreases, making the fabric easier to wet. Waffle fabrics, with their irregular surfaces, are inherently more absorbent from the start due to favourable contact angles.

In short: washing leads to more surface texture, leading to better absorption.

Not just tea towels

The real revelation here isn’t just about tea towels – it’s about how we think about textiles in general.

That “worn in” feeling we associate with our favourite bath towels, tea towels and even bed linens isn’t just nostalgia. Many of our home textiles are genuinely performing better after repeated laundering, having shed their factory finishes and relaxed into their true structure.

So before you send your old tea towels off for recycling to replace with new ones, remember: those frayed edges and faded patterns represent months of your towel becoming exactly what it was meant to be.

And when you do buy new household textiles, wash them at least once before using to remove any residual finishes.

Rebecca Van Amber is a Senior Lecturer in Fashion & Textiles, RMIT University.

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Category: World News

Is Wuthering Heights actually romantic? Heathcliff would say no

Why being hopeful is more radical than ever now

The dangers of living by your ‘love language’

James Van Der Beek was synonymous with Dawson. This is why he embraced it

A new wave of romance scams is washing across the internet – here’s how to stay safe

Dawson’s Creek star James Van Der Beek dies aged 48

Can hairdressers spot skin cancer?

What is colorectal cancer?

Can hairdressers spot skin cancer?

Samoa authorities detain NZ passport holder following marijuana seizure at airport

Cyclone Gezani tears through Madagascar, kills at least 31

Dangerous winds, rising sea levels

Britney Spears sells rights to music catalogue in reported $330m deal

Why are new tea towels worse at drying dishes than old ones?