Tensile strength refers to the resilience of the towel against ripping. With all paper products, there are two important characteristics to measure- direction and moisture. For direction of tensile strength there is machine direction and cross direction. When the paper fibers are laid down, the lengthwise direction is machine direction. Paper is always stronger when pulled in the machine direction. Conversely, there is cross direction.
The other characteristic is moisture- most towels are easier to rip apart when they are wet. We measure machine/ cross direction and wet/ dry tensile strength. For our towels, the dry machine direction (strongest) is 32 oz/sq in, and the wet cross direction (weakest) is 6oz/ sq in.