Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

My goal was to purchase plain, durable white towels made with honest craftsmanship at a reasonable price. To me, the idea of a 'hospitality towel' translated that perfectly. We purchased (12) bath towels and (12) hand towels, and so far are extremely pleased. When initially contemplating the purchase of these towels, I had a variety of concerns based on some of the feedback/comments I found here. I'd like to address those in an effort to be helpful to others. One poster made some comments that these towels were rough and/or not soft enough. That spurrned an brief inter-family debate with my wife, who immediately complained that she 'didn't want to dry herself with sandpaper'. Fortunately, there were enough competing review to make those comments questionable, and we did order them. But to address that original posters comments -- I think he / she might've been trying to convey that these aren't the kind of towels you will find in the penthouse suite of the Ritz-Carlton -- but it came across poorly. Let me say that these are regular cotton towels with the softness of regular cotton towels, no different from any other cotton towel I've used -- they are not 'too rough' or 'too soft' -- and they are pretty much identical to the towels they replaced, which were midrange Target/Walmart towels. The other comment that had me nervous was that they shed. I shave only every other day, so of course a towel that regularly sheds is a dealbreaker. I have the towels some four days now. When I received them, I immediately threw them in the laundry, and they shed. In the dryer, they shed some more. The first wash/dry cycle was pretty nasty; scary enough, in fact, to make me think I made a bad purchase. Now, I repeated this process three more times, each time they shed less and less. The towels that remained were not in any way visibly affected or different, despite this shedding. After three washes, I used them on myself and my kids. The kids were fine -- none became mummified or looked like snowmen. My stubble caught a few pills of towel -- but not enough to complain about and not more than I would expect from a towel four days and three washes old. I think maybe the poster that complained didn't wash the towels at all? I don't know. In all cases, my family was looking for plain, durable white towels made with honest craftsmanship at a reasonable price. They were intended to be similar to, and would replace the midrange Target/Walmart towels we already owned. I think that's exactly what we got and so far we are extremely pleased. That said, I promise to report back 'down the road' if they do not pass the durability test. Best & Respectfully--