Onsen The Bath Towel Set - 100% Supima Cotton, Lightweight, Denim Blue

I’ve lived long enough to have learned — ‘plush’ towels don’t work. You have to press the fabric into the water drops to make them absorb. And they’re not even made of natural materials so you’re coating yourself in microplastics everytime you use them. Too, plush towels are soft to a fault. They may look pretty for overnight guests but aren’t practical for everyday use. We actually prefer to use our tatty well-worn decades-old cotton ‘dog-towels’ to dry after our showers! They reliably absorb upon contact, invigorate the epidermis, and dry in a flash just tossed over the shower rail. Then I realized it was finally time to donate our dog towels. They’d seen our teenage daughters wrap their tresses after dying (and poorly rinsing) their hair eye-popping colors, blot their faces dry after applying acne creams (basically acid), dry every beloved dog we washed in our bathtub (always half-days of ‘doggie spa treatments’ that showed we loved them after which they’d race through our house whipping the towels in the air), and serve as bathmats before being laundered. Even after decades of use and abuse, the towels still worked beautifully. They were just ugly. I always disliked anything waffle weave since I was a kid and had to wear my brother’s long underwear to go skiing. But there’s something to be said about its virtues. On the basis of Amazon’s and a major international publication’s reviews, I ordered 2 Onsen towel sets. The sets arrived as promised. All pieces (the bath towels, the hand cloths, and the washcloths) are beautifully big! Too, I’m glad I didn’t order the bath sheet towel size, because the regular bath towel is oversized in its own right. I’m expecting significant shrinkage in laundering (they’re in my 50-year-old workhorse Maytag dryer as I write) so appreciate the ‘extra’ fabric already. Anymore, I rarely launder in cold water, let alone use the gentle cycle, even for my delicates, because I demand clean at any cost. Yes, it’s harder on fabrics, but does a much better job of killing cooties like mildew, bacteria, and microscopic critters. Probably only this first time, I’m laundering as per directions. And understand that they’ll shrink everytime I opt to launder in hot or use high dryer heat. Speaking of which, the packages came with no laundering instructions. I had to consult the Amazon description to know: machine wash in cold water on the gentle cycle, then tumble dry on low (aka ‘Delicate’ for those of us with older machines) with wool dryer balls. I’ll update my review after they come out of the dryer and we start using them. Update: The ONSENs barely shrank with first laundering, so they’re still over-sized. Upon use, they dry super fast mere hours after hanging over a towel bar. Too, they really ARE ‘scratchy’ compared to any plush towel, but it’ invigorating. So much so, we’ll use our synthetic loofahs in-shower more often to not cootie the towels up that way. They absorb better than any towel we’ve ever owned. That said, I don’t think I’ll ever find the waffle weave attractive (that brother’s-long-underwear association), so will probably put out both the ONSENs and our plush sets when we host guests.

These towels are fine, not as absorbent as what I wanted but they are lightweight. I bought two sets of towels and didn’t realize that I would be getting a bill from FedEx a month later for a set of fees as it was shipped from the US. The bill is $31.68 Cdn. It includes GST, a disbursement fee, another GST fee, and a clearance entry fee. I already paid a shipping fee of $5plus dollars and GST and PST. If I had known that each set of towels would be a further $16 in fees I likely would not have bought them.

totally dry after using these

I am very picky about towels. These are super absorbent thin towels with a waffle-like texture. Oversized and very little lint in the dryer vent screen. We got our first sets for one home and loved them. We wanted then, to buy them for our winter home but they were not in stock. We kept going back to check and they were available again!

I bought these as a replacement for my (discontinued) Aquis microfiber bath towels. While I do like the Onsen towels better than traditionally thick cotton bath towels, they are pricey. They absorb well and dry faster than traditional cotton towels. Love the length of the bath sheet. If there's a price drop, I'd consider buying them again.