Do you wash your towels alone? there will be no way to fix your towels..just another example of modern day textiles. I guess you know you will need new guest towels for the wedding. There are several people on here that are very well educated in choosing a good trouble free towel who I know would lead you in the right direction if you decide to start the search for towels.

Pretty pathetic that you buy an expensive bath towel and have this happen.

It is not you it is the towels. Buy your towels from a different source next time, giving your store the benefit of the doubt, your store probably did not intend to buy and sell seconds....

Yeah it must be the way the towels were made or the cotton used.

I've had my Target towels for god knows how long and they don't have any of that going on. They've been washed in a top loader with bleach and now a front loader with no ill effect.

Most towels today are garbage, even if you spend extra money to buy nice ones. I've had towels for 25 years that never shrank. A towel I bought 2 years ago with a woven band - the band has shrunk 2" and now the towel has an uneven ruffle on one end. Sheets and towels are now made overseas, mostly in China. They don't bother to pre-shrink anything. Watch out for "microfiber." If it's not polyester, it just means the thread that the items are made from has been spun super-thin, which just means it will wear out quicker.

I've had good luck with the Costco bath sheets. We use the bath sheets for our bodies and then regular sized bath towels for our hair. The last hair towels were an all white bath sized pack from Costco.

In trying to get good towels, I've actually bought several different brands - TurkishTowels, Martex, Kassa Designs, Pike Street(?), and ALL of them have the same problem to one degree or another. TurkishTowels were the worst - some of them so bad that I gave them to an animal shelter because even charities wouldn't have wanted them. It doesn't happen to *every* towel, which is even weirder. I bought them all online, two from Amazon, the other two from other vendors. That's why it's so confusing. I've spent a ton without getting good quality. Yes, I wash towels separately from everything else.

Could the problem be that I wash them in hot water rather than warm? I was raised to wash towels in hot for germ-killing... maybe that's the problem?

I wash my towels on hot or sanitary with no ill effects.

I used to have a set of Vera Wang towels from Kohls. For a few months I was renting a place that had an old top loader washing machine (one of the old indestructible Kenmores) - my towels became all pilly when washed in that washer. Once I moved and started washing them in my new FL LG, the pills disappeared and the towels looked like new again.

In my experience, towels washed on cold or lukewarm will acquire a sour, moldy smell after a while.

How do you get rid of piling by changing washers..did they just disappear?

Yup, strangely enough, they just disappeared after a couple of washes. I could never figure it out.

Very odd...what detergent did you use? Was there much pilling? Some detergents have the enzyme Cellulase that will help but usually isn't going to eat off full fledged pills.

Don't remember the specific detergent but in both washers I would have used one of my usual detergents (Euro or UK Persil, Ariel, Cheer Powder...). The towels were dark burgundy and acquired a lot of linty looking white pills that were pretty firmly stuck on them. Once I started washing them in my new washer they went away completely. Could it have been the dryer??? To this day, that is one of the strangest things I had happen to me and I don't know how to explain it. But I was happy about it because I was ready to replace the towels but instead ended up keeping them.

Could some other piece of laundry, perhaps a lighter color washcloth or something have gotton in the wash with the dark colored towels? This can happen on towels if a different color towel is washed in the load, many towels shed lint in the wash and attach to the clothing in there. are your towels 100% cotton?

No, they have a bit of bamboo in them but I don't remember how much. I am anal about sorting my laundry so I doubt something light or lint producing would have snuck in with them.

Just trying to figure out how the pills are white since burgundy towels should produce burgundy pills. LOL.

Got it! They weren't completely white, just lighter than the dark burgundy. I had the same towels in burgundy and lighter purple and I always washed them together, so I think it may have been stuff from the purple towels. But I continued washing them together after I moved the new place. Interestingly, the purple towels did not go pilly, even though it was the same brand, same type and bought at the same time.

I think this one will remain one of the great mysteries of life :-)

I have the Costco white hotel towels. I wash them in very hot water. I've had them 2-3 years. They are still in very good shape. They aren't wonky. They aren't pilly either. I love white towels, very practical.

I finally have pictures of what my towels are doing. Threads are pulling loose. At this point if I don't want to buy new towels (and I really shouldn't spend the money), all I can do is cut all these threads off. By the way, these are Kassa Design or Kassatex Arosa Collection towels - supposed to be extremely good and durable.

Echo...have you tried taking something like nylon socks put it on your hand and run it over every inch of the tubs interior? Feel if anything grabs.

Something had to be snagging the clothes.

It's not the towels that's for sure.

There has to be a defect in the drum somewhere.

I don't have this problem with any clothing, but I will check the drum.

Oh, by any chance do you wash any thing with zippers with the towels.

If so zip up zippers and fasten clasps, button buttons.

Echo--what brand detergent are you using?

That happened to towels I bought for my mom at Target. Some towels just aren't constructed well.

But I've had my Target towels for like ever (something like 8-10 years) and never had any pulling of the threads. They've even lasted a top loader and now the front loader.

These Target towels are the best, longest lasing towels I've owned.

I still think it's the machine...something has to be catching and pulling the threads.

@echogardener - I think the towels in the photo are defective. The long pulls you photographed are not normal. I've had brand new towels from a different manufacturer arrive with those long pulls and I asked for replacements, which they sent. The towels I bought are made in India. It may be from the machinery or from the loops being caught on the sewing machine during finishing.

The other photo isn't very clear so I can't see exactly what the balls look like. If it's pilling that could mean that there is a small amount of poly in the towel. If those are little clumps of cotton it would likely mean that the fibers used for the looped thread are short and the thread may be loosely woven. So the clumps are coming out.

If these are Kassatex, which I found to have decent customer service, I would call them and ask them to replace the towels. I'd take photos of the issues that are clear. But first, I'd check to see where these particular towels were manufactured and ask to change the style. Some Kassatex are made in Turkey and others elsewhere.

As for hot water, I've gone both ways. Hot water made some very heavy Restoration Hardware towels I had fade slightly around the edges and it tends to dry out modern cotton fibers. If you notice, the dobby on your towel has shrunk a little and does not lie perfectly flat. That's because the dobby is a very tight weave and it shrinks more than the looped section with hot washing. I now wash towels on warm or sometimes very warm. And I went to a non-dobby towel though I prefer the look of yours. The manufacturer of my current set (Coyuchi) recommends cold washing, which I won't do.

Like sheeting, towels are a blind item. Only one manufacturer left in the U.S. Little correlation between quality manufacturing and price. I had Ralph Lauren towels literally change color a few years back. They all had to be returned. I bought crazy expensive Turkish towels sold at one of the fanciest stores direct from the manufacturer. They were the most beautiful towels I've ever seen. Thick but light. But huge amounts of lint would up in the dryer and over time they became prickly, which means short fibers, and required fabric softener.

"Good" is a very relative term for towels these days. I'll settle for towels I like, that launder properly and last a long time. When towels were manufactured in the U.S. I'd buy new ones (Fieldcrest Royal Velvet) once every 10 years. I can't remember a pull or even a loose thread. Now towels seem to have a 2-5 year life. There are no controls or regulation so no guarantees except experience.

I would try to get replacements, if you cut these threads off the towels will soon look worse than they do now.

Last summer I bought 8or10 new beautiful large white bath towels fro TJ Maxx, I can't remember the name brand, got them home and put 3 in the washer, 125F and Ecovers Sunny Day liquid detergent. When they came out of the washer there was pulled threads all over the towels and so much lint, for lack of a better word thru the washer, I couldn't figure out where to shake these off at, not in the house although by than the floor was already covered, not in my yard lol....so w walked down to the lower end of my , property, large field and shook them into the woods, I was covered with lint..like a true dummy I threw them in the dryer..omg the lint was unbelieveable..and it ended up all thru my house floating around on the floors everywhere and all over my washer and dryer and laundry room shelves..a horriable mess. I started picking up lint and had more than a full plastic grocery bag, all from 3 towels, unbeliveable...I returned all of the towels to the store along with the bag of lint. The store manager actually told me after you wash these a few more times they will stop doing this..lol. I ended up with my refund.

My old white towels which are just a standard size are probably close to 7 or 8 years old now, I really can't remember for sure their age,but I think I bought them at target for 3 bucks apiece are washed daily in super hot water and still look almost new..I wish the name brand tag sewn on wwouldn't have faded the brand name off lol.

Took this at the laundramat last summer while in between washers.

I've also heard others recommend Target towels, these are probably Threshold and probably the cheapest ones .

Ohhhh...Mama those towels look so fluffy and soft...very nice.

Thank You George, for a dirt cheap towel they have held up better than my costly ones. I need to buy a few cheap ones at Target and see how well they do these days.

@georgect - I always wash towels and rags by themselves. @sparky823, I
use Gain. @rococogirl, none of it is lint - it's ALL pulled threads. (Sorry for poor quality of photo, I don't understand my camera very well.) Also, I've had them for too long to return them now. @mamapinky0, before cutting off the pulls I checked the internet for advice and found sources that said it would be okay. I cut all the pulls off one towel and you actually can't tell. Will see what happens after it's washed.

I need to wash towels again, so I will examine each one before I do that, then wash them in cold water as manufacturers recommend, using only vinegar, as one manufacturer recommended doing periodically. I will mark the one I cut the pulls off, too. I will check both the washer and the dryer drums first for snags, and put those rubber spiked dryer balls in the dryer which are supposed to help keep lint from settling back on the towels (according to one internet source, anyway).

I really like the Fieldcrest towels at Target too. Made in India.

I would try a different detergent and also adding a dryer sheet(or 1/2 one) just to see if that helps with the lint. One dryer sheet is not going to water proof them. I was using Cold Water Tide for a while on colors back last winter and I had some shirts and lounge pants that started getting holes in them, and the pants legs just started tearing, like pulling apart. I stopped using the Tide CW and just use Cheer powder(as I had for years, then got an urge to try the Tide) and this year havent had any torn clothes so it could not have been the washer or dryer.

@echogardener. I don't know how long "how long" is but you should not have that many pulled threads. I have 30 y.o. towels without any pulled threads. And the worst Kassatex could say was no.

I also wouldn't recommend using vinegar on dark towels.

@rococogurl, actually white vinegar is great for colored items. In addition to disinfecting, it helps set the color and prevent fading. Used in the rinse cycle, it helps to get all the soap out. (In fact, my hairdresser strongly recommended using a vinegar rinse on my dark dyed hair.)

I haven't found white vinegar at all useful in the laundry or anywhere except a salad. But we're all entitled to our opinions!

If you have hard water, vinegar is a great addition to laundry rinse because it helps to keep the hard water minerals from depositing on your clothes. I especially like to use it on the whites loads and on towels & sheets. I also use it to help set the dye in dark colored clothing.