Top Of the line Towels???

I'm a BIG fan of Irene and TOL, but I would NOT buy their terry towels. There was a rumour (which I believed) that they were NOT 100% cotton (despite what TOL says), or at least a very low grade of cotton. And IMO, you're just not gonna find decent towels at that price. It's hard to find a decent cotton towel for a LOT more money! Too good to be true, etc.
 
tks Accumulator,



seems like a good towel would be more like closer to $10 a piece or even more. Only 2 brands of towels that I know are good are Cannon and Fieldcrest. Is there anything else on that website that's bad that I should be aware of as well????? They seem to have everything you need to cover automotive detailing and I wouldn't mind buying from them. Tks,,,,,,91
 
I'm with Accumulator on this one. Those $2.95 or buy in bulk $2.50 towels are not 100% cotton.



Irene is a stand up vendor though, I ordered from her before and she charges actual shipping. The foam applicator pads and Lake Country Mfg. pads are a great deal.



http://www.fieldcrestcannonoutlet.com/ is where bought 11 silverose Fieldcrest Charisma bath sheets for $4.99 each with free shipping for orders over $50. I ended up with like 3 for detailing from those 11 because family members raved about the thickness and softness from them, and $5 a pop sure beats those K-mart ones.



I use the Charisma towels to break off the initial residue of Zaino and follow up with a microfiber.



PakShak and JT International are two great vendors for microfiber, www.autofiber.com also has good reviews.



Try the local Linens and Things or Bed, Bath and Beyond outlet for irregular Charisma or Royal velvet towels....Might find a good deal.
 
And *I* am with Jason on the outlet website :xyxthumbs . Note that the thread used to serge the Charismas is supposedly polyester and will scratch your paint, so be careful or else cut the edging off (and reserge with cotton or let 'em fray). There was SOME reason why the Royal Velvets were not as desirable as the Chrismas for detailing, more polyester issues as I recall.



I'm trying to remember what else is questionable at TOL...besides watching out for any of their "100% cotton" claims, I guess the only other thing to avoid is their boar's hair brush. Again, it was rumoured that it had poly mixed in with it. I can't verify this, but I would (and do) buy my boar's hair brushes from Griot's. Actually, Griot's is the ONLY vendor I buy ANY kind of brushes from. Irene used to sell some GREAT detail brushes, but her source dried up.
 
I like Irene's wheel brush and tire brush.



I think some of her hot water extractors are also remanufactured/refurbed. Not really sure.



I think the towels and hot extractors are it. I think on her site they don't say 100% cotton anymore. I was flipping through the site while placing an order with Irene, think 86% cotton 14% poly.



Other than those two items, top notch site. I ordered from them a few times and will keep on ordering from them when I find the need (almost once a year.)



Kudos Irene

Jason
 
ROSS is IMO the BEST place to get white cotton towels at a great price.

For $5 each mostly.......you have a good chance to find something that is REALLY good.

Wamsutta, Charisma, JCPenny-Masterpiece, etc. All my white cotton towels are $5 each. And you get to feel the ones you actually buy which is very important to me.
 
Well I ordered 6 of them before I saw this on the forum. Oh well...I can use them for something else like my fish tank. I'm going to check out those Koala towels...they aren't white which is good...less likely to migrate to the restroom
 
phareous- I bet you could send them back to TOL. Irene's pretty good about stuff like that. Tell them the towels weren't soft enough (don't get into it about all-cotton or not). Maybe just ask for a credit towards some of their other products.
 
Ack I threw them into the washer before I checked this thread. Well anways I'm only out like $15 for 7 of them so not a huge deal...I guess they might take them back anyway? Or I may use them for other duties.



I checked the tag and it says "Preferred Comfort by Dundee" "100% Cotton" "Made in USA". Paid $2.25 per towel. I did a search online and could not find these mentioned. But I did discover that Dundee makes towels used by hotels, and also that many towel manufacturers sell their rejects (i.e. blemished or whatever) at low prices to some detailing shops.



I did find this which I think is the same thing as far as I can tell:

http://www.americanchairstore.com/beigluxterba2.html



So anyway I am not so sure these aren't 100% cotton...if its made in U.S.A. they couldn't get away with lying on the tag could they?
 
phareous said:
So anyway I am not so sure these aren't 100% cotton...if its made in U.S.A. they couldn't get away with lying on the tag could they?
Click to expand...



hahaa... wanna bet? You would be surprised at what's going on out there. If someone complains or the FTC catches them they just feign ignorance and say it was an honest mistake and change the labels.



There are ways to test, go here for info and a burn chart:

http://www.autopia.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=20801
 
phareous said:
Ack I threw them into the washer before I checked this thread. Well anways I'm only out like $15 for 7 of them so not a huge deal...I guess they might take them back anyway? Or I may use them for other duties.
Click to expand...



I'd be surprised if TOL wouldn't take them back. But yeah, there are always other uses for towels that aren't of "paint friendly" quality.
 
Ok so I did some testing today. First off...I picked up one of those free AOL towel scratch kits that have at all the checkout counters :p and tried it out...no scratching. This was with a clean towel so I don't know how it would work if it was dirty but the weave does seem to be similar to other cotton towels like the koala ones.



There is a slight flat edge around the towel that is almost a centimeter so that could possibly move dirt.



I tried the burn test and I'm not really sure what I ended up with. I took a single fiber and placed it on concrete and burned it...it kept going out after a second of burning which makes me think its not cotton. It did not melt though, and the end is charred black...which seems to sound like cotton. I do not know the smell since I had a match next to it the whole time.
 
Being the ever observant person I am, I noticed that on the towels every tag was cut in half. So these towels are definately factory rejects as in cosmetic...
 
phareous - Hey, maybe our fears were premature! I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that if it passed the CD test it's safe to use on your paint. CD's are SO much softer than most car paint. Watch that edging and its stitching (serging), though. Try testing THAT on the CD and see what happens.



The burn test doesn't always give as cut-and-dried results as one might like, huh?



You might retest them on a CD from time to time and see if they become less paint-friendly with use. OH, and I'd remove those tags, they can REALLY mess up your paint!
 
I tried the edging on the CD quite hard and it did nothing. But I don't know how well the towels would work if they had dirt in them...I am suspecting they are safe though. Since I got lots of Koalas and microfibers I might use these on my wheels and my engine and interior anyways
 
Well some more evidence...I dried these towels in the dryer and looked at the lint...it was a solid thin coat on the screen and when I balled it up it felt and acted just like a cotton ball...
 
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