AIBU to not "get" expensive towels?

[QuizteamBleakley]

Each year our family does a Secret Santa: you pick a name out of a hat and then spend up to £75 on that person. Saves a LOT of admin and means the recipient gets one gift they really want.

This year I got a bath towel. It's lovely but who are the people who regularly spend £70 on a bath towel? I'm not complaining much as it will be a lovely poncey touch for the guest bedroom. It feels much like the supermarket ones we get and is cotton, not unicorn pelt. Surely a towel is a towel is a towel or do we actually live in a world where people do not sniff at the idea of paying £70 for a £5 towel?

What don't you "get"?

...buy them...

I bet you'll be more specific on your Santa request next year!

You can get Frette in TK Maxx, we have bedsheets that are amazing from there. BUT no, if not be happy to receive that in a secret Santa. Surely your budget for each person is so relatively high so that you all get something decent. Are you THAT hard to buy for that a towel seems a good option?!

I'm a joy to buy for, honest! I have candles everywhere and love perfumes, stationery and cosmetics. I'll admit to being a little WTF when I opened it. I kept slowly unfolding it as I assumed there was going to be a pen or perfume bottle inside. Slowly, slowly the realisation dawned so I rearranged my features into my very best "OH MY DAYS, WHAT A GORGEOUS TOWEL!" face.

Seems a bit of a split camp between possibly a great gift and utterly crap (although mostly the latter.) In the interest of research I'm washing the towel now and, once dried hours in this house I will take myself off for a bath before reporting back my findings.

Astroturf and pebble gardens also feature on my "Don't get it" list.

I love thick white towels. No thin crap for me. Sadly, most of ours are covered in eyeliner/sharpie/foundation/lipstick stains thanks to my darling youngest child. Gahhhhhh

I adore towels and I'd be super-happy with the gift you got although I'd prefer it in that lovely bright yellow on the linked website. Towels and bedlinen are my favourite things.

Quiz, I also think I'm easy to buy for (similar to you plus books, art, jewellery, fancy truffles) but DH and my kids all insist that I'm impossible

There's a store in Los Angeles that sells expensive wine - as much as $5,000 a bottle. I cannot conceive of a wine that is worth that much.

(BTW, I'm just as happy with cheap towels.)

The towels that have stayed lovely here were an emergency buy from Asda on holiday! They're still so fluffy. I've even forgiven DH for buying the wrong colour!

Tinsel I'm just realising I sound like an oddball towel enthusiast who goes to towel testing evenings instead of wine tasting etc

I can just imagine a towel testing evening! Lots of hot tubs and people getting in and out sampling towels and discussing them "Mmm, delightful cloudlike undertones..."

Although, come to think of it, it sounds like an excuse for swinging... - "We're having a towel sampling evening..."

*HowardMoons" - shall we just exchange gifts in December?!

Canadian Wine investment is a thing - but I can't help but see it as a gamble - and am forever reminded of the Black Books episode where they opened the expensive stuff instead of the quaffing stuff; I would be like that. Mind you, I don't know my merlot from me malbec.

We have white company towels bought from christmas money whilst they were on sale and still cringed at the price. They're much thicker, fluffier, softer, bigger and have lasted well. We're happy with them but now only have three towels because they're so flipping expensive.

AcaciaYou Pebbles instead of lawn. A house near us has just done this - replaced the whole front garden with ten square metres of pebbles.

Ditto this but with those green or purple coloured small slate bits. Makes the entire area look like a grave plot. Especially if they edge it with little concrete borders to stop the slates spilling out the sides.

My mother bought me a set of towels for Christmas in my absolute favourite shade of red. However, my loo seat (an unexpected present from her a few years ago) is turquoise blue and bright pink stripes, and much nicer than it sounds. The bath mats are either blue or pink, and other recent towels are the same (old ones are a real mishmash). I am now boggling that I have turned into someone who is concerned about my towels not matching my bathroom...

I came on to say YABU but...£70?! And it doesn't even mention the GSM?I

I got 600GSM 100% Turkish cotton bath towel for £10 online. Wish I'd bought more as they are plush.

I love thick expensive towels, not white though, I don't get the love some people have for white towels, that just seems to be a love of washing.

I like expensive towels too, normally yes you can tell the difference, sure there is some rip offs out there, but generally a nice big thick fluffy towel is a joy and a nice luxury that lasts if bought correctly. Thin towels do the job but no where near as nice.

Don't put the bath towel in the guest bedroom, use it.😃

Agree it seems daft putting your best towel in the guest room where it will rarely be used.
£70 seems ridiculously expensive for a secret santa though. Aren't they usually about £10?

You can buy polyester towels?!

I also don't get how the recipient gets one present they really want if they don't actually choose it. We just tell each other what we'd like, and are also happy to give each other money towards a bigger thing. I wouldn't spend £70 on a towel for someone else unless they'd told me that was what they wanted. I think secret santas should be limited to token presents as some people are good at present buying and others rubbish at it. £75 is a lot of money to let the person who is rubbish at presents spend if that is your only family present.

Expensive towels are often 'zero twist', which feel lovely and lofty but don't wash and last particularly well.

A thread count of around 300 is the best - still breathable but feels luxurious. Any higher and it's heavy and doesn't add any benefit.

I'm a textile Buyer.

Even if I won Euromillions I would not consider spending £70 on a towel. A towel ffs.
I'd spend it on pillows though :)

I don't get "nice" towels either. All of mine are small, super cheap no name brand off Amaxon except a couple of nice, fluffy bath sheets my mum bought me out of disbelief at my rough crap ones. I try not to use the bath sheets as they're so dense they take up too much space in the washing machine and take ages to dry.

The lonk shows it was only $75 not £70 so I hope you got the matching hand towel too!

*link