What’s Dope About Amazon’s Microfiber Cleaning Cloths
The best part of Amazon’s microfiber towels is that I can have them delivered to my doorstep in a day or two by clicking Buy It Now. I could even hit Amazon’s subscription option and keep my garage fully stocked with towels, though I’d never personally buy these towels again.
The quantity of towels provided by Amazon for the price point is tough to beat. These towels were about $18 at the time of purchase, but if you catch a sale, you might be able to grab them for about $12. Even at about $0.50 a piece, however, we’d rather buy Costco’s towels, which were listed for about $18 for a 36-pack at the time of writing.
In my experience with Amazon’s towels, the only automotive applications they’re suited for is washing your car’s windows, interior, wheels, and engine bay. As dusters, these things work pretty well, and they were perfect for wiping down the dash whenever it started to get dusty. With a couple of swipes, all dust is gone and virtually no lint is left behind. I even started using a few of them inside the house. Turns out it’s also common for people to use these as recyclable Swiffer cloths.
I’ve kept a few in my trunk so I could clean my windows at any time. I always have a can of Rain-X’s two-in-one glass cleaner and rain repellant in my car — my dad hooked me on Rain-X at an early age — so I used Amazon’s towels to apply it. The fabric didn’t wipe up all of the liquid in one shot, but that was good for its application. Once I refolded the towels, the dry sections wiped the Rain-X up with zero streaks and no lint left behind.
These towels are claimed to last through hundreds of washes. I didn’t get through that many, but after running them through the washer and the dryer (it’s better to air dry) on a variety of settings, they seemed to generally hold their shape, only marginally losing a bit of initial softness.
What’s Not Great About Amazon’s Microfiber Cleaning Cloths
The makeup of a cloth’s materials tells part of its story, just not all of it. One thing about Amazon’s microfiber cloths is that they’re made of 90 percent polyester and 10 percent polyamide. No other towel had lower than an 85/15 percent ratio (Mr. Siga), and none of the major brands dipped below 80/20. Ammo’s towels are 80/20, Kirkland (Costco) towels are 80/20, Armor All’s are 80/20, and Chemical Guys’ towels are 70/30. Even Amazon’s ultra-absorbent version isn’t up to spec, which has the same ratio as these towels (90/10).
As pointed out by Larry Kosilla, the well-known automotive detailer behind Ammo NYC, polyester is the part that is meant to “scrub” things like wax off a vehicle, while polyamide is meant to be absorbent. Amazon’s ratio doesn’t necessarily mean they’re bad, but these are the roughest-feeling microfiber towels I’ve ever held.
Normally, you want to rub your face with new microfiber towels because they’re so soft, but Amazon’s towels felt grabby when I dragged them across my palms. This roughness might turn some people completely away from these towels, as they might not trust them on a car’s delicate paint.
Amazon’s towels are also smaller (12 by 16 inches compared to 16 by 16 or 16 by 24) and thinner than many competitors. They were more like 12 by 15.5 inches out of the box. They feel pretty light and cheaply made to the point that you could actually see other colors right through them, something I haven’t noticed with plusher towels. I also went full Lou Ferrigno and had no problem ripping Amazon’s towels in half with barely any effort, which speaks to the quality of the weave.
I was also disappointed in the towels’ absorbency. The Costco towels soaked up quite a bit of water, but it essentially ran straight through the Amazon towels, which proves the material blend does matter.
And then are the edges of Amazon’s towels. Rather than use a separate piece of cloth like silk or similarly soft material to cover the edges of the towels, Amazon takes the shortcut route and simply loops more threads around the edges to seal them.
Each towel also has an annoying plastic tag. I ripped a bunch of them off to varying results, such as ripping the microfiber and ripping off the tag only halfway. If somebody uses these without removing the tag, that could result in swirls or scratches.