Pat, Don't Rub: The Technique That Decides Whether You'll Love the HomlyPro Microfibre Towel

The Three Unhappiest Reviews All Point at the Fabric

If you have never used a smooth-finish microfibre towel, the texture is a surprise. This is not towelling. It is a flat, almost velvety synthetic sheet, closer to the cloth you clean glasses with than to anything in your airing cupboard. For a minority of buyers, that is a deal-breaker. One two-star reviewer put it bluntly: "it's like getting dried with a chamis cloth I have to go back to a normal towel". The other two-star, from quidnunc, found it "seems more to smear water around your body rather than actually drying you", and the sample's single three-star review is titled "It's not fluffy like the pictures and it's not that big".

Even reviewers who score it highly acknowledge the sensation. Five-star reviewer GJ finds it "'drags' across the body as it dries" while still recommending it for the pack-size payoff, and four-star reviewer rosy describes the material as a kind of soft velvet flat fabric that some people never take to on skin.

Here is the part that matters: the technique is different, and the reviewers who adapt tend to convert. BWS, who tested it for over three weeks against a fluffy cotton bath sheet, started out rubbing hard the way you would with terry, hunting for a drier patch of towel with every pass. Then the method clicked: "I could just pat and gently wipe myself dry". Rubbing a smooth microfibre pushes water around, which is exactly the smearing the two-star reviews describe. Patting lets the fibres pull the water in. BWS ended up planning to buy several more. If you know going in that this towel wants a pat-and-press action rather than a scrub, most of the negative experience in this review set becomes avoidable.

Ordered Blue, Reviewed Purple: Read the Ratings With That in Mind

A disclosure before you weigh up the star average: Amazon pools reviews across every colour variant of this towel, and a dozen of the 48 most recent reviews describe a purple or lilac one, not the blue this listing shows. The experiences transfer, it is the same towel in a different dye, but two colour-specific findings are worth knowing even for blue buyers.

First, several purple buyers report the real shade is much more muted than the listing photos, closer to lilac or a heathered mauve than the vivid colour on screen. Some were relieved, one or two were disappointed. If an exact shade matters to you, order with slack in your expectations.

Second, two reviewers received a towel branded Rainberg rather than HomlyPro. As WGCReviewer notes, "it is branded as Rainberg rather than HomlyPro listed in the Amazon item description". Both of those reviewers still rated it five stars, so this looks like white-label supply rather than a counterfeit issue, but do not be startled if the label on yours does not match the listing name.

One more transparency note: only 17 of the 48 reviews in the sample are verified purchases. The unverified balance includes several long, detailed test write-ups, and at least one review that simply pastes the listing's bullet points wholesale. We have leant on the reviews that describe specific, checkable use throughout this article.

Dry by Morning: The Case for Taking It Camping

The camping argument comes down to three things: coverage, pack size and drying speed, and the review set backs all three. On coverage, 180x90cm is a proper bath sheet, not the hand-towel-sized compromise a lot of travel towels turn out to be. A 5ft 3in reviewer reports it wrapped around her roughly one and a half times, chest to knees, and a larger reviewer was blunter still: "Will dry even a huge human like me."

On drying, the listing's comparison graphic claims a wet weight of 0.6kg against 2.4kg for cotton, and a 1.5-hour dry time against 8.5 hours. Treat those exact figures as marketing, but the reviews support the direction of travel. One buyer reports it hangs dry "inside a couple of hours without a radiator" after being used as a hair wrap, Roka line-dried it in minutes after a wash, and JZY, reviewing it for camping and motorhome trips, highlights that it dries out quickly between uses "so you are not stuffing a damp towel back into your bag". On a UK pitch in April, where nothing cotton dries at all, that is the entire point of the product.

The details help too. There is a hanging loop on a snap fastener, positioned halfway along the long edge so the towel does not trail on a wet groundsheet, and one reviewer points out you can pop it straight round a washing line, no pegs. PR uses this towel specifically for camping trips where space and weight are tight. BWS keeps his in the car boot as an emergency towel against, in his words, "the highly unlikely chance of getting caught in the rain in Scotland". And the same 5ft 3in reviewer who measured the wrap-around coverage is planning to use hers off-grid in the UK in late April, noting that of the two microfibre finishes, the smooth type dries a little faster than the fluffy kind. That is the buyer this towel is for.

The Stuff Sack Fight, and How to Win It

The included drawstring bag is the one practical niggle that shows up across otherwise positive reviews. Getting the towel back in is not effortless. Horvath calls it "a bit of a pain fitting it back inside once you take it out", and quidnunc found it a struggle even rolled tightly. Nobody rates it a fault worth a star, but several have simply stopped bothering: Dave C folds his flat on top of everything else in his bag instead.

The winning method, described near-identically by two reviewers: fold the towel into ever-smaller oblongs first, as you would a bedsheet, then roll the folded slab tightly and slide it in. As rosy puts it, "just keep folding till it's small then roll tightly". One reviewer measured the packed result at roughly 25cm by 8cm, about the size of a one-litre water bottle. Worth noting the listing's own size graphic claims a compact fold of "say 15x8cm", placeholder wording and all, so trust the reviewer's tape measure over the marketing there.

Care is simple but has one hard rule. Reviewers who checked the label report an 80% polyester, 20% polyamide fabric, machine washable (the label allows up to 40C, and one buyer confirms it washes well at 30), and fabric softener is out: conditioner coats the fibres and kills the absorbency that makes microfibre work. Follow that and the durability signals are good. JZY reports the edge stitching has survived repeated machine washes with no fraying, and multiple reviewers mention the towel keeping its softness and colour after several washes.

The Repeat Buyers Make the Case: Our Verdict

The most persuasive detail in the whole review set is how many people came back for more. Sandra D: "Brilliantly compact but absorbent, I ended up buying 6 !". Joanne Dexter was on her second. BWS finished his three-week test planning to buy several as everyday bath towels. For a £9-bracket accessory, that repeat rate says more than any single five-star writeup.

So, the verdict. Buy the HomlyPro if you are a backpacker, festival-goer, wild camper, swimmer or motorhome owner who wants full bath-sheet coverage without the bulk, weight and permanent dampness of cotton. It is also a sensible spare to live in a car boot. As Daywalker's review concludes, "its portability is its greatest strength".

Skip it if you already know you hate the smooth microfibre feel and will not switch from scrubbing to patting, because no review in this set suggests the texture grows on people who refuse to adapt their technique. And if you want plush luxury at home, this was never that product.

We score it 4.6 out of 5: docked slightly for the divisive fabric feel and the fiddly stuff sack, held high by the size, the drying speed and a 48-review sample containing zero one-stars. Check today's price on Amazon before you buy, as it moves around.