I buy nice, large, heavy, absorbent white towels at Sam's Club for about $8 apiece. They get washed in hot water with liquid chlorine bleach every week (1/3 cup in the front-loader; 3/4 cup in the top-loader). These towels are used about 7 months out of the year (I have a set of "summer" towels which I use from April-August. They dry very soft on the clothesline.)
Gimmick, indeed. 1.5 ounces of bleach...what a joke.