Huh, I think the towel is pretty great, but I’m more sensitive to physical stimuli than you are. It did lose a certain amount of plushness in the first few washes, but even still, when I use towels other than that one now, I definitely notice that they’re much rougher.
Also (and I’m not putting this in a top-level answer because it doesn’t contain any info about pre- vs post-2016), their recommendation for large microwave has served us well, but the small microwave recommendation (as of when we were buying a microwave) had 3 Amazon reviews saying it literally caught on fire. This seems like a flaw of Wirecutter’s methodology—i.e., for a lot of products, they don’t actually test out long-term use.
Huh, I think the towel is pretty great, but I’m more sensitive to physical stimuli than you are. It did lose a certain amount of plushness in the first few washes, but even still, when I use towels other than that one now, I definitely notice that they’re much rougher.
Also (and I’m not putting this in a top-level answer because it doesn’t contain any info about pre- vs post-2016), their recommendation for large microwave has served us well, but the small microwave recommendation (as of when we were buying a microwave) had 3 Amazon reviews saying it literally caught on fire. This seems like a flaw of Wirecutter’s methodology—i.e., for a lot of products, they don’t actually test out long-term use.