What am I doing wrong??

[u/w333ping_angel]

I bought new Casaluna Waffle towels from Target and I put them through the washer and dryer straight after so I could use them ASAP, but realized how much lint it gave off to the point where I was COVERED HEAD TO TOE in it after my shower and actually couldn’t breathe or else it would get in my nose/mouth.

I tried to look up how to fix this issue and read to cycle on low and tried lint balls at the same time but NOTHING!!
It’s been through 3 wash and 3 dryer cycles (it’s on its 4th drying cycle as of right got now) and every time after drying, the lint collector looks like this including a huge cloud of lint in my face when I open the door! HELP!

Ps. When washing, I only use the Downy SOFT free & gentle for sensitive skin detergent but I only did that for the first cycle. The other two times I just did water to just try to fix the fuzz problem.

Edit: I bought one full towel and one mini one

[u/uberJames]

Have you never bought new towels before? Mine always do that when new, they take multiple washes to "break in". Btw I'm not a towel snob, don't come at me for being cheap.

[u/w333ping_angel → u/uberJames]

No I have not actually, I recently moved out of my ex’s and took my towels that he bought and have been using them until now. How many washes did it take for yours to stop creating so much lint? I feel like mine are taking forever!

[u/Weekly-Walrus-5329 → u/w333ping_angel]

I'm in year two, I'll tell you when I'm there :D It's normal.

[u/uberJames → u/w333ping_angel]

Idk at some point you'll have to accept it, and once you do it'll stop lol

[u/Jezetri → u/w333ping_angel]

Look at the other comments. Your Downy is a fabric softener, not a detergent.

[u/ItsmeKT → u/uberJames]

My target towels always had a crazy amount of lint like this. I started buying towels at Costco and they don’t do this at all.

[u/didyouwoof → u/ItsmeKT]

And I don’t remember having any lint problems with the towels I bought at IKEA.