My houseguests are due any minute. The guest rooms are ready except for towels. I head confidently to the linen closet. I tie sets of sheets and towels in ribbons so I can easily retrieve full, coordinated packages.

I open the closet, and ... ribbons are unfastened. Once nicely folded towels are in wads on shelves.

Apparently, my ribbon system didn't prevent certain members of my family from having their way with these sets.

When I do find a bath towel, face towel and washcloth that were once a family, no pieces match. Colors have taken detours, disavowing their relations, which I've been guilty of. Some towels look as if they've been living with a cheese grater on the beach.

"I'm sorry about the towels," I say when I hand my friend, who has arrived with her husband and three children, a pile of terry cloth scraps not fit for washing the car.

"Sorry?"

"I had no idea such degeneration had occurred in my linen closet."

"Same thing happened to me," she said. "I got these lovely green towels for the whole house, but after a few washings they turned different shades. I have to get all new ones."

I tell her how my teenager turned her towels into a tie-dye project with her skin products. (Heads up parents of teens: Benzoyl peroxide and colored fabrics don't mix.)

Damp towels, dry reality

The towel talk made me feel better, not so alone. Then I started investigating. A towel expert who did not want to be outed divulged that stores push colored towels because they sell more. Color is a cheap, short-term design thrill for people seeking easy change.

But like romance, dreams and skin tone, color fades, making towels look tired; color trends change, so consumers keep buying new ones.

I call my friend, now back to her home, bursting with news: "We're victims of the color trap!" I exclaim. "The only winners are towel companies!"

"So what's the answer?"

"White!"

I tick off the virtues: White doesn't fade, never goes out of date and goes with everything. White towels are the stuff of fine hotels. They're probably more sanitary because you can bleach and scald them. If you buy plain white towels, when the new puppy uses the hand towel as a teething toy, you can pull a piece from another set and it will go.

"So we need to throw in our towels," she says.

"And buy white," I say.

"The color of surrender."

"The color of smart."

One home design mantra I try -- not always successfully -- to live by is this: Buy it once. Buy it right. That means not clogging my cupboards with towels that just keep looking worse.

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