I did wash the towels first. Zaino also doesn't recommend the microfiber towels either since the quality of them are not consistent...I guess some scratch and some don't. Maybe I'll have to find some nice ones. Here's what Zaino says about microfiber:
http://www.zainostore.com/Merchant2/...=Z#anchormicro
And here are their towel "guidelines":
http://www.zainostore.com/Merchant2/...S&Store_Code=Z