The towel that looks amazing folded on the shelf is almost never the one you want to dry your face with, and that gap between how a towel photographs and how it actually feels after six months of washing is where most people get burned. Thin, flat weave towels look crisp and hotel like for about three washes, then they go limp and start pilling, and you're left patting yourself half dry with something that feels like a tea towel with ambitions. It is still worth getting good ones, because a towel you reach for every single day is not a place to cut corners, even if the upfront cost makes you wince a little.
On color, white is the easiest thing to live with precisely because it is the most honest, you can bleach it, you can see exactly when it needs replacing, and it never clashes with a single thing in a bathroom. Below that, warm neutrals, oatmeal, clay, a soft gray, hold up well against most tile and don't show hard water spots the way true white sometimes does. Where I'd be careful is with very bright or heavily patterned sets in a small bathroom, especially if you've already got patterned tile or a busy shower curtain, because towels end up as the biggest block of color in the room and two competing patterns in a space that size start to feel like they're arguing. Kitchen towels are the one place I'd actually encourage some color and print, since they're doing a different job and get swapped out more often anyway.
The real difference between a towel that lasts and one that doesn't is in the weight and the weave, not the color. Pick one up and look at the loops, long dense loops mean more cotton touching your skin and more absorbency, while a thin, see through weave is telling you exactly how it will behave in a year. Check the hem too, a double stitched border that lies flat will survive hundreds of washes, while a cheap single row of stitching is usually the first place a towel starts to fray and unravel at the edge. Good cotton, properly woven, gets softer with every wash instead of thinner, and that's the whole difference.
If you're buying new ones, measure your towel bar or hook before you order, because a bath sheet looks lovely folded in a photo and ridiculous crammed onto a rail built for a hand towel.
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