Review (3/5): A little thick for my hand
I was excited when I ordered this loofah as I have been looking for quite a while and this one had all the features I wanted: loofah on one side, terry cloth on the other, and an elastic hand strap that could be reversed to either the loofah or terry side.
The loofah is quite flat right out of the package but plumps up after it gets wet the first time (see first picture).
The stitching is good with the edge tape securely and evenly stitched all around.
My issue is that after it gets wet and swells up the first time, I find it just a tad big for my medium sized hand. It's not so big that I drop it, and of course there is the strap to help keep it secure. It just feels a bit too thick. Others may find that the thickness makes it easier and/or more comfortable to hold - to each her/his own.
I took one apart and discovered that there is a 1/2" thick piece of impervious foam sandwiched between the loofah and the terry. From the product description, it appears that they switched to this to improve drying. I just would have preferred that they had used a thinner piece of foam.
This foam also makes the loofah quite stiff. Rather than being able to contour the pad to my body, it ends up being flat which reduces the effectiveness.
I had used a stitch ripper to open up the item to remove the foam and I ended up re-sewing the edge tape without the foam re-inserted. Without the foam I find it much more comfortable to hold though I think if there was maybe a 1/4" of foam that would make it just right.
At the end of the day, it still does a good job of exfoliating using the loofah side (which also works well for scrubbing when I get extra dirty and a wash cloth just won't cut it) and of gentle cleaning using the terry side, so I only deducted two stars for the thickness and stiffness issues.