Seriously, a towel is about the most massively useful thing a Skyrim adventuring hero can have. It has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold peaks of the frozen Reach; you can lie on it on the brilliant marshy-sanded beaches of Dunstad Grove, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the tundra of Whiterun; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy Harstrad River; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Mountain Trolls (such a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.
Indeed, it is thus clear. We must have towels in Skyrim.