the reason i gave these a medium rating is that you may as well leave the bread on the table as these do nothing to keep it fresh.They do not keep the bread fresh at all.Bread was rock hard overnight . Had to throw it away , They do not workWe wanted to go "green" so I decided to try these bead bags, as some people said these worked great. Well, no they do not. The bread, regardless, became rock hard on the outside, making it a hazard to cut, as well as dulling the bread knife. And I made sure that the bread was totally cool before putting it into the bag. I tied it shut as much as I could, which is pretty darn tight, so that part of the description is correct. But overall, and we tested bread using a variety of methods besides these bags, these cloth bags are worthless. Might as well just leave the loaf out on the counter. It got 2 stars though as my son uses these bags to haul various electronic gear to his gaming events. He says these are great for hauling and storing smaller items you do not want to get scratched or lost in a jumble of cables, etc.Very nice way to store and give as a gift a nice round loaf of artisian bread.Disappointed and had to return. Didn’t keep bread fresh and also came with a very strong perfume smell which didn’t go away even after washing the bags. The smell transferred to my bread and the bread smelled like that terrible perfume. Wouldn’t waste your moneyGreat price for loaf size linen bread storage bags.... I expect a clean product when it comes to food storage. These bags arrived way too soft to feel like linen, almost like they had been washed with a softener. So sure enough, when I washed these (by hand of course), a brownish substance clouded the water and they had to be rinsed a half dozen times to get them clean. As for storing fresh bread: the bread dried out within a day, making me think that this 'linen' had some other substance mixed in that absorbs moisture, because when I store my bread in a linen towel it lasts well for a week.Maybe more useful as a shoe bag.Crust did stay "crusty" in the bag (as opposed to my usual plastic bag method), but the rest of the loaf turned hard. Gave up on using it.