Anatomy of the Perfect Bed

Posted on 24th May 2010 in General: Luxury Linens, How to choose bed linens

A quick visual guide to what a “Perfect bed” should look like:

Perfect Luxury bedding

1. SHEETS > A bed sheets set is made of a flat top sheet, a fitted bottom sheets and a pair of pillow cases. It’s the basic bedding item to actually sleep in.

2. DUVET COVER > A duvet or comforter cover is a giant pillow case that hold inside a down comforter. It is usually sold as a standalone product or packaged as a set with a pair of accent pillow shams. It can be used either with or without a flat sheet.

3. ACCENT PILLOWS > Additional decorative pillow shams to match. They have a flange around the four sides or some kind of embellished border. Available in several different sizes from small Boudoir pillows to Standard/Queen size to Euro squares (a.k.a. Continental shams) up to the large King shams used on King sized beds.

4. QUILTED > A Quilt is a bed cover made of two layers of fabric stitched together, with an interior padding held in place by decorative intersecting seams. A Coverlet is a decorative, top of the bed cover that does not cover the pillows. Matching quilted pillows shams, usually in the Euro square size, are placed on top of the coverlet against the headboard to beautifully frame the bed.

5. BEDSKIRT > A bedskirt is used when the boxspring of the bed is showing or when the top of the bed cover, like a bedspread or comforter, does not extend all the way down to the floor. Bedskirts fit under the mattress and on top of the boxspring and decorate with fabric to the floor.

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Does Thread Count really count?

Posted on 12th November 2009 in How to choose bed linens, Scams Alert

Thread count is the most widely used indicator for quality of fine fabrics. That’s for a good reason. It is a concise, straightforward figure that give you a reliable quality grade.

Thread Count is still pretty good to give you a rough idea of quality yet it is not enough in itself to determine a purchasing decision.

Many other factors  should be taken into account such as raw cotton origin, gauge of spun yarns, weaving techniques and quality of all the necessary finishing processes to get fabrics ready for manufacturing. Learn more about luxury linens quality.

In general higher thread counts are achieved spinning premium long staple raw cotton fibers into the finest cotton yarns then woven in outstanding quality fabrics. Sounds good right?

Still very often a high thread count is achieved weaving thick yarns made out of impure raw cotton fibers resulting in a heavyweight, rough, pilling likely fabric. Definitely a poor quality.

For an easy reference when it comes to choose your bed linens :

Below 180TC is poor quality > It can be even uncomfortable –  I suggest to avoid this.

180TC to 300TC is good quality > Best choice for value bedding.

300TC to 500TC is luxury quality > Verify cotton quality. It should be only Long staple Egyptian or Pima cotton.

500TC to 700TC  is superior luxury quality > Verify cotton quality as it can only be made out of Extra Long staple Egyptian cotton yarns. Verify country of production as only premium manufacturing countries such as Italy, France and Germany have developed state of the art technology to weave such fine fabrics.

More than 700TC > It’s a waste of money as price grow exponentially for such a high thread count and quality performance is not really improving. This is the range of thread count where we see the highest scam density.  Be very careful before purchasing bed linens in this thread count range especially when it goes over 1000TC. You should only purchase this linens from reputable, well known vendors that give you full guarantees  or risk to get hurt.

Those are the only real information you can gather  from thread count figures. We assume of course that thread count listed in the product features is true and honest. It might not always be the case but that’s  just another story. it’s consumer fraud!

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