Mohican Sun -

HOW TO BUY QUALITY BEDDING

When you are looking to purchase a new bedding set, it is important to be able to cut through all of the hype and deliberate misinformation out there in order to make a purchase based on real value which is a combination of both price and quality. Our professional salespeople are armed with factual product knowledge to be able to guide you into the purchase of comfortable and long lasting bedding sets that you will enjoy for years to come.

Generally mass merchants, box stores and most department stores sell sheet sets made from basic short staple cottons that are often labeled “easy care, no iron, or perma-press.” These lower quality sheet sets are usually manufactured by very large mills and are designed specifically to hit a low price point.

Short Stapled

The cotton fibers typically used by these companies are what is called “short staple,” these are very short (average ¼ inch,) coarse and stiff fibers. These short fibers are then twisted together to make yarn for sheeting material. Since the quality of this cotton is coarse and stiff it cannot be used to make sheeting without further chemical treatment. These yarns are treated with formaldehyde so they can be finished with a polyester based coating that makes this coarse yarn feel softer, this treatment also adds the “easy care” feature to the sheeting fabric.

While this does create a smoother, softer hand out of sheeting made from this short staple, coarse cotton yarn, it poses several problems: one is you end up sleeping on a product that has been treated with formaldehyde which is toxic - many people are reactive to formaldehyde which ends up on your skin and in vapors that you can breathe in.

The second problem is that you are sleeping on the polyester coating - not cotton, so it is not as absorbent of body moisture – ultimately you are sleeping on plastic so the comfort of cotton is lost. To use an old cliché, they are trying “to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear!” and all for the sake of a cheaper price. The third problem is the materials made from this short staple yarn “pills” easily. We’ll discuss this problem later.

Our Sheets

By contrast our boutique quality sheet sets, use a totally different grade of high quality cotton. We offer beautiful sheet sets from Peacock Alley that are made from 100% Egyptian, long staple cotton. These “long staple” all natural fibers are silky smooth, (so they need no chemical treatment to improve their soft hand,) and when they are woven, these longer fibers produce luxurious yarns that are extremely durable. All of our upper end designer sheet sets are great values and are sold at true bargain prices.

Have you ever had a set of sheets that “pilled” quickly in normal use? Pilling is primarily due to two factors; coarse, low thread count sheeting or higher thread count material that is made from highly wound, short staple cotton. In either case pilling renders the sheets uncomfortable and eventually unusable. Long staple Egyptian cotton has a soft hand making them very comfortable and producing a longer lasting more durable sheet that just won’t pill, they actually get better over time.