When walking into a hotel room, the first thing guests will notice are the crisp white sheets laid out on the bed. As a short-term rental, choosing the right linen can mean the difference between a luxurious and restful night or an uncomfortable night’s sleep. With reviews dictating your future bookings, it is important to get this right as a night’s sleep is one of the most important parts of a stay.
There is a lot to take into account when selecting linens for a hotel, however, the importance of making an outstanding impression must be kept in mind at all times.
Thread count (TC) is how many threads are woven into the sheet lengthways and breadthways per square inch. Theoretically, with higher thread counts, the quality gets better, since the sheet gets more durable and softer with use. However, a lot of linen manufacturers misleadingly twists more than 2 plies of threads together in order to achieve higher thread counts (and price), but this will not increase the quality, in fact it makes the fabric rougher. This tends to be one of the biggest misconceptions in the bedding world. A good average sheet, for example, will have a count of around 200 and a luxury range would start at 250. Our bedding was designed for ultimate comfort and provides a luxurious feel with 300 TC and a Sateen Weave. Let’s learn more about what makes a bedsheet special.
Linen Materials
In addition to thread counts, there’s also the issue of materials. There are so many different types of fabric materials to chose from ad this can make it a daunting task.
Cotton
Cotton is the most popular fabric used to make sheets and other bedding including our Cloud Collection. It is durable, breathable, soft, easy to care for, and generally quite affordable. It will also hold its whiteness after multiple washes. Cotton both traps heat and lets cool air pass through in summer, so it’s a great choice for almost any climate. It can be blended with rayon and other materials that affect its weight and feel. As with any sheets you buy, do a hand test to gauge how you like these blends.
Polyester / Polycotton
Both are synthetic fibres and have the advantage of showing less shrinkage than natural fibres, it is more durable. While polyester is inexpensive, it’s quite stiff and scratchy when used on its own. Generally, you’ll find polyester mixed with another thread, often cotton, in inexpensive sheet sets. They are often a preferred choice for coloured bed sheets, pillowcases and duvet covers as they tend to hold the brightness of the colour very well, but of course we discourage suing coloured sheets. You can read more about that in our previous blog, Why White?
Weave
The weave affects the way a sheet feels, the way it looks, its longevity, and its price. Basic plain weaves, which are woven from an equal number of vertical and horizontal yarns, are moderately expensive fabrics. Percale is an upscale plain weave with a thread count of 180 or higher and is known for its longevity and crisp feel. Sateen weaves have more vertical than horizontal yarns. It makes extremely soft and shiny fabric.
Color
Usually, hotels prefer white when it comes to bed linens: it is so much easier to clean. when it comes to heavy cleaning process of the linens and towels, white is the easiest colour to maintain.
Second is that with white, you only need to replace one item at a time as and when required. With other colours, getting an exact match can be difficult as different batches will naturally take on different shades. This can often mean that to have matching linens or towels you would need to replace whole sets, which could be awfully expensive and wasteful.
White is never out of style, and regardless of design or decor or theme in your rental, white will always match.