The Insider’s Guide to Better Bed Sheets (Encore)
JACKIE: You can grow any cotton in Egypt. Egyptian is just the country it comes from the country it’s grown in. It doesn’t say anything about the quality.
CHRISTINE: Right.
ROSIE: Shout out to the Egyptian cotton lobby though.
CAIRA: Yeah, they killed it.
Christine: I am Christine Cyr Clisset.
CAIRA: I’m Caira Blackwell.
ROSIE: I’m Rosie Guerin, and you’re listening to The Wirecutter Show.
ROSIE: Hey there, it’s Rosie, popping in to let you know that this is a rerun of an episode we originally aired last fall. It’s all about bed sheets… and it’s one of my absolute favorites. In fact, my mom still talks to me about this episode a full year later. Even if you’re not in the market to buy new sheets… this episode will hopefully teach you all about the sheets you own and why you may or may not like the way they feel. Hope you enjoy!
ROSIE: Happy for all y’all. Hello.
CHRISTINE: Hello. It’s nice to be here.
ROSIE: It’s nice to be in September. Yeah. Now it’s, like, really crispy in the mornings. Beautiful sweater weather.
CAIRA: Cuffing season
ROSIE: cuffing Season. Catalog season. I get my home decor catalogs.
CAIRA: No, I’m. Not with you on that.
ROSIE: For real?
CAIRA: Yeah. You guys still get that?
CHRISTINE: Oh, yeah. I get tons of catalogs in the fall.
ROSIE: What do you get?
CAIRA: I don’t get a book sent to my house in the mail. Definitely not that. I mean, sometimes I’ll get stuff on, like my Instagram or my TikTok about, you know, like making your house a home for the fall. Especially your bedroom, you know, new sheets, new pillows, everything.
ROSIE: I get that, too.
CHRISTINE: It’s nesting time.
ROSIE: It is nesting time. And actually, that’s how I came to the sheets that are on my bed right now. They’re a nice pair of sheets. I mean, it’s a direct to consumer brand, put on my wedding registry because they were not cheap. And I have to tell you, not that much time has passed. The sheets are pilling. They’re kind of coming apart.
CHRISTINE: Yeah. That’s the worst
ROSIE: And so I’m. I’m ready to get a new set of sheets, but I kind of want to make a better choice this time. I want to really make sure that whatever I’m investing in. Because they’re not cheap. Especially if you’re shopping for a queen size bed. And so I want to make the right choice. But I realize wading into this, that I know so little.
CHRISTINE: Sheets are a tricky purchase,
ROSIE: You know about sheets!
CHRISTINE: Yeah, I know a ton about sheets. I edited our sheet coverage for a long time, and I just, I happen to know a lot about fabric, and, you know, you can. It’s one of these purchases that you can spend a lot on and not be very happy with your purchase at the end. That’s why I’m really pumped to have our guest today, Jackie Reeve, so excited. She’s so great. She is our bedding writer, and she has been testing sheets for us for a long time, almost a decade. And Jackie’s also a quilter, and so she’s just very knowledgeable about bedding in general. And about this topic in particular.
ROSIE: This is great. I’m so excited to hear from Jackie.
CAIRA: I am too. We’re going to take a quick break and then when we come back, we’ll talk with Jackie Reeve from our home decor team. See, you in a sec
CAIRA: Welcome back to The Wirecutter Show. Today, we’re talking with Wirecutter veteran Jackie Reeve. Jackie has been covering bedding at Wirecutter for 8 years. She’s a quilter, she’s a former librarian, and she makes her bed everyday.
CHRISTINE: Go girl.
ROSIE: Bravo!
CHRISTINE: Jackie is so knowledgeable about sheets. I’ve worked with her for years and truly, she’s the person you want to talk to to find out kind of all the secrets about sheets. She’s going to talk to us about what different kinds of sheets are, what is good and bad about each kind, and what to look for on labels when you’re buying sheets.
CAIRA: Jackie, welcome to the Wirecutter show.
JACKIE: Thank you.
CHRISTINE: Jackie. We have known each other a long time. A long time, yeah. You and I have been working together for almost a decade. It’s getting close to that
JACKIE: 2015. Yeah, yeah.
CHRISTINE: So something I’ve never asked you. You test all sorts of bedding, all sorts of sheets. Like you tested our pillow guide for our pillow guide for a long time. You are really like our betting guru on staff, I will say. I want to know what is the wildest, weirdest testing you’ve ever done?
JACKIE: Okay, one of the wild things is that we used to live in New Jersey. We moved to Washington. It’s been like six years, and we basically bought our house because it had a second laundry room in the basement for me for work. Because the year or two before we moved, when I wrote the blankets guide originally. Yeah, I tested almost two dozen king sized blankets. And I ended up running our dryer for 200 hours. I added it up.
ROSIE: Oh my gosh,
JACKIE: 200 hours. And that was just on blankets because they take so long to dry. And so when we were house hunting, we found this house that the basement is like a finished mother in law apartment kind of thing. And it had its own laundry room. And my husband, Adam, he was very excited because a tremendous part of my job is laundry. And so it can really hold up the family laundry. That actually really did influence why we bought our house.
CHRISTINE: Wow.
CAIRA: I just imagine you being surrounded by blankets, like the blankets that you test. You’re just swimming in a sea of blankets.
CHRISTINE: But you also kind of have like, you are a former librarian and you kind of have a Dewey index system of sheets and bedding in your home.
JACKIE: I do have to have a system because there’s so many. And so I put everything in the pillowcase and tie it up, and then I safety-pin a label to it with, like I write down what’s in it because. And I still use pillowcase I’m convinced there’s like gremlins in the laundry room, because no matter how much I try to keep stuff together, pillowcases still vanish.
CAIRA: If it can happen to you, it can happen to anybody. Truly. Oh my gosh. Well, Jackie, about sheets. So I have so many questions. As you know, I’ve been testing mattresses for a while because I test beds, people think that I also test bedding, but it’s its own world.
JACKIE: It’s his own thing. Yeah. I could not do what you do.
CAIRA: And I likewise. No, I don’t do a decimal system for sheets. But you know, the question that I get most often is like, what mattress should I buy? And of course the answer is, well, what do you like? And people don’t know. So I was just kind of wondering, like do you think that this is the same for sheets? Like people actually are buying fabrics that they don’t know enough about, and they don’t know enough about themselves to get what they want?
JACKIE: Yeah, I think sometimes that’s true because it’s really confusing. And different companies call things by a different name. And so you might think they’re completely different. If you’re just buying plain sheets, cotton sheets really are divided into two weaves – percale and sateen. Sometimes you see percale written as like plain weave, but that’s sort of outdated. And sometimes you see sateen written as satin, and then people think it’s satin. It isn’t. And so they’re different weaves and they have different kind of properties that are very distinctive.
CHRISTINE: And Jackie, when we have, you know, I used to edit you on a lot of our sheet coverage and we kind of always suspected that when people were complaining about their sheets, a lot of times people say, oh, my sheets are too rough. That oftentimes people might be buying the wrong sheet for them, so they might be buying percale and thinking, oh, this is really rough. And that’s actually just oftentimes a feature, not a bug of percale.
JACKIE: 100% And so it’s figuring out the texture that you like. And some people are just hypersensitive to it. We’ve even had readers that have bought picks in the past, repeatedly and didn’t like the texture. And we had them send the sheets in so that we could, you know, try them out and see if we could find the problem. And it is very individual to the person. It might feel fine to us and not to someone else. So it’s first understanding if you want a really smooth, silky sheet and that’s sateen, or if you want a kind of lightweight, airy sheet that’s crisp and that’s percale. And also you know, like if you sleep hot, if you’re looking for more warmth, what time of year it is, all that matters.
ROSIE: So, percale and sateen are two different kinds of weaves you might see on a label, and we’ll talk much more about that later. But backing up to one of the main pieces of advice in your guides on the Wirecutter site, Jackie, is that it’s best to look for 100% cotton sheets, regardless of the weave. Can you explain why you recommend 100% cotton?
JACKIE: Cotton is I mean, a lot of people don’t like cotton, you know, it’s expensive to grow. It’s environmentally, you know, taxing is the argument that you hear people make to grow. But it is the most breathable material next to linen, which is of more distinctive texture. Cotton is, like the most broadly appealing material that you can use for sheets. It’s the most breathable, it’s the softest, it lasts a good long time. You can really beat it up in ways that you can’t with linen and in ways that you can’t with synthetics, and the way the sort of fibers of these materials are measured. It’s called deniere, and it’s basically how fine a fiber is. And cotton is like the finest. Well, silk is the finest natural material, but it’s the finest material that you generally find sheets in. And so it feels smoother on the skin, like the skinnier the fiber, the better it feels. When you see something like thread count, they’re measuring by a square inch. So picture a square inch of fabric. How many threads of material you can squeeze in there.
And so cotton is pretty fine and you can get a good amount in there, but it still breathes. Synthetics because they’re not natural fibers, you can engineer them to be even finer. They are very skinny. And because of that, they’re pretty dense. Like if you wanted a material that wasn’t full of holes, you’re packing those in and it just less air flows through. We like cotton because the way that you can weave it is more breathable and softer. Every expert I’ve ever talked to, it’s the one that they recommend the best for comfort and for longevity.
CHRISTINE: So to that point, Jackie, when we’re talking about cotton and quality cotton, there is a term used for fibers, the staple. Right?
JACKIE: Yeah. So.
CHRISTINE: So what is first of all like what does staple mean?
JACKIE: It’s like it’s the fiber itself. So if you were to take fluffy bits of cotton off a plant, the staple is kind of it’s that material. It’s that fiber. Just the way you can grow like 100 different kinds of tomatoes or pumpkins. You can grow many different kinds of cotton. And so some of them grow really short staples, like they’re just not going to be very tall fibers. And some of them which are harder to grow and more expensive to grow, they have longer fibers. When we think about it with sheets, we often think about it in terms of strength and durability. And I think of it like braiding hair. So basically if you have hair, that’s all different layers, let’s say like the Jennifer Aniston bob from Friends. And you try to braid that, you’re going to have bits of hair sticking out and you have to use a lot of conditioners or products or gels to get that hair flat enough to braid it into a really smooth, even braid. And then the second that braid gets friction, like if you slept on it, or if you rubbed your hands over your hair the little shorter, you know, different lengths of that hair, they’re going to start to fly out of the braid.
It’s really hard to control. So in sheets, when those fibers start to fly out of the weave, you feel it on the texture of the sheet. It can make the sheets hotter, it can make the sheets scratchier, it makes them more susceptible to holes or tears. Because now, instead of being a nice flat woven piece of fabric, you have little threads of stuff sticking up and those can grab onto things and, you know, cause problems. So long staple cotton, it’s just a longer fiber. We tend to recommend long staple, like if you’re shopping for sheets yourself and you’re, you know, not sure what you’re looking for, see if you can find sheets that are long staple or extra long staple cotton. They’ll be more expensive because it is just a more expensive cotton to grow. But the idea is, you know, picture trying to braid hair, that’s all one length.
ROSIE: It’s like 70s flower child, long, straight. The perfect part.
JACKIE: Yes. You probably don’t need a lot of product to get them to stay put. You’re not going to get as many flyaways. It’s an imperfect analogy because, you know, obviously there’s no fiber of cotton that’s as long as a sheet, you’re going to have to weave a bunch of them together anyway. But the longer the fiber, the smoother the thread. So you want the smoothest threads that you can because they’re going to be the strongest and the most durable over time. They’re also going to feel the best on your skin because you’re just getting that flat, lovely, cool surface. You’re going to get fewer of those little bits that stick up and cause problems, and so they tend to last longer in our experience.
CAIRA: Wow. Well, okay. So pause. Let me see if I got that right. You’re saying that long staple is better and it’s talking about the length of the cotton fiber?
JACKIE: Yes. Correct. And you can find good sheets that have short staple cotton. But if you’re shopping on your own and, you know, for whatever reason, let’s say you can’t find our picks or you don’t like our picks, that’s fine. You know, I won’t be offended. And so if you’re just out and there’s an incredible deal on sheets that we don’t recommend, and you’re wondering if they’re worth getting. That’s when I sort of say, see if you can find things that say long staple. I have tested short staple sheets that are great, and some of our picks aren’t long staple.
ROSIE: What do people mean, because this is another thing I’ve seen on labels, what do people mean by pima or supima.
JACKIE: So Pima is a long staple cotton. It’s a fabulous quality cotton grown in America and parts of Latin America. There are other types of long staple cotton grown in other parts of the world, like there’s one called Giza, which is grown in Egypt. Which brings up a whole other thing about Egyptian cotton. But Pima is just a long staple cotton grown, you know, in North or maybe South America. Supima is like a brand of American Pima. So it doesn’t – it’s it is Pima. Supima is Pima, but it goes through a process of like, you have to be certified and make sure that you’re using the right stuff. It’s a very specific American Pima.
ROSIE: Textually are they going to be similar. Pima and supima: Almost the same.
JACKIE: Almost the same. Yeah. Like one of our picks L.L.Bean. They’ve gone back and forth over the years between Pima and Pima cotton. I’ve tested several sets of those sheets. I’ve never felt a significant difference between them.
CHRISTINE: You mentioned Giza cotton and Egyptian cotton. Yeah. And you kind of hinted that there’s a bigger story when people see Egyptian cotton on labels. I think people often think oh that’s the high shelf. That’s like the best. But not necessarily right?
JACKIE: Not necessarily. I mean, you know, you can grow fabulous cotton in Egypt, just like you can grow fabulous cotton in the American South and in really hot climates. And so Giza is – I’ve tested sheets made of Giza, and they are incredibly expensive and incredibly luxurious. But you can grow any cotton in Egypt. And so companies will put that Egyptian cotton label on a product. It does not mean it’s the highest end. Cotton. Egyptian is just the country it comes from the country it’s grown in. It doesn’t say anything about the quality, right?
CHRISTINE: So unless it says extra long staple Egyptian cotton, then you are. Yeah, that’s what you should be thinking about.
ROSIE: Shout out to the Egyptian cotton lobby though,
CAIRA: Yeah, they killed it.
JACKIE: There’s only like a couple of sets of sheets that I know of that are actually made with, it’s called Giza 45. It’s like the most luxurious cotton in the world, and they’re incredibly expensive. And so when they’re using that incredibly fancy Egyptian cotton, they will tell you that it is Giza, and so like you will know from the price tag and they will name it. If it just says Egyptian, it could be anything.
CHRISTINE: All right. So if someone is looking at a label they want to be looking for 100% cotton. Yeah. If they are looking for a higher quality of sheeting, they want to be looking for long staple, extra long staple. Pima, Supima. Giza.
JACKIE: These are all good.
CHRISTINE: Right? Don’t be fooled by just Egyptian. That might just be really a marketing term. So let’s turn to something that I know can be kind of a marketing term. Let’s talk about thread count.
JACKIE: Okay.
CHRISTINE: So why is thread count not necessarily the most important thing to look at on a label?
JACKIE: Okay, so it’s an easy number to manipulate. And it’s something that caught on as this marketing idea. But it doesn’t tell you anything about the quality of the cotton being used. And people have this real idea that the higher the thread count, the better the sheet. It doesn’t work that way.It just became a thing and a lot of companies would overestimate, you know, how many threads were actually in their materials. When I’ve interviewed experts about sheets and, you know, sort of said, what thread counts, do you look for? They all tell you the same thing. I’ve talked to people who like work in the industry. I’ve talked to professors who study this stuff. I’ve talked to textile experts … that kind of 250 to 300 range for percale and that sort of 400 to 600 range for sateen is the general range that everybody’s given me. And in testing, I’ve tried less than that, more than that, you know, all over the place. Those really do end up being the sheets that perform the best in our tests. They all end up falling in that range. So it’s not a measure that we pay as much attention to.
CAIRA: Wow. I just know that my dad’s going to be crushed when he hears this. He loves being that person. Like in TJ Max finding the greatest deals on 1200 count sheets.
CAIRA: Are there any other things people should look for on the labels that indicate that there are quality sheets inside?
JACKIE: I also look for Oeko-tex certification.
CAIRA: Okay. What’s that?
JACKIE: So Oeko-tex certification is a process where many companies who are making these products send their materials off to this company to be independently tested. And there’s a list of materials that they are making sure don’t exist in the sheets. Like things that maybe would cause allergies or just you don’t necessarily want them up against your skin. It’s just looking for specifically harmful substances that might be in these sheets. And when we started, it was really rare.
CHRISTINE: Yeah. I feel like ten years ago it wasn’t very common to see Oeko-tex on a label, but now you can go into Target and see it on a lot of labels.
JACKIE: Target is like ahead of most of the companies on this stuff. They’ve actually gone a step further. So the standard certification that you go through for Oeko-tex, it’s called the Standard 100 and it is 100 substances that they’re testing for. And now there’s another certification called Made in Green, where they’ve gone a step further and not just tested the materials for these substances. Now they’re actually working with companies to go to where they’re manufacturing things to make sure that the facilities they’re manufactured in follow certain guidelines.And so far, off the top of my head, they’re the only brand I can think of that I see doing it.
ROSIE: So there are some chemicals that are in sheets, but they’re not necessarily considered harmful. What would those be or what are they used for?
JACKIE: So most of the time they’re conditioners and finishes is the general sort of industry terms. And what that involves is very challenging to figure out because companies don’t love to tell you that. But basically, when you’re manufacturing a sheet and you want them to feel amazing out of the package, you want them to fold very perfectly, a certain way, and look flawless. They will put conditioner on them just like you put conditioner on your hair to keep that braid tidy. That’s how they arrive at the store. And so plenty of those are perfectly fine. We all, we can basically confirm from what we’re able to gather from different companies, is that it’s just not these hundred substances that, you know, Oeko-tex tests for. The thing about a lot of these, though, and I know that people get nervous about the idea of anything being on something that’s going to be against your skin–it washes out. So we always say wash your sheets when you first get them, because it’ll get rid of a lot of the stuff that comes from the manufacturer to make them pretty. You know when I’ve interviewed experts about this and talked to them, most of them say if you wash your sheets by the fifth or sixth wash, it’s pretty much all gone.
CAIRA: And that’s why so much of your testing involves laundry, right? Because that’s what you’re doing. You’re washing the sheets to get them to that true fabric feeling.
JACKIE: Yeah. Because you really this is the other challenge about buying sheets if you’re just kind of like out there on your own, trying things, that’s so frustrating is you really aren’t going to know what those sheets feel like for real until you’ve washed them a few times. And so this is where return policies become really important, because if you can’t return it after you’ve washed it, it’s challenging to buy without, you know, knowing somebody else has tried it and tested it. And so return policies are a big deal because you want to be able to use the sheets, sleep on them and wash them a bunch of times, you know, to get that real feel.
ROSIE: Return policies are a big deal. But also you’re a big deal and Wirecutter’s a big deal for real. The idea that there’s someone, a real human in the world, who’s gone through that process and can say, okay, after wash number six, I can confirm that it feels like X, Y, or Z.
JACKIE: Yeah, I try, you know, I have processes to be able to compare because it’s really challenging. One of them is I put my family through a tremendous amount of testing and they give me feedback. So my husband, my poor husband, has suffered through a lot of sheets. And so has my daughter, you know, and so she gives me feedback. But usually when I’m testing I’ll keep a pillowcase back. Like I’ll keep a pillowcase brand new and then I’ll wash the sheets. And so then I compare them after one wash. And you can tell right away the difference in how it feels. And then, you know, we’ll often like sleep on them and I’ll do some more tests. And, you know, I put them through all kinds of stuff to try and wear them out as much as I can. But then let’s say I’ve washed them five, five times is pretty typical. But sometimes I’ll do more if I’m sort of unsure. And so then I’ll compare it again to that brand new pillowcase. And the difference in feeling is it’s amazing. And so there are very few sheets that I’ve tested I can think of, maybe like two off the top of my head, that feel as amazing after five washes as they do out of the package, and that’s like a really good. Decatur that they’ve put a ton of conditioners to get them out the door to you, you know, as the person buying them. It’s, I mean, I don’t want to go so far as to see trickery, because that sounds really mean, but it’s kind of trickery, you know? And so you just don’t know. I wash them a lot.
CAIRA: Okay. So I’m hearing that you got to check those labels. You want to aim to buy 100% cotton. Don’t be fooled by inflated thread count. And you want to wash all those conditioners out so you actually know what you’re buying.
JACKIE: Yeah, especially if you have sensitive skin.
CAIRA: Got it. Yeah.
JACKIE: And make sure there’s a good return policy.
CAIRA: Check the return policy. Always!
JACKIE: Always always. Yeah.
CAIRA: We’re going to take a quick break. And then when we come back we’re gonna deep dive on the differences between the two main types of cotton sheets we recommend – percale and sateen. You will walk away knowing which kind you want to try.
CHRISTINE: And a little later we’ll talk non-cotton options and the best ways to score bargains on sheets, which is my favorite topic. You’re listening to the Wirecutter show. We’ll be right back.
CHRISTINE: Welcome back to the Wirecutter Show. Today’s episode is about sheets. Our guest is Jackie Reeve. She’s Wirecutter’s bedding reporter, and has been testing bed sheets for eight years. OK Jackie, we’re going to talk about one of my favorite things when it comes to sheets. Let’s talk about the feel of the fabric. Earlier, you mentioned percale and sateen, which are two different types of weaves… but let’s go deeper. Walk us through what differentiates these two?
JACKIE: Okay, so percale is a lighter airy-er fabric, but it also tends to be – that’s the one that people often say is scratchy. And so the weave on a percale is like the lattice on a pie. It’s like a tic tac toe board, one thread over one thread under. If you looked at it, you know, up close that’s what it would look like. So if you think of when you’re looking at a pie, you can see all the filling through that lattice. Think of that as the air that can get through the sheet when it’s on your body. It’s just more breathable.
I use percale sheets all summer, but they also are very crisp, just the way that they’re woven. Just the nature of like a, you know, a fabric like that. It is, I think often what people think of when they think of hotel sheets. It’s going to lie on top of your body, almost sort of float over you. It’s not going to hug into all the nooks and crannies. And it weighs less because you can only squeeze so many threads into that pattern. But the flip side of that is that it’s the one that people most often tell us that they find scratchy.
ROSIE: And so what is the wirecutter pick for the percale sheets?
JACKIE: The Wirecutter pick for percale sheets is from L.L.Bean. It’s been our pick for ever and ever. I think we’ve had something like four different writers test them and always come to the same conclusion. And we often do not have a budget pick for them, because we have yet to find a really great, affordable set of percale that does what it’s supposed to and feels good on the skin. And so L.L.Bean is our favorite.
CHRISTINE: And so how about sateen?
JACKIE: Okay, so sateen is a slightly different weave made with the exact same threads. So if a company sells a percale sheet and a sateen sheet and the names are really similar, they’re probably using the exact same cotton, exact same threads, they’re just weaving them in a different pattern. So sateen, instead of having that pie lattice where you go over one under one thread, sateen has what’s called floats. So you can squeeze more threads into a small space because you can, let’s say, go over one thread and then float under two or float over three threads and then go under one. And so because it’s not a one over one under pattern, it just gives more room to squish more material in there. It’s denser so it’s warmer. So it’s what I often use in the winter if I don’t have flannel sheets on the bed and it is heavier, they just physically weigh more than percale. So it’s not a sheet that I would use in the summer. It will make you sweat. It has a better drape. When you put it over your body. It’s going to nestle into all the spaces around you and it has a really silky smooth feel. So if you don’t like a crisp sheet, sateen is the way. It also doesn’t wrinkle very much. Percale wrinkles a lot. I know that bothers a lot of people.
CHRISTINE: And the long time favorite that we’ve had for sateen is actually from JCPenney, of all places, right?
JACKIE: Yeah. And it is not a long staple cotton. It’s just one of those that we’ve tested so many of them that just whatever witchcraft they’re doing to those sheets, it’s really good. It’s not like the best, the best, best sateen we’ve ever tested. But for the price, it is so good and lasts for years.
CHRISTINE: And to your point, if you’re looking if you’re on a budget and you are looking for something that’s smoother, you’re more likely to find sateen that’s cheaper than a good percale, right?
JACKIE: In our experience. Yeah.
CAIRA: So percale tends to be lighter and airier. So it’s breathable and kind of crisp. And it’s actually kind of funny. I just got a set of percale sheets and I love them. But I do find them so loud. They’re like crunchy.
JACKIE:I’ve heard that a lot.
CAIRA: Yeah, yeah, but I like it. I do think that they’re very breathable, and I haven’t noticed that they wrinkle. In comparison to that, you’re saying that sateen can be a little bit heavier. It really, like sinks over your body. Yeah.
ROSIE: This sounds like my dream. I want to be hugged by my sheets.
CHRISTINE: I’m going to take a real left turn here, Jackie. And we’ve talked a lot about cotton, but I want to talk about my personal favorite sheets. We’re getting to it. Let’s talk about linen.. What is linen? What is it made of? And how does it differ from cotton?
JACKIE: All right, so linen is plant based just like cotton. And it comes from flax when it’s made into a thread, when you use the fibers to make a fabric, it is fatter than cotton. There’s going to be bigger gaps between them. They’re going to let more air through. So linen is incredibly breathable. I have to agree with Christine on that. They are so cool. They let so much air circulate, but it is a scratchier fiber than cotton. And so a lot of people just don’t like the texture. That’s the problem I run into. I will begrudgingly admit that they feel better to sleep under in summer in terms of just how air circulates than cotton. But, you know, I also feel like if I roll over too much, I’m going to get like a rash because they’re so scratchy to me.
ROSIE: Jackie, what about flannel? Because, one of my best. I love one of my best sense memories from childhood was the annual switching of the flannel sheets and my mom would do onto our bed. Yeah, I love flannel.
JACKIE: Yeah. Okay, so flannel is also 100% cotton sheet. The good ones, you know, you’ll find some out there that are mix. And I wouldn’t recommend getting those because they’re going to be even less breathable. So basically imagine if you just took a cotton sheet and then you took a brush to it and just went all over the surface of that. You would basically be making a flannel.
ROSIE: Where does this fit into the braid analogy?
JACKIE: It is just like Diana Ross. It’s just like amazing. You just want to, I mean, you could wrap up in that hair. It’s so good. And so that’s what flannel is, but it is brushing it deliberately so that, you know, that’s also why flannel, if you ever, like, squished it with your fingers compared to your regular cotton sheets, it feels fatter. And it’s because all those little neat fibers that were laying flat are now sticking up, and that traps air. And so that’s why they’re warm. So they feel nice and soft and amazing on the skin. They’re catching all the heat from your body. That’s where the heat in your covers comes from. If you get into a cool bed your body is what is warming up those sheets. Flannel is like taking all that nice body heat and it holds on to it. So it’s not getting out through the spaces. It’s nice and contained and it’s really fuzzy. I mean, hands down, the best flannel we have ever tested is from L.L.Bean.
ROSIE: That’s what. Oh yeah.
JACKIE: Oh great pick. It’s just phenomenal. I don’t know what they do to that flannel. However many times we wash those L.L.Bean sheets, they stay pretty fluffy. Now, the thing with flannel sheets is they are going to pill because, you know, you have all those little fibers sticking up just from your own body rolling around on them. Eventually you’re going to get little balls of material on the surface. And so part of what we look at in testing is how bad is that pilling? And does it ruin the sheet? Does it still stay soft? Does it still stay warm? I mean, nobody beats L.L.Bean. We do have a budget pick from Target, and it’s like the best cheap flannel we found. But still, L.L.Bean is incredible.
ROSIE: You’ve referenced multiple times the testing that you’re doing for your sheets. I’m wondering, how are you – besides washing? How are you sort of beating these sheets up? Are you doing barrel rolls and jumping on the bed? Like, what are you doing?
JACKIE: I mean, I do get creative. It’s one of the fun parts of the job. I’ve done all kinds of things. Some of them I’ve taken my sewing, pinking shears, and I’ll take those. Are those criss-cross, you know, the zigzag scissors. And so I will try to, like, damage a section as much as I can and then compare it to the rest of the sheet. I have this tool I use called a pick glass. It’s a little magnifier. It’s one inch square. And the idea is you put the sheet under it and highlights one inch. So I’ve used that to count threads on sheets. I’m 45 years old. I cannot do that anymore. My eyes are not good enough, I can’t do that anymore.
CAIRA: That’s like counting grains of sand!
ROSIE: Thread counting is a young man’s game.
JACKIE: I was learning how thread count worked and I was trying to figure out, like, is this accurate? I would count. So like, I’ll, you know, do different things to try and damage areas. I’ve had many tug of war situations with my dog. You know, where I let him try to see if he can chew them up. I’m doing things to the temperature sometimes in the room when we’re sleeping on them to see if I can– like the first time we tested flannel sheets, we were doing it in, like, July. And so I had the air conditioning in our house set to like 55.
CHRISTINE: Yeah, it’s a treacherous part of the job.
JACKIE: Yeah. We test these flannel sheets in the dead of summer. Just like cranking up the AC. Yeah.
ROSIE: Pour some out for your husband.
JACKIE: He suffers a lot. But, you know, like the trade off is he’s gotten to try some really good sheets. His feedback is often hilarious. He has very distinctive reactions. Sateen is his favorite. You know, those are the ones that he loves the most. If I put the JCPenney sheets on, you know, the bed, he’s like, these are fine. If I put the cuddle down sheets on the bed, he goes, nice, you know?
CHRISTINE: What does he say when you put on the $2,000 set of sheets? You tested a $2,000 set of sheets, right?
JACKIE: I did. I put those on and he went nice. That’s like the most reaction I’ve ever gotten from him.
CAIRA: So we know that good sheets can be expensive. And some people do think that our picks are too expensive. Now that you’ve walked us through how to read a label, what are your hot tips when, you know, we got into the wild and you’re just trying to find a good deal?
JACKIE: Yeah, I mean obviously follow Wirecutter deals. You know, Black Friday is a great time to buy them. And sometimes there’s January sales that are really good. And like around Presidents Day we’ve had some good ones. But absolutely shopping sales is, you know, just hold out as long as you can. The JCPenney sheets are almost constantly on sale. We’ve seen them really low. You know, like I would never pay more than, I don’t know, $60 or $70 for a set of those like a queen size. But I think we’ve seen them as low as $40 during Black Friday sales.
CAIRA: What do you think about bargain stores like TJ Max or HomeGoods?
JACKIE: I think that you have to go in there with an open mind and an open heart, and if you find something that you’re really excited about, go for it. You never know until you try it, but do just be ready for some heartbreak if they don’t work out for you.
CHRISTINE: So to end the episode, I want to kind of run through a few lightning round questions with you because I think there’s some other sort of things people see in labels or in marketing that we want to get down to the bottom of. Are bamboo sheets they choice? Should they be thinking about bamboo sheets over cotton?
JACKIE: No. Why? Absolutely not. The sets that I’ve tested, aside from the fact that there’s a ton of greenwashing, which is a term we use when we basically say, you know, they’re they’re making them seem more environmentally friendly than they might actually be. And finding out the truth of those claims from companies can be very challenging. In real life, the sets that I’ve tested, they just don’t hold up in the wash. They get very fuzzy, very fast, and they’re just not worth the price.
CHRISTINE: Okay. can sheets be cooling?
JACKIE: Yes. Sheets can be cooling. Cooling sheets, if they’re marketed that way, are not cooling.
CHRISTINE: So explain: why is that?
JACKIE: So I tested some cooling sheets. Some of them were bamboo. A lot of them feel amazing when they’re new out of the package, but once you wash them a few times, it doesn’t last. So I’ve tested sheets that have a special, you know, very science sounding coating on them to make them cool. And yes, they felt great at first, but that coating is meant to wash out after maybe 50 washes. And after that you just have okay percale sheets.
CHRISTINE: What about anti-microbial? Is that something that is legit? Like can these fight bacteria?
JACKIE: I mean, no, is the answer. What I’ll say is like in huge quantities, some of these products maybe have antimicrobial properties, but probably not in the small amounts that are in your sheets.
CHRISTINE: And what is it that’s in these sheets that’s supposed to be…?
JACKIE: I’ve seen some that use silver. You know, I believe there is some evidence that maybe silver’s antimicrobial, but like, not in the very tiny amounts that are like fibers woven into the threads of your sheets. There’s basically no shortcut to having to wash your sheets. You just have to change your sheets. You have to wash.
CAIRA: Once a week. By the way.
JACKIE: Absolutely once a week. I say change them once a week in order to like wash them every week. You know, they can live in the hamper for a while, but yeah, get them off your bed as often as you can.
CHRISTINE: Okay, last one: a good set of sheets should last you about a decade.
JACKIE: I have not been testing sheets long enough to have personally confirmed that. But yes, that is what experts I’ve interviewed in the past have told us. I think I’m up to 7 or 8 years and the good ones are still fabulous, so I think that’s a pretty safe number for our picks, at least I would say.
CAIRA: Jackie. Here’s the last question we ask all our guests. What was the last thing that you bought that you absolutely loved?
JACKIE: Okay. I have several pairs now but I have been buying these overalls called Swoveralls. Have you guys seen these?
ALL: No.
JACKIE: I mean they are overalls made out of sweat pant material.
ROSIE: Our producer, Abigail, is heavily nodding. Fist-pumping actually.
JACKIE: They are flippin amazing. Okay, so they’re fleece lined, so they’re not hot. They’re like a French Terry. They’re so soft. They’re actually amazing. I’ve got my daughter into them now, too. So she’s got a couple pairs that she’s wearing. Basically, if you want to feel like you’re wearing …they’re sweatpants, but they’re overalls, it’s like wearing a blanket all day, but, you know, you can leave the house with it.
CHRISTINE: I kind of wish we were all wearing these right now.
ROSIE: Jackie, thank you for the gift of recommending swoveralls, but also for all of your extensive knowledge on sheets and textiles and everything that we needed to know. Of course. Appreciate you.
JACKIE: Thank you for having me.
CHRISTINE: Okay. We just got an education on sheets. I loved that.
CAIRA: Master class.
ROSIE: We got schooled.
CHRISTINE: So what did you take away from that?
CAIRA: Thread count is a myth. Unfortunately. But you do want to look for, like, 100% percale or sateen cotton sheets. You just need a thread count of, like, 300 or 400. And maybe you look for, like an Ohio Tech certification and that’s it. Quality sheets. Not that hard.
ROSIE: Those are great takeaways for me. It’s ol’ faithful. L.L.Bean flannel sheets all day, every day. I’m a Mainer. So that just hit me. And the other one is I genuinely am so excited to have learned that imma sateen girly.
CHRISTINE: You now know yourself.
ROSIE: I know myself and I love that. I run colder. So I know now that I am going to appreciate the denser fabric–sateen. And the fact that it’s going to drape over me and kind of Nestle in all those crevices and keep me cozy.
CHRISTINE: Keep you cozy. I am opposite, I love percale, I like a light percale sheet. I like a little scratchiness. It’s my jam. But I will say that I really loved this analogy that Jackie used throughout the episode about a braid and the weave of the fabric. It made so much sense to me. Yeah, I know a lot about fabric, and I’ve tried out a lot of our sheets. I think, like thinking about the fibers in your sheets kind of like hair makes a lot of sense.
ROSIE: It does. And I think also the addition of conditioner.
CHRISTINE: Yeah, exactly.
ROSIE: These additives that do something to the hair..
CHRISTINE: Right. You don’t really want too many of those on your sheets.
ROSIE: Well, if you want to find out more about wire cutters coverage on sheets and bedding, if you want to read Jackie Reeve’s writing, go to nytimes.com/wirecutter. Or as always, you can find links in the show notes on your podcast app. And that’s it for us. Bye bye.
ROSIE: The Wirecutter Show is executive produced by Rosie Guerin and produced by Abigail Keel. Engineering support from Maddy Massiello and Nick Pitman. Today’s episode was mixed by Daniel Ramirez. Original music by Dan Powell, Marion Lozano, Elisheba Ittoop, Catherine Anderson, and Diane Wong. Wirecutter’s Deputy Publisher and Interim General Manager is Cliff Levy. Ben Frumin is Wirecutter’s Editor-in-Chief.
CHRISTINE: I’m Christine Cyr Clisset…
CAIRA: I’m Caira Blackwell…
ROSIE: And I’m Rosie Guerin. Thanks for listening.
