Quality fleece bedding stays comfy and strong because of anti-pilling and anti-static techniques. A fleece sheet with a smoother face yarn can provide the same level of comfort as your favorite throw, plus give an added layer of style to your bed. Fleece is a knitted, woolen-look fabric; good fleece is ultra-soft with a velvety feel that makes comfortable bedding. Fleece has long been a traditional cold-weather clothing fabric, and now you can find it in a variety of textures and colors in a wide range of home products, including sheets, pillowcases and blankets. Best Fleece 101 Fleece fabric is made from synthetic or a combination of natural and synthetic fibers, including wool, cotton, rayon, spandex. Different varieties and finishes are applied to fleece sheets and products that affect their price, look and feel. Good fleece sheets are soft and wick moisture away from your body. A plush bed sheet, coral fleece is 100-percent polyester, versatile and soft on both sides of the fabric.
Characteristics of Fleece Fleece is a pile fabric, and the yarn used to make fleece, referred to as the "face yarn," gives fleece its plain, smooth surface. Pile fabrics contain an extra set of looped yarns that are clipped or left looped. Pile fabrics, such as faux fur, have a rich luxurious appearance and softness. The material used to make fleece plays an important role in its quality. Cotton fleece is warm and absorbent and typically more expensive than acrylic fleece, while a sheet made with a polyester cotton blend is good quality and has a crisp feel to it. To make it water repellent, a semi-permanent substance is applied to the surface of some mid-weight and heavyweight fleeces to help repel moisture. Low-Pill Is Better Fleece sometimes has a problem with pills, little balls and nubs such as those that form on old sheets and sweaters, caused from wear and abrasion. High-quality fleece, such as as microfiber fleece, has a low-pill finish since it's produced with modern finishing techniques.
Pills are not as much of an issue when they appear on natural-fiber materials, which is largely because natural fibers are weaker than synthetic fibers. The pills often crack and fall away on a natural fiber sheet. Ultimately, natural fabric fleece sheets stay smoother after long-term use and washing. Texture and Finishing Fleece is a finish, which means a machine cuts the pile, smooths it, or creates attractive patterns with engraved rollers. Different finishing techniques cause a variety of surfaces and textures; for example, a dense, plush fleece is evenly sheared to provide a velvety finish. Sherpa or shearing finishes have a curly appearance that adds a different look when layered with fleece sheets with contrasting face yarns. References Denver Fabrics: Fleece FabricFashion and Textile Technology: Education Scotland -- FT Resource ManagementAmbassador Textiles: Fleece Fabrics: CoralBeddington's Bed and Bath: Advice: Fabric Sheets: Types of Fabric:The New York Times Magazine: The Evolution of Fleece, From Scratchy to Snuggie Photo Credits Jupiterimages/Stockbyte/Getty Images Suggest a Correction
Thread Count Doesn't Always Matter: Things To Look For When Buying Sheets (Image credit: Adrienne Breaux) First you need to decide what you want your sheets made of. Cotton is the most common and basic, but there's also linen, silk, bamboo, microfiber, etc... (I won't even get into all the blends out there.) Every material has its pros and cons: Linen is softer, more breathable ,and textured than cotton, but tends to wrinkle more. Silk is soft but more slippery. Microfiber is manmade versus natural. The list goes on, so you have to decide what feel you'd like. This number is determined by the number of threads running both horizontally and vertically in a square inch. The higher the thread count, as the theory goes, the softer the sheets. A few considerations to keep in mind: You can only have so many threads per square inch, and with cotton, 400 seems to be a good number to look for. Once you hit a certain threshold, it really doesn’t matter and you won't notice the difference.
(It’s almost like SPF ratings on sunblock or camera pixels.) There are ways for manufacturers to "increase thread count" without actually increasing the quality. It stands to reason that the number of threads you can squeeze into a specified area is dependent on the fiber that’s used. The thinner the fibers, the higher the thread count. Bamboo and silk have thinner fibers, so thread count can't be compared to that of cotton. The best sheets are made from longer fibers that are stronger when made into thread. Egyptian, Sea Island, and Pima cottons are recognized as the best with the longest fibers, and sheets made with them are usually labeled as such. If the packaging simply says 100% cotton, chances are good they were made from shorter fibers. If the sheets are made from shorter fibers, thread count won't really matter that much. Over time those short fibers will break, produce lint and pilling, and become less soft to the hand. How the threads are woven together has a big influence on how sheets feel on the bed.
The most common are percale, sateen, satin, microfiber and jersey, for starters. Percale sheets, for example, are a simple weave and usually on the crisper side. Sateen sheets are softer, and have a shiny quality. Jersey sheets are stretchier, etc... Price will go up depending on the complexity of the weave pattern used, with jacquard sheets being on the pricier end of the scale. Get to know what you like, and buy what you can afford. Many, many sheets are chemically treated after they are woven, to increase their strength and decrease wrinkling. If you want to avoid this (and the use of chemicals in general), look into treatment-free organic sheets. To sum up, there are other factors than go into making quality sheets, and you can achieve softness a variety of ways. Don't let promises of high thread count sway you into ignoring those other elements.According to the fairy tale, the test of a true princess was whether she could detect a pea hidden beneath a pile of 20 mattresses and eiderdowns.
Today, peas are out and thread counts are in. The higher the better.But what does it really mean? Technically, the term ‘thread count’ refers to the number of threads woven together in one square inch of fabric. Manufacturers count them both horizontally and vertically across this little square. The idea is, the more threads they cram in, the more luxurious the sheet.Yet, this is not always an exact indicator of quality. Some manufacturers ‘cheat’ by counting the strands that make up an individual thread as additional threads, meaning a thread count of 600 might really be just 300, low-quality double-ply threads. Sam Taylor (pictured) puts all the different bed linens to the test to see whether a higher thread count really does make a difference Other factors include finish and tightness of weave. For example, sateen is cotton yarn woven like satin for a lustrous sheen, while percale is a closely woven thread-count of more than 200.Sam Taylor tests what the High Street has to offer...
I grew up with a mother reared on rationing and devoted to keeping things for ‘best’: crockery, cutlery, glasses, tablecloths and bed linen, the ‘best’ cupboard was packed with things that were put away and never used. This sheet would certainly have been consigned to her Aladdin’s cave.The packaging describes Geniusa as offering fibres that are longer and finer than anything else. Without an industrial strength magnifying glass, it is impossible to tell, but certainly the sateen cotton feels thick and sumptuous — and you can’t see the mattress cover through it. The elasticated corners are generous, which means no stretching and the pillowcases are like resting on silk. If you have children in the house, oversleeping is something that happens to other people. But this sheet could shake things up a bit. Sam Taylor (pictured) rated the M&S: Supima cotton double fitted sheet at 4/5, praising it for it's impressive non-iron finish The packaging claims it will deliver the perfect night’s sleep — and it certainly does.
Getting out of bed was very difficult and I dreamt of going back to it even more than I usually do. Once on, the sheet looks impressive and having a non-iron finish just adds to its appeal. It also has the added benefit of a 10 in overhang on the edges — which means no nasty gaps on the side, even on a deep-filled mattress. When polyester was first invented in the Forties, it was heralded as a miracle fibre. There was little it couldn’t do — except convince us that it was a luxury item. It was always a bit scratchy and it still is.Primark’s 50/50 cotton and polyester mix is almost transparently thin. No matter which way I lay, it made me itch and overheat, an unwanted extra for the menopausal woman.That said, the manufacturers made no claims for its slumber properties or its deluxe appeal. It is a sheet. Or more accurately, a dust sheet. But at little more than the price of a couple of cappuccinos, it seems churlish to complain.Sheet makers to the Queen and the Prince of Wales, Dorma simply don’t make sheets that are below 200 thread.
Since 1921, they have been producing top-drawer bed linen and pride themselves on giving you that extra edge over the neighbours on the washing line. Sam says the Dorma: Fitted double sheet is fit for a Queen and allows coverage for even the deepest mattressThe 350 thread, double sheet is one of their biggest sellers. It’s not difficult to see why.Part of their indulgent range of luxury bedding, it is fit for a Queen who has never knowingly wasted money. It is 14in deep which allows for coverage of even the deepest mattress, perhaps even two mattresses, and the pillowcases are as crisp after five nights as they are after one. Coloured bits around the borders of sheets and pillowcases have always made me anxious and the silver streaks that define the Brompton collection fall into that category.Like most of the sheets I was testing, it has a sateen finish, but set against the almost neon finish white dye used on this range, it gives it a reflective quality that makes the bed look like something off Star Trek.In fact, so shiny is it that it works like a mirrored ceiling in reverse.
The experience of sleeping was so slippery that at some point in the night I subconsciously started holding on to the edge of the bed. All daughters believe they are princesses and mine is no exception, so the chance to upgrade her single bed linen to something that costs more than a flight to Paris was very appealing. Sam says although the £140 sheets from House of Fraser: Luxury Hotel Collection are luxurious they're not quite worth the moneyI approached this test with the question of wondering quite who would spend this amount of money on a single sheet. In fact, who would spent this amount on any sheet?True, it does deliver a relaxed and warm night’s slumber as the cotton is very dense, which makes it feel toasty. It’s luxurious, but I think I’d rather wait for the sale. The guest room often gets overlooked on the bed linen department. When VIP guests go to stay in the White House, the sheets are ironed six times before being put on the bed.This doesn’t happen in our home, which is probably why we don’t have many VIP visitors.
The matt finish of the John Lewis: Cotton and Percale gives a classy look and feel, making it seem more expensive than it is However, this sheet could change all that. The percale weave gives it a matt finish, which immediately makes it look and feel very classy — more like an expensive linen than a mid-market cotton.The ivory colouring is very flattering against the skin; past 50 everything helps. And it gives the illusion you have thought about the picky relatives, even if you can’t wait for them to leave. The majority of us will spend a third of our lives asleep — if you discount some students who notch up another three years in a virtual coma.They leave home with a bag full of freshly laundered towels and sheets and return a couple of months later with a putrid, foul-smelling laundry bag no detergent can bring to heel. So why waste money on them?This sheet is comfortable, the cotton isn’t too thin and it promises longer lasting durability. It also requires minimal ironing and suggests that it can be washed at lower temperatures unless it is dirty.