Be careful when reading the labels
When it comes to Egyptian cotton and thread-counts, some manufacturers are resorting to dodgy practices and false advertising when it comes to the way they label their products. This is largely due to the fact that it is so difficult for the consumer to test whether the manufacturers' claims are true. So here's of my collection of the shifty occurrences in the world of thread count & Egyptian cotton and I will keep adding to this over time. Check out the Choice website for more great information about this topic.
Make sure you don't get fooled into thinking you've got a good deal, and please feel free to share your finds and stories too!
820 Thread Count Egyptian Cotton Sheets that Aren’t
So lets just get this straight, thread count has little do with how soft you bed linen will feel. Having said that, your best to invest in sheets over 200 thread count, because under that they will feel quite rough to touch. However there is very little difference in the softness of most cotton sheets above 350 thread count. Softness is more to do with the quality of the cotton than the thread count. There is a range of factors that will affect the quality of your linen but we won’t go into detail about this here. Let get back to the Sanders Collection scam.
So these sheets claim to be anywhere from 820 to 1500 thread count depending on the package you buy. Is this even physically possible? The only fibres that can be manufactured small enough to have this high a thread count are nylon, Kevlar, nomex, trogamide, polyester and polymide, otherwise known as synthetically created fibres derived from petrochemicals. Eww who would want to sleep in that?
These sheets are not even made from cotton!
And when you pull them out of the package it’s pretty anticlimactic. They are so thin you can see right through them. A 300 thread count pure cotton sheet would have 2-3 times the density that these one’s have. But hang on, I thought the package said 100% Egyptian Cotton?! So how did they get away with that? Its all in the wording:
“Sanders Collection Sheets are made of high strength micro fiber yarns that will stay soft and wrinkle free for years to come with the soft touch as
820 Thread Count 100% Egyptian Cotton Sheet Set”
The words “soft touch as” are a great cover and I must say this is done by some very clever marketers. It’s a good example of how careful you need to be when you read the labels. That 800 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets may not end up being such a bargain after all.
Luxury Sheets that Aren't
10 years back, no one knew what thread-count even was. But during the past 10 years the thread-count claims touted by retailers seems to rise each year. You can now buy 1000 thread-count sheet for as little as $149. Is it too good to be true? It probably is.
A study by the Good Housekeeping Institute (A simular organisation to Choice, but based in America) investigated the thread-counts of several products sold within the major retailers and found that thread-counts were being grossly exaggerated. One product labelled as 1000 threadcount has an actual thread-count of 368.
The full article can be read here: Misleading thread-count claims
A bed of Lies
300 thread count sheets used to be shear indulgence. Yet fast forward a few years later and that number can seem pityful compared to the 1000 thread-count sheets varieties available. Did technoglogy change that much, or rather, did marketers start to catch on to consumers preferences for big numbers? According to this study by Good Housekeeping Magazine it is more the latter.
They tested a number of major brands and compared their actual thread count with the thread-count on the packaging. Check it out. The results are outstanding - A bed of lies
Comedian Talks about thread counts
This is a great little skit by comedian Aziz Ansari. He talks about the difficult task of buying high quality bed sheets with all the confusing claims about thread-count and egyptian cotton. Well worth a watch. It's both entertaining and informative.
