Counting your threads...

Ever wondered why the prices of bed linen vary so much? There are bedsheets for Rs.500 in the neighbourhood shop and then there is bespoke bed linen costing Rs.35,000 and more!!!! No, its not "brand" value that we are talking about...The basic factor that decides the price of your bed linen is the quality of the material used and that in turn is mainly determined by the thread count!

Thread count is the count of the number of threads in one square inch of the fabric. It is used as a measure of the fineness of the product. The greater the thread count, softer the fabric and costlier the product! The thread counts of bed linen vary from 80 to 700 and most stores sell bed linen that have thread counts below 250. The Adivitiya range of designer bed linen available on Zaarga typically use materials with thread counts in the range of 300. 

Egyptian Cotton, Thai silk and Merino wool are high quality fabric that are used for luxury linen. (But beware of materials described as "Egyptian Cotton", they could be a blend with just 1-2% of Egyptian Cotton!). Charlotte Thomas Bespoke, a British brand of luxury bed linen uses merino wool and 1000 count Egyptian cotton sheet threaded with 22 carat gold! A single cover can cost $2400! Some other world famous luxury brands that are yet to reach the Indian sub-continent are D.Porthault, Leron and Pratesi. Sferra of Venice, a luxury linen brand since 19th Century makes linen for White House and the Vatican. (courtesy- ET)  

That said, we would like to add that high thread count alone does not guarantee you great quality cotton sheets. It also depends on how the cotton is grown, woven, length and thickness of each fibre and the finishing technique! All else equal, thread count can be a good unit of measure for quality. 

So start counting the threads....and, if you wish to wake up in the lap of luxury, all you need to do is be discerning and choose such exclusive bed linen albeit at some premium.

Cheers!

Team Z