How to Choose the Best Bedding for Summer

Summer's here and the mercury is tickling 30 degrees. But whilst the sizzling hot weather means blissful long evenings sat outside, it can also make for an uncomfortable night tossing and turning in your sleep. Ick.

The bedding you sleep in can make a noticeable difference to how comfortable you feel at night. We've put together a guide to help you choose the best bedding material for summer, so you can stop fretting about nightmare nights and get back to sipping on Pimms. 

The best bedding for keeping cool

High calibre, natural 100% cotton or linen are the perfect ingredients for a cool and comfortable bed sheet. But much like cooking a nice meal, it’s the quality, not the quantity, of the ingredients that really matter. We’ll explain…

Cotton sheets for summer 

First things first - don’t sweat over marketing gimmicks such as ‘high thread counts’ and ‘Egyptian cotton’.

What you really need to look out for when choosing your cotton sheets for summer, is the staple length of the cotton in your bedding. As staple length increases, you’ll find less exposed fibre ends (the rough, bobbly and itchy stuff), and cool, soft and durable bedding material instead.

Materials aside, how your bedding is woven can also have a huge impact on how you feel beneath it at night too.

High quality cotton bedding is typically produced in either a percale or sateen weave.

A percale weave produces a cool and crisp fabric, like your favourite shirt, and is therefore ideal for hotter temperatures.

A sateen weave produces a luxuriously silky fabric, and has a slightly heavier drape, making it perfect for colder nights.

At Bedfolk, we offer two types of percale weave (Relaxed Cotton and Classic Cotton) - the perfect summer bedding.

Our Relaxed Cotton style has the aesthetic of linen, whilst retaining the softness and breathability of cotton. It’s been designed to look and feel better when effortlessly crumpled.

Relaxed Cotton in Snow

Classic Cotton offers a more even distribution of colour and a smoother hand feel. Soft, crisp and airy, this isn’t your average percale weave – it’s refined, smooth and absolutely dreamy.

Classic Cotton in Snow

Linen Sheets for summer

Just like with cotton, you need to make sure you’re investing your hard earned pennies on high quality linen for a sound night’s sleep.

Look out for high calibre materials, used by the best makers in the world. In the case of our linen, that means Belgian and French flax, woven in the same world-class Portuguese mill that our cotton bedding is crafted in. 

Linen in Snow

And whilst it’s not the sexiest of topics, night sweats are a thing, and linen bedding can be a great solution. That’s because linen sheets are one of the best bed sheets for staying cool at night.

They’re both temperature regulating and breathable, whilst their moisture wicking benefits have the effect of a natural anti-perspirant for those hot nights spent tossing and turning.

If this wasn’t enough to win you over, the natural fibres (linen is made from flax plant) are bacterial resistant and hypoallergenic which is a win, win for sweaty sleepers. Science aside, this explains why linen bedding is always a popular choice in the summer.   

The bed sheets to avoid if you want a cool night’s sleep

As a general rule of thumb, natural fabrics such as cotton and linen are much more breathable than synthetic fibres such as polyester, or poly-cotton mixes.

And whilst it may be the cheaper option, short staple cotton is rough to the touch, susceptible to bobbling, and can degrade over time – not something hot sleepers want to spend a third of their life cuddled up with. 

Ready to sleep in cool and comfortable sheets? Shop our percale Relaxed and Classic cotton collection and our Linen bedding collection.

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