To think cotton bedding is overrated?

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I’ve bought two new pure cotton bed sets recently, being under the impression that it’s meant to be cooler.

But it isnt, particularly.

Also it’s so scratchy! Both sets have been washed but even the fabric conditioner hasn’t made a difference.

I bought a set from Tesco a while back and it’s beautifully soft and smooth - not sure if it’s poly cotton or some other mix but it’s far nicer than the cotton ones.

What am I missing about cotton?

I bought a high thread count cotton sheet thinking I was getting soft, smooth and cool. Nope! I like the sound of cotton muslin, though. Might have to Google ….

Anything less than about 800 thread count is not as good. Argos sells 800 thread count and it's not expensive.

I love pure cotton bedding, I have never so far bought high thread count usually 3-400 but it has always been soft. TKMaxx has some good bargains for bedding and a good selection online

Have done this, I bought 144 thread count cotton from Next and thought they'd be soft. Advice I've had is to do the first wash with baking soda not detergent, not to use fabric conditioner, it coats the fabric and prevents the cotton from opening up naturally, use white vinegar instead. Dry on a low- medium heat with wool dryer balls. To think of them like a pair of jeans or canvas trainers that need breaking in and will soften over time.

Secret linen store. Brilliant and I think there is a sale on at the moment.

Cotton does feel a bit rough since I took up silk bedding, an expensive habit I justify by aiming to spend a 3rd of each day there.

Coolness and smoothness aren't the same.

Cotton is cooler than anything with polyester (plastic) in it. It allows heat to dissipate and sweat to evaporate.

Smoothness or softness of cotton bedlinen is down to the quality of the fabric. The long, fine threads in a 400 or 600 threadcount material will be much softer than cheaper cotton.

Look at John Lewis or the White Company.

I love percale. It’s smooth and crisp and feels lovely. Right now I have some that are a different, softer type of cotton, almost like voile but thicker. I also have a linen duvet. I can’t stand that awful polyester microfibre stuff.

As a disclaimer though, I have a proper vented dryer that that has them soft and dry in 10-15 minutes after washing. I think cheap cotton sheets dried on the line are probably the most scratchy.

Bamboo sheets are lush.

My Egyptian cotton 200 thread count from John Lewis & M&S is divine

Was it from IKEA? Theirs pills very quickly. Get yourself some good stuff from John Lewis’s sale.

I’ve just checked the Secret Linen Store sale. Sadly it would still cost over £300 to kit out my bed.

Back to 100% cotton for me.

Op very clearly wrote “what am I missing”.

Thread count would be the answer .

Asking for additional information or knowledge is an intelligent move. No need for snippy comments.

I’ve just bought a new cotton duvet cover from Next and it is cool but not scratchy. My only complaint is that it needs ironing, but I don’t iron, so it looks permanently wrinkled.

It doesn’t need ironing. I haven’t ironed clothes for years.

High thread count is the answer. Although I did read somewhere that not all high thread counts are equal and cheaper manufacturers have some way of claiming high thread count when it's not actually very high.
M&S is good. They've currently got a sale one. The higher the thread count, the silkier the feel.

Cotton bedding often comes as either ‘cool and fresh’ (aka scratchy, but my personal preference) or ‘soft and silky’, or similar descriptive terms. Maybe you’d prefer soft and silky.

I find the cool and fresh softens over time so it sorts of ‘breaks in’ and becomes yours.

I do often spend a fair amount on bedding though, not mad £££ - the plain white highest quality set from Dunelm, for example.

Yeah it’s just the quality of the material I think a lot of people think cotton is just cotton, I see it on the style and beauty threads, where people think all materials are created equally, like viscose or cotton or polyester is just one standard material, and it’s far from the truth,

here’s a quick ai view of the different types of cotton. You probably have bought the lowest quality , carded cotton which is why it feels like it feels,

Cotton quality depends mainly on fiber length (staple length), strength, and purity. The top tiers use extra-long fibers for maximum softness and durability, while lower tiers use short fibers that feel rougher and wear out faster.
Premium Quality Cotton

• Sea Island Cotton: Extremely rare, silky, and widely considered the finest and most luxurious grade in the world.
• Egyptian Cotton: Features very long staple fibers grown in the Nile Valley; highly breathable, strong, and soft.
• Pima / Supima Cotton: Premium extra-long staple cotton grown largely in the US; resists pilling, fading, and tearing.

Standard and Lower Quality Cotton

• Upland Cotton: Accounts for most global production; features shorter fibers used for affordable everyday clothes.
• Combed Cotton: Mechanically combed to pull out short, stray fibers before spinning, making it smoother and stronger than basic carded cotton.
• Carded / Open-End Cotton: Budget-grade material made with short, uneven fibers; tends to feel rough, pill easily, and wear down fast

in addition for bedding, thread count counts, ss folks are saying , but it’s not even as simple as that, as sometimes a higher thread count isn’t better unless the cotton fibres themselves are good.

A higher thread count makes cotton bedding denser, smoother, and heavier. However, numbers above 400 do not always mean better quality, as manufacturers often twist multiple thinner yarns together to artificially inflate the count.
Key Differences in Feel and Performance

• Softness and Texture: Counts between 300 and 600 offer a genuinely smooth, soft feel. Extremely high counts (800+) can sometimes feel overly dense or silky, but they lose the classic crisp texture.
• Breathability: Lower to mid-range counts (200 to 400) allow air to flow freely, keeping hot sleepers cool. Higher counts trap body heat and are less breathable.
• Weight and Care: High thread count sheets are heavier, take longer to dry, and wrinkle more easily compared to lighter, airy low-count weaves.

What Matters More Than Thread Count

• Fiber Quality: Long-staple cotton (such as Egyptian or Supima) creates stronger, finer, and softer threads than short-staple cotton, regardless of the final number on the label.
• Weave Type: A crisp percale weave feels cool and light, while a sateen weave feels silky with a slight sheen

You want high thread count Egyptian cotton, John Lewis do some good sets. It's not cheap but worth it for summer. I save up the occasional John Lewis vouchers we get at work as a thank you for successful projects and use them to top up.my collection.

For winter and cooler days I find IKEAs cotton duvet covers are fine, but they do get softer and better with age.

There are several different types of cotton. I like to feel bed linen before I buy it. We have one set which is brushed cotton, and quite warm, nice for winter, not so much for now. Then we have another set of thick cotton Dorma, mercerised, almost silky, and feels cool to touch, good for now.

We have good quality cotton bedding and we've had it for years - it should get softer over time, in fact.

But I prefer non-cotton nightwear! It's all very well, these pure cotton pyjamas, shorts and nighties, but I'm a champion tosser during the night and due to the friction of cotton on cotton, the bottom sheet ends up in a right mess. So I wear some synthetic satiny things instead. It might sound far-fetched, but it does make a difference.

Poly-cotton is awful. It might look nice but it’s sweaty and horrid.

We like good quality cotton bedding but favour linen. We have sets from Piglet in Bed - they’re a mix of linen and cotton and sublimely soft.

Have a look at the tag and see if it is polycotton.

My guess is this is what it is. So a polyester/cotton mix. They go all bobbly as well which is just awful.

Yes there is different types and I think there is a real lack of understating of materials generally, in terms of different grades and uses.

There is a me and em thread on style and beauty which is really comical, but also a bit sad, as there’s a bunch of people really embarassing themselves going on about natural fibres and polyester, who clearly have no understanding of what they are talking about.

I do think it’s quite common, people see a cotton blouse for example at 100 pounds and think I could get thay down Asda for a tenner, and of course they couldn’t, it’s a totally different grade of material, same as polyester, viscose, different blends, cotton, wool, you name it, there are different grades with different chatacteristics and performances.

Piglet in Bed is currently on sale in M&S