Linen Vs Cotton Bedding

What's the one for you? When it comes to building your luxury, never-want-to-leave bed, it’s no secret that cotton and linen are the reigning champs of bedding. Two of the most popular fabrics found in homes around the world, they're truly amongst nature's best: known for their absorbency, breathability, and all-around luxe look and feel.

Choosing between the two is no easy feat, however. With different touches and aesthetics, finding the right bedding set for you comes down to your personal taste and sleep style. To help you guarantee your next good night's sleep, we’ve broken down the differences between the two fabrics. Let's see where you lie.

A staple fabric formed from the fluffy fibers of cotton plants. Grown around the world for millennia, cotton varies widely depending on where its grown and the length of the cotton fibers.

Is Egyptian cotton better for sheets?

For bedsheets, Egyptian cotton fabric is considered the gold standard. Finer, softer, and stronger than any other cotton in the world, long-staple Egyptian cotton is locally known as “white gold.” Its extra-long strands allow for the creation of thinner, silkier yarns, which are more resistant to breakage, fraying, pilling, and wrinkling, creating the softest sheets that are still easy to care for.

Cotton bedding comes in a variety of thread counts and weaves. While a high thread count is traditionally thought to be better, it only adds value when it's coupled with high-quality long-staple yarn. We craft our premium quality, long-staple Egyptian cotton into a 400-thread count weave—the best combo for ultra-soft yet breathable sheets.

What is Linen?

A fibre as old as time, linen as a functioning textile dates back 40,000 years. Linen fibers are cultivated from the flax plant in a virtually waste-free process requiring no irrigation or pesticides. With the remaining parts of the plant used to create other textiles and materials, the fabric is inherently sustainable.

Linen is known for its wide, lengthy, hollow fibers, which produce an ultra-breathable and moisture-wicking fabric. Due to these fibers, thread count measures aren’t as meaningful for linen as they are cotton or silk bedding, and are usually not specified. Due to their thickness, linen threads are difficult to weave together, meaning high thread counts aren’t a good thing—they would just lead to bulkier, less breathable bedding.

While both fabrics are known for their breathability and moisture-wicking ability, linen fabric has a cooling touch, so is the top choice for hot sleepers. Linen’s wide, loosely woven fibers allow for maximum airflow and can absorb up to 20% of their weight in moisture before feeling damp on your skin. Keeping you and your body dry and cool throughout the night. If you’re a cold sleeper, cotton bedding is the better choice for you. While still breathable, cotton retains heat more than linen, keeping you cozy.

Which fabric is softer?

Have sensitive skin? Not to fear. When it comes to softness, cotton traditionally wins. Due to its long and thin fibers, long-staple cotton has a silky soft hand feel. Linen’s thicker flax fibers are typically rougher than cotton's, creating a crisper fabric with a rougher touch. For our linen bedding, however, we changed that. We've blended our linen sheets and duvet covers with the finest long-staple Egyptian cotton to soften linen’s cool touch. The result? Fabric with the breathability and texture of linen, but with next-to-skin softness that rivals 100% cotton.

Aesthetically, choosing between linen and cotton bedding is totally up to you. For a smooth, cleaner look, go for cotton sheets. Cotton bedding, like our silky sateen sheets, keeps its shape better and is less prone to wrinkling. Cotton also tends to be available in more solid colours and patterns than linen, so cotton bedding is a good choice for colourful picks.

For a lived-in look and something with a little more character, try linen sheets. Known for its perfectly imperfect nobbly texture, linen's look is equal parts elevated and effortless, easy-to-style in any bedroom. No need to make the bed beautifully or tuck in the right corner, it’ll look good any way it falls.

Which is easiest to care for?

One of the biggest benefits of cotton sheets is that they’re easy to care for. Like most natural fibers, cotton is known for shrinking with heat, but we’ve pre-shrunk our bedding so it’s washer and dryer safe.

Linen fabric is also known for shrinking with heat and cold, meaning you usually have to find the right temperature when washing. Like our cotton bedding, we’ve rigorously pre-shrunken our linen pieces to be washer and dryer safe, as well as hassle-free. Washing our bed sheets is actually encouraged, as durable linen becomes softer and smoother after every wash, only getting better with age.

The choice isn’t easy, but we've crafted each of the natural fibers into styles where you can't go wrong. Try our 400-thread-count Egyptian cotton Fitted Sheet Set, Pillowcases, Flat Sheet, and Duvet Cover Set for classically smooth and soft bedding. Or for something a little more textural that still doesn't compromise softness, opt for our linen-cotton blend bedding, available in the Linen Fitted Sheet Set, Linen Flat Sheet, and Linen Duvet Cover Set.