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When it comes to sheets, you often hear thread count tossed around as a marker of quality. People will bristle at a 200 thread count sheet but moon over a four-figured counterpart. But what really is a thread count? In which contexts does thread count really matter? Read on for everything you need to know about thread counts for sheets. What does thread count mean? Sheets with a higher thread count are generally more expensive, and are marketed as being higher quality. As we’ve discussed, however, a higher thread count can be an indication of higher quality, but that’s not necessarily the case.
Thread count is used as a rough indicator of the softness and feel of a fabric. It’s also used heavily in marketing to imply that a specific product is of a higher quality than competing sheets. While this is all true to a certain extent, thread count is far from the only consideration when it comes to the overall quality of a set of sheets.Similarly, the cosy flannel sheets that tend to hit shelves around Christmas are measured in grams per square meter (GSM). If you’re looking to bundle up warm, a 170+ GSM sheet will serve you very well indeed, though more lightweight options are available.
Judging from our testing experience, we think those ranges are pretty spot-on. In our cotton sheets guide, our favorite percale set ( L.L.Bean’s 280-Thread-Count Pima Cotton Percale Sheet Set) has a 280 thread count. Both of our top sateen recommendations (the JCPenney Home 400 TC Wrinkle Guard Sheet Set from JCPenney and Cuddledown's 400 Thread Count Cotton Sateen Bedding) are 400 thread count—which, incidentally, Maher noted was her ideal number for sateen. Gopinath said a 250 to 300 thread count was optimal (there’s wiggle room, though, as Maher said 200 was also good). To get the best sleep, you need high-quality sheets. To get high-quality sheets, you need a high thread count, right? Well, not necessarily.
Better Sleep for a Better You.
Looking for sheets with a reasonable thread count (200-600 for most styles) will typically produce the best results. Be sure to modify your expectations somewhat depending on the material used. There’s a misconception that, when it comes to thread count, bigger is necessarily better. That’s not always the case. Thread count offers a broad indication of quality, but there’s a big element of subjectivity to selecting your bed sheets. Preethi Gopinath, director of the Textiles MFA program at Parsons and one of the writers of our cotton sheets guide, and Shannon Maher, chairperson and assistant professor of the Home Products Development department at the Fashion Institute of Technology, both weighed in on the best thread counts for each weave: Silk: Measured in momme. Momme is a measure of weight that looks for the number of pounds in a piece of silk that is 45 inches by 100 yards. Look for silk sheets around the 17-22 momme range.
Percale is less silky, though more breathable, creating a matte cotton that’s great for everyday use. Experts recommend a thread count in the region of 200-400, and advise against exceeding a 500 thread count. For this kind of breathable design and non-shiny appearance, it’s simply not necessary. Our panel of 33 testers rated them exactly the same in a blind comparison for softness and feel. The durability scores were also similar in our Lab tests; the only noticeable difference was the 1,000 thread count version looked slightly less wrinkled coming out of the dryer. What’s the best thread count for sheets? Quality, comfortable sheets can be found with thread counts ranging from 200 to 800 and beyond. There’s no magic number that is the perfect thread count. That being said, there are generally acceptable ranges for various kinds of quality sheets. Even the print on sheets can indicate something about the quality of the fabric. Maher and Gopinath both told us that printed sheets were typically produced on lower-thread-count percale cotton to keep costs down. When manufacturers invest in a higher thread count for sheets, they don’t want to cover up that texture. “You want that to be the selling point,” Gopinath said. Print is “a cheap way of applying pattern,” Gopinath told us, an alternative to actually weaving a design into the fabric, like with a damask or jacquard.
When it comes to thread count, you’d be forgiven for thinking that bigger is better – however, that isn’t always the case
Gopinath told us a 400 to 500 thread count for percale could reflect a denser sheet made of fine, good-quality yarns. Over 500 was “not necessary or likely,” she said. To understand this, let's define thread count. This number refers to how many threads there are in a square inch of the fabric. The higher the number, the more tightly woven the material is.
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