What's the secret behind our sheets? How we test bedding at woman&home

We spend around one third of our lives asleep, which means that the sheets you buy will need some serious thought. Shops won’t let you test drive drive your pillow case or base sheet, which can make finding your perfect bedding really hard. Or, it would if you didn’t have us.

The woman&home team works hard testing the best bedding on the market for a range of different sleepers. We’ll slumber in silk, lie in linen, and cat nap in cotton until we’ve slept the day away. Rest assured, there are no sheets we’ve not tried and tested.

If you're in the midst of searching for your sheets and you are wondering how we test bedding and write up our reviews, you’re in the perfect place. I’m here to explain the whole process behind our bedding reviews. After all, sleep is a real science.

Why we talk about who the sheets would suit

I always write this section last, but it comes high up in our reviews, because it’s helpful to know from the get-go whether these sheets are working hard in the places where you need them to. Generally, I’ll pull out three factors that will help you decide, which often comes down to fabric, price, and design.

Different fabrics will offer various temperature regulating properties as well as feeling different on your skin. For example, linen sheets are more cooling than cotton, but you get a crisper, smarter look from cotton. Depending on what you’re after, you’ll want to know more details about the composition.

Price is often one of the biggest deciding factors in the sheets that you go for. Budget sheets are great if you just need something simple to do the job. However, you run the risk of buying sheets that won’t last or that aren’t made from a very good quality fabric. Expensive sheets, on the other hand, will need to justify themselves and I’ll explain why and who might be able to warrant a splurge on pricier sheets.

The other aspect that helps decide who sheets are for is the design options. Brands such as The White Company offer classic, simple styles and on the other end of the spectrum, you have people like Piglet In Bed, with cosier colours and textures. Both have their places, but it’s a really easy way to narrow down your choices if you know what’s on offer.

Why we talk about unpacking

First impressions count, so whilst you might think of packaging and unboxing as a small amount of your whole experience with your sheets, it’s an important one to factor in.

Some bedding brands will send your sheets beautifully folded, with special storage bags and beautiful flourishes. They might have also pre-washed the sheets so that you don’t have to worry about shrinkage and colour running. These are small touches, but they are indicators that the brand is really dedicated to looking after you and your sheets. I’ve found that it often means you’ll get better aftercare and service too.

I like to make notes about the sustainability of the packaging too, because in this day and age, I am a firm believer that we should be able to send sheets without any single-use plastics. Again, it might not swing you one way or another when choosing your sheets, but if a brand has made the effort from a sustainability perspective, I think we should be shouting about it.

Why we talk about making the bed

Putting a base sheet on the bed or a duvet cover on can be really tricky if you haven’t got nice sheets. A good set will have easy buttons (that don’t get easily smashed or broken) and generous elastic. I look for sheets that spread generously across the bed, looking straight and smart, without having any excess fabric that creases up. This can be tricky, because every bed is different, but it’s helpful to know whether you should size up, size down, or keep some muscles and energy ready for when you need to make the bed.

The testing process and what it's like to sleep on

This is the all-important test. I mentioned earlier that we all sleep on the sheets for two weeks before we submit a formal review and that’s because it takes that long for you to really notice bodily adjustments — physiotherapists will tell you to wait two weeks before changing your bed or coming to a conclusion on whether a special extra works for you.

I get most of our testers to wait a month, unless the brand needs their bedding back, because this should take you through a four week cycle when hormones, mood, and life will have been all over the place. More often than not, our sleepers keep slumbering in the sheets and then they’ll update the review to include different feedback from weather, seasons, and periods of their life.

When we are testing the sheets we are thinking about a few key factors: how does it feel against our skin; is it cooling; does it wear well between washes; and, on a very simple level, does it make us excited to slip between the sheets.

Why I talk about maintenance and cleaning

There are lots of questions around how often you should wash your sheets, whether you should dry your sheets in a tumble dryer, and alternatives to drying sheets without a dryer. We've tried and tested all of these and we make sure to apply them to our sheets under the microscope too.

Every set of sheets that I've tested has come with aftercare instructions. Brands will have advice for the temperature of your wash, the laundry detergent that you use, and how to dry your sheets. There are standard practices, but it's always good to know whether you should air dry or tumble dry your bedding.

All of our experts give the sheets a few washes and look for running colours and shrinkage, but we will also look for cracked buttons and any fiddly extras thar come into play when you want to refresh your bedding.

Comparing the bedding to other sheets

In an ideal world, you’ll only have to read one review to know what the perfect set of bedding is for you. If you’re anything like me, that’s almost impossible, because you like to shop around to find the best deal as well as to generally get to know the market. That’s exactly why we put this section in.

Here is where I do the shopping around for you. Having slept on a vast range of sheets, it doesn’t take much for me to pull up a comparable set of sheets. I like to look around the same style and price point, but I'll show you what you can get if you spend a little more as well as if you save a little too. If some sheets specialise in cooling, for example, I'll pull out an alternative set of cooling sheets that I feel need to be accounted for before you dive into buying your set. By the end of this section, you should have a good idea of whether the sheets are offering you proper value for money, or whether there are places you could save.

Coming to a conclusion on whether you should buy it

This is where I pull together everything that I've learnt from my review and bedding testing. I'll talk about who the bedding suits, whether I would recommend it, and I'll be honest about good alternatives. All of our reviews are unsponsored, so you'll get a balanced, unendorsed verdict from me. And, if you still have questions after the review, don't hesitate to email me. I could talk all day (but not all night - I need my sleep) about how we test bedding at woman&home.