Bedding Material 101 - Silk
f you want to splurge on something extra-luxurious, silk bedding can be a great choice. The natural material is smooth, soft, durable, and breathable, inarguably the queen of fabrics. Silk fabric is woven from silk fibre, produced by silkworms when spinning themselves into cocoons. The fibre tends to be elastic, long, delicate, yet durable.
Silk sheets have a cool and sensuous texture with an unbelievably lavish feel. The smooth surface helps prevent bedhead and tangled hair in the morning, making it a popular choice for skin and hair care at night.
On the flip side, high-quality and authentic silk sheets come with a hefty price tag. The material is also extremely delicate, which means meticulous care and maintenance are needed to preserve the luxurious texture and sheen.
Types of silk
Depending on the breed of silkworms that spin the cocoons, silk comes in a few varieties, each with its own properties. Generally speaking, longer, finer, and smoother silk thread is considered superior.
1. Mulberry Silk
Mulberry silk is sourced from a domesticated silkworm, Bombyx mori, fed on a very specific diet of mulberry leaves. This type of silk is commonly considered superior to wild silk because of its extra-long, more even, and fine cocoon threads. Fabrics woven from mulberry silk tend to be smoother, more durable, and have a beautiful sheen.
2. Wild Silk
Wild silk is produced by silkworms living autonomously or semi-autonomously in forests. This type of silk tends to have shorter threads and a rougher, thicker texture.
Most wild silks are cultivated once the moths have emerged from their cocoons, which means the silk cocoons harvested have been cut from the middle. Silk fibre unraveled from those cocoons tends to be shorter, more irregular, less fine, and lacking uniformity.
Unlike mulberry silkworms that feed exclusively on mulberry leaves, wild silkworms have a more varied diet, including leaves from chestnut and oak trees. Therefore, silk produced by them has a more brownish tone than the pure white color of mulberry silk. For bedding purposes, wild silk usually needs to be bleached before being converted into duvet fills or silk fabrics.
3. Dupioni Silk
Dupioni silk, also known as double cocoon silk, is cultivated from two silkworms that spin one cocoon together. It results in a strong and lustrous double-thread fabric.
Double-cocoon mulberry silk is generally considered the most premium grade for making silk-filled duvets. The resulting duvet is soft, fluffy, lightweight, yet very warm.
Tips on buying silk bedding
Silk is not only popular in the fashion industry, but it is also widely used at home. In recent years, the popularity of silk products such as pillowcases, eye masks, bonnets, sleepwear, duvet covers, sheet sets, and silk-filled duvets has been continuously on the rise. Here are some tips for buying high-quality silk products.
As a general rule of thumb, for silk fabrics, mulberry silk generally triumphs over other types of silk. Momme, a metric that measures the weight of silk fabrics and is comparable to thread count in cotton, is another indicator of quality. Higher momme weight corresponds to better quality. For example, 22-momme silk is more premium than 19-momme silk fabric.
For silk-filled duvets, the most premium ones are made from 100% long-strand dupioni mulberry silk. The resulting duvets are lightweight, smooth, and fluffy, like melted marshmallows. Duvets made from short-strand silk, such as wild silk, tend to be denser and less even.
Lastly, when buying a silk duvet, be extra careful as the fill may not be 100% silk even if labeled as such. It could be a mix of polyester and silk. Some brands may replace a small section of the edges with a zipper so users can peek through and check the authenticity of the fill.
