When choosing new bed linen, one often finds some unknown - and sometimes confusing - terms on a label or product description page: “ stone washed bed linen ”, “garment washed bed linen”, “pre-washed bed linen”, “pre-shrunk bed linen”... Today we decided to go through all of these terms and make them clear, so deciding what type of bed linen you need would be an easy task.
At LinenMe we produce stonewashed bedlinen, but let’s start from the beginning. Garment washing is a technology within textile production process, which is used to modify the appearance, increase comfort ability, and adjust to fashion trends of the garments and home textile.
The main advantage of garment washing is the retention of size and shape. Clothing, cotton or linen bed linen and other home textile items tend to shrink after the first wash, but garment washed articles are more likely to retain their size and shape because any shrinking of the fabric was done prior to manufacturing. Garment washed linen bathroom linen or linen bed linen etc. also tend to fade less - they retain their color better. The term “pre-washed” is the synonym of garment wash and means the item won’t shrink, de-shape or fade.
So what is stonewashed bed linen? Stone washing is a type of garment wash. Home textile and garments can be garment washed in many ways: using enzymes, chloride, pigments, acids and stones, too.
Stones (pumice or volcanic rock), added to an industrial washing machine accelerate the garment wash effect and give garments and textile an even more distinctive appearance and softer hand. When choosing stone washed bed linen one knows for sure that his or her linen set will not shrink or loose shape, it won’t fade or loose color. Stone washed linen bed linen that is available at linenme.com are even softer and more comfortable to sleep in compared to regular linen bed linen (that nevertheless are super-comfortable, too!).