Even now, I’m seeing many companies called such-and-such linens but not actually offering anything made of linen. Most things now made of cotton were once made of linen. Now it is mostly just a word, and you have to look hard to find genuine linen made from flax, a plant entirely different from cotton.
When I began the experiment with going back, I began with small cocktail napkins. They are elegant and substantive in a way that cotton is not. I then moved to actual napkins. I found that they clean up more easily than cotton. Also, they dry much more quickly, either in a machine or on the clothesline. They keep their shape and are incredibly welcoming of starch.
They are also just fun to hold because of their firmness and overall beauty, which is incomparably better than cotton and synthetics.
Then I moved on to linen tablecloths, a plethora of which are available on eBay for extremely low prices. Truly, there is nothing to compare. Cotton cannot compete with the elegance, form, and beauty of pure linen.
The tablecloths come in many varieties and patterns, and they are simply gorgeous. They add a feeling of nobility to any table, no matter how humble. If I had one piece of advice for any young person seeking to entertain guests, it would be to obtain linen napkins and a tablecloth. It marks the occasion like no other fabric. Add a couple of silver candlesticks and your table will be set for royalty.
It’s something of a mystery to me why and how linen became so deprecated relative to cotton, to say nothing (and one should say nothing) about polyester and other synthetic so-called fabrics. Never accept a blend. One hundred percent cotton is a step in the right direction, but the highest and best is 100 percent linen, no question.
At some point, I went further to buy some actual linen towels. The difference is incredible. Again, they are fully absorbent but dry much faster. This means that there is less time for fungi to grow and for various stinks to enter the fabric. Because they breathe so well, they actually stay much cleaner for far longer.
Of all the things I had thus far converted from cotton to linen, the switch in towels is the most practical. For one thing, they take up far less space in the “linen closet” than those huge puffy cotton towels that Americans are always buying. A linen towel can also be packed more easily for trips. Overall, it is just neater, cleaner, and more efficient, and just as absorbent if not more so.
All this time, and given how many people read my original piece, people have been telling me to go the full way. I should get linen sheets, they have said. At this point, I resisted. Surely this is going too far. Cotton is fine for sheets. There is surely a reason most sheets are made of cotton. Linen sheets sound too fussy, too eccentric, even pointless.
But a couple of weeks ago, I had an older set die—the cotton fabric just became thin and then tore—and I needed to replace them. So I took the plunge. I bought linen sheets. They were twice as much as cotton sheets, as you might imagine, but still nowhere near as expensive as one might have supposed.
The reason for this is that textiles in general have been subjected to much less inflationary pressure than groceries, and this is mostly because of the difference in the value of the dollar domestically and internationally, which is another subject entirely.
In any case, these new sheets did not break the bank at all.
As for the experience of sleeping on linen sheets—where to begin? It’s a challenge for a writer to explain the precise reason for such a remarkable experience. The first thing you notice is that the linen is cool, a few degrees cooler than cotton. It is also more porous, far more, than cotton, so the fabric breathes.
It is also much heavier, so it samples the sense of being a light blanket rather than sheets, but, again, being so porous, it remains cool. So you get the security that comes with a bit of weight on your body without the trapped heat that comes from one’s own body. The linen expels the heat and keeps the cool.
You might think that the linen would be scratchy. The opposite is true. It is smooth even to the point of being silky, even slippery. This was the biggest surprise to me. Also, you know how linen clothing is always a bit wrinkled up? In clothing, they are called “status wrinkles.” I’m not sure why, but with linen sheets, that is not the case. They remain flat and do not bunch up in strange wads like cotton sheets do.
It seems odd, but the first several nights I was so fired up from the experience that I actually kept waking up! But I adjusted. At this point, there is simply no going back for me. I completely get why it is that so many people talked to me about the glories of this product.
As for drying, they are much quicker to go from wash to dry, so you have to look at your machine carefully. There is no reason to leave them in the dryer tumbling around for an hour as with cotton. A good 15 minutes might be all it needs. Ideally, you would not use a machine dryer at all. Hang them on a line. A breezy sunny day will dry them completely in under an hour. Also, they will be extra clean simply because they are so porous. Water flows through them so beautifully.
Linen was the preferred fabric of the well-to-do for many hundreds of years, and its use in bedding marked class difference. The peasants would sleep with wool, but the rich and the royalty slept on linen. The democratization of linen began in the 18th century, as more and more people had access to linen sheets.
Martha and George Washington absolutely insisted on linen only, and it is highly likely that all of the founding families slept on linen. Indeed, this practice dates back to the colonial period. The shift to cotton came about in the first half of the 19th century with the wide availability of cotton after ginning technology improved (and not by Eli Whitney, but that is another subject). It was a pure economic decision and had nothing to do with the superiority of cotton to linen.
I’m told that linen lasts far longer than cotton. Indeed, if you buy one set, it is the only set you will ever need. It lasts a lifetime. If that is true, you are actually saving money by spending more initially. I also see online several people who claim that linen sheets are long associated with faster healing, which is why hospitals in the 1930s used them. Now patients are on plastic! Blech. That might explain a lot.
It’s a bit odd to me that the practice of choosing cotton over linen continued purely as a matter of habit and common expectation. As a result, an inferior product came to replace a superior product. That’s my opinion, in any case. Indeed, taking the big step of moving from cotton to linen requires a bit of derring-do. But if you are up for the challenge, I suspect that you will agree with me. There are huge rewards awaiting you.
Sleep like the Founding Fathers! Will that make some small contribution toward reviving their wisdom in public life? Not likely, but anything is worth a shot at this point.
