Is there anything as luxurious than a night spent in a five star hotel room? Every detail is perfectly considered with your best sleep in mind: the heaps of fluffy pillows, cool, crisp sheets, and a billowing duvet. When you awake, refreshed and relaxed, you have to wonder... how did they do it?
Here's the good news: it's easy to make your bedroom at home feel like your favourite boutique hotel. Not only have we spent years putting together dream beds for our customers, but we've studied hotel rooms to learn their secrets for a luxe, sleep-inducing room. We've compiled our top five steps to make every night feel like a night away from home (sadly, we put a chocolate on your pillow each night!). So wrap yourself in your plush cotton spa robe, tuck your toes into a pair of fluffy slippers, and get cozy while we share our top tips with you.
1. All white everything.
If there's one common thread (pun intended) amongst all of the best hotel beds out there, it's this: an abundance of white. Five star hotels love using white in every aspect of their suites: from sheets to duvet covers, towels, robes and slippers. This seems counter-intuitive; why wouldn't hotels choose to use a colour that's easier to care for, and doesn't stain as easily?
Hotel beds weren't always white. In fact, most hotels used to be designed with coloured sheets and patterned quilts, in an effort to conceal wear and tear and hide stains. In the early 90s, the Westin Hotel conducted a series of trials with all-white bedding, and discovered that their hotel guests reported a deeper, more restful sleep and equated white bedding with luxury. They introduced the world to the iconic white hotel bed, and after witnessing the power of white, all other hotels followed suit.
Waffle Pique White
So what makes white so powerful? For starters, the colour white represents calmness and simplicity. When you get into a white bed, it's like wiping the slate clean - you can leave all of your worries behind and simply focus on sleep. White also symbolizes cleanliness and purity, giving you a sense of security about sleeping in a bed that has been occupied by others.
It's a widely circulated myth that white is a difficult colour to keep clean. In reality - it's the opposite. It's much easier to care for white sheets over coloured ones, and you never have to worry about colours fading. When white linens can start to look dingy and yellow, they're very easily cleaned with natural products like vinegar and baking soda. To keep your whites at their whitest, we always recommend soaking them overnight in hot water with mild detergent only.
2. Pure cotton is best.
Beyond what the sheets look like, it's also important to note how they feel. Hotels do a wonderful job of creating a cool, soft bed that's like wrapping yourself in a cocoon of comfort. To get this feeling at home, we recommend investing in 100% cotton sheets. If you like crisp and cool sheets, look for cotton percale. If you're more of a silky and smooth person, you'll love cotton satin. Hotels invest in high-quality cotton sheets made from premium, long-staple cotton (look for Egyptian cotton or American Pima cotton), as they last for many years and get softer and softer with each wash.
Another reason hotel sheets feel so wonderful to sleep in? They're ironed. While this takes a lot of time and effort, there's nothing more luxurious than slipping into a bed made with smoothly ironed sheets. To get the same feeling at home without the time invested in ironing your sheets each week, here's a tip: iron your pillowcases only. You'll feel the difference immediately when your head hits the pillow each night.
Hotel Loft 3-Line Embroidery Collection
Our Hotel Loft 3-Line Embroidery Collection is the best way to get that hotel feeling in your own bedroom. Made from premium 220 thread count cotton and embroidered in the colour of your choice, it's a chic and easy way to instantly make your every night feel like a vacation.
3. Get down with down (pillows).
One thing you'll always find in a hotel bedroom is lots of pillows. Most five star hotels will include (at a minimum) four sleeping pillows per bed: two firm support and two medium support, to suit every guest's needs. Beyond the quantity of them, what makes hotel pillows so impossibly fluffy, yet supportive?
The answer is goose down. Unless you specifically request otherwise, five star hotels primarily use white goose down pillows for all of their beds. White goose down is uniformly the best quality available on the market worldwide. Goose down pillows are breathable, regulate to your body's temperature while you sleep, and offer the greatest support while still being fluffy.
If you're looking to invest in some hotel-quality pillows at home, look for pure white goose down, not feather. Check the label - often companies will try to pass off inferior feather pillows as being goose down ones. Make sure the company is certified and approved by your country's down association (in Canada, this is DownMark; in the USA, it's the American Down & Feather Council). A pillow that is approved by either of these companies ensures that you are buying from a company that adheres to industry standards.
Our Au Lit Medium White Goose Down Pillow is the perfect pillow to start with if you're looking for a hotel-style pillow. Made right here in Canada from pure white goose down and a 500 thread count cotton satin shell, it offers amazing neck and shoulder support while still being wonderfully soft.
4. A goose down duvet is essential.
Whenever you hear someone raving about how comfortable their hotel bed was, chances are they're raving about their duvet. Just like pillows, hotels typically favour duvets that are filled with white goose down. The secret to a hotel-style duvet with a fluffy, cloud-like feeling? It's all based on these three factors:
1. Goose down with a high loft. When you're looking to buy a new goose down duvet, make sure to check the loft number. The loft (or fill power) is representative of the quality of the down inside; a high loft number represents a larger cluster of down, which will result in a fluffier duvet. When you have larger clusters of down, you'll need less of them stuffed in the duvet to look puffy, and to keep you warm.
2. The thread count of the shell. It's important that the shell of the duvet is pure cotton with a high thread count. This is the key to a light and airy duvet, without any noisy crunching.
3. Baffle box construction. Duvets that are sewn with baffle box construction (sewn in individual square pockets, or baffles) will ensure that the down is evenly distributed and will prevent the down clumping in one area.
Pro tip: we recommend giving you duvet a good shake every morning when you make your bed. This will help to fluff up the down, making your duvet look puffier.
Aspen Polish White Goose Down Duvet
Hotel rooms are typically kept on the cool side (which is also optimal for a good night's sleep - the National Sleep Foundation recommends keeping your bedroom around 18 degrees Celsius or 65 degrees Fahrenheit), which makes cozying up under the duvet so much nicer. One of the benefits of goose down is that it regulates to your body's temperature, keeping you warm in colder temperatures, and cool when the air is warmer.
5. Featherbeds are magic.
There's one last key component of a five star hotel bed, and it's one that's often overlooked. Any guesses? If you guessed a featherbed, you guessed right.
Au Lit White Goose Down Featherbed
What is a featherbed, and what makes it an essential? A featherbed is a feather and goose-down filled mattress topper. Essentially, it's a top layer of plush that gives your bed a sumptuous, cloud-like feeling. It gives every bed an extra layer of softness and comfort - even ones with not-so-great mattresses. It's placed on top of your mattress (but under your mattress protector), and it's the last key step of creating your most luxurious sleep ever, and one of the best kept secrets of the hotel bed that you love.
