PERCALE: Simplicity is Sustainability

How Heirloom-Quality Percale Weave Helps the Planet

If we’re lucky, our lives are peppered with heirlooms from generations past. A beautiful wooden table, an old piece of jewelry, a photo of family who came long before us. Heirloom pieces are meaningful because they are made to last, and they collect and save our stories for future generations. Which begs the question, what heirlooms are we creating today?

 Alterra Pure bedsheets are woven to be an heirloom, if you so choose. By wielding 100% organic cotton, we’ve knitted the fibers ultra tight in our signature, time-tested 1x1 Percale weave. Percale gets better over time. By counting on the simple ingredient of cotton, Alterra Pure sheets are deliberately designed to be an investment - in a healthy home, clean sleep, and sustainable earth.

Handing down bed sheets like heirloom jewelry is unheard of. But that’s only because today’s textile companies offer the “fast fashion” of mass produced, sheets to ultimately be thrown away. Imagine if we returned to our roots, when skilled artisanry allowed simple elements to speak for themselves in the goods we made. We end up with an heirloom – a truly well-made craft meant to be part of our lives for years to come. Even generations.

The simple idea of designing something to last is the ultimate sustainability, and it’s for this reason we created Alterra Pure.

The Percale Difference

 Percale:

• Yarn is woven in a traditional, 1x1 construction for added durability, crispness, and smoothness.
• A tight weave creates more surface area to draw heat from the body for a cool sleep.
• Hotels favor Percale sheets for durability through multiple, abrasive washes and uses.
• Smooth surface doesn’t cling to sleepers, creating a freeing sleep.
• Breaking in with a couple washes and ironing opens-up the yarn, which improves softness.
• Alterra Pure’s custom 310 thread count amplifies those benefits.

 Sateen:

• A 4x1 Sateen weave cis faster, easier, and cheaper.
• Fabric drapes tighter to the body for a warm, cocoon feeling.
• Looser weave allows yarns to more easily flex, but they become easily stressed, reducing durability to washing.
• Sateen may pill after usage.
• Sateen may wrinkle less given looser weave construction.
• Sateen weave allows looser construction meaning yarns can pill and degrade easier, experience distress from increase flex, and subsequently have lower durability.
• The looser weave of a sateen fabric is more forgiving in the weaving process so weaving is much quicker and lower quality yarns will perform better.

 Once you go Percale, you’ll love the freedom the weave affords – of sleep and of conscience! Not only do they last a lifetime, but their purposeful design and production will help create a new model for the textile industry based on the principles of simplicity, longevity, and sustainability.

And they’ll be unique – just break them in like you would any heirloom. Here’s our recommended process for making your sheets yours.

CARE:  Normal wash and dry.  But here's a secret.  Finer hotels use percale.    One of their secrets is to wash the sheets at least twice before use.  The first wash cleans and shrinks the yarns a bit, the second loosens-up the fabric, three times is even better.   And for even better comfort, iron your sheets.  Ironing makes sheets even smoother for a more freeing sleep.

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Alterra Pure offers organic certified and verified sheets, duvets, duvet covers, and other bedding to assure the peace of mind of a pure nights sleep.  What you put on top of your mattress sits next to your skin for a third of your life.  We are committed to assuring the most healthful sleep possible.