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Contrary to popular belief, linen isn’t just a summer fabric. It’s one of the most versatile materials to ever grace your body (or bed), and the best linen bed sheets prove it. Because linen is so breathable, people assume it’s only good for hot weather and warm climates, but that neglects the findings that 41% of people are hot sleepers, regardless of the temperature. Plus, breathability doesn’t negate linen’s awesome ability to regulate your temperature. You can bundle up under layers of flannel sheets in the winter and wake up in a pool of your own sweat, but that same scenario with linen sheets will leave you feeling like you’ve had the best damn sleep of your life.
Not all linen is created equal though (believe us, we tested out a lot of duds), so we washed, dried, and slept on some of the best linen sheets we could find to compile the best sets for you. Most were acceptable, but a few were truly great. Here, a couple things to know if you’re looking to invest in some.
The Best Linen Sheets Shopping Guide
- The Overall Best Linen Sheets: Parachute Linen Sheet Set, $329
- The Best Luxe Linen Sheets: Cultiver Linen Sheet Set, $385
- The Best Linen Hybrid Sheets: Kassatex Linen-Bamboo Sheet Set, $280
- The Best Linen Sheets For Big Beds: Snowe Linen Sheet Set, $320
- The Best Patterned Linen Sheets: Garnet Hill Artful Pattern Relaxed-Linen Bedding, $307
What to know before buying linen sheets
The main downside to linen sheets: They’re not cheap. Close to $300 is a lot for a pair of single-season sheets, sure. But if you're a hot sleeper—or sleep next to one every night—it's tough to put a price on breezy, breathable comfort, and they're really worth the investment if you tend to burn up at night.
Another less-than-ideal aspect is the texture. Though linens are some of the breeziest fabrics out there, some can feel a little burlap-y, depending on the weave and the quality of the fabric. It's why many retailers pre-wash sheets before they even make it to your doorstep, as the fabrics can get softer and more worn-in with every wash. If you've ever rolled up to an event in a perfectly laundered linen suit, only to emerge looking like crumpled tin foil within an hour or two, you know the fabric is also very prone to wrinkling, which might be a turn-off if you're someone who's fastidious about that thing. But there's also something perfectly imperfect about waking up on a gloriously rumpled bed and enjoying a lazy morning.
And though you might have heard somewhere that a higher thread count is a direct line to the quality of your sheets, that's really just marketing speak. Linen sheets are actually best appreciated at a lower thread count since they're going to be less tightly woven, and more breathable, according to certified sleep coach Daniel Neyod. Then there's grams per square meter, or gsm, for short. This refers to the weight of the linen, with a typical gsm of around 160. Anything below that will be lighter and more breathable, while anything higher will be better for keeping you warm (but not hot).
Below, some of the best linen sheets we've ever tested, that are perfect for surviving summer—and beyond. After putting these on your bed, you may only need to expose one leg to the air, which is to say, these linens do their job.
The Best Linen Sheets, Overall: Parachute
If the Brillo-like texture of rougher-hewn linen has you put off on linen entirely, we'd invite you to check out Parachute's fine flax sheets made in Portugal. Straight out the gate, they feel like a masterclass in high-quality, “leave out for guests” linens. They feel abundantly smooth straight out of the box and only get softer after you toss them in the wash a couple times (but without getting torn to shreds by a spin cycle or shrinking in the dryer). They're close to $300, and maybe not as breathable as the set from Cultiver below, but we think they're the best investment set for most people. That's because they've got range (think a dozen colorways and sizing from twin to California king beds), and will probably last you years and years in the linen closet.
The Best Luxe Linen Sheets: Cultiver
Cultiver's not just any jack-of-all-trades bedding brand that deals in every style of sheets out there, from Tencel to flannel. They're a specialist in linen fabrics in particular, and its lusciously soft sheets really feel a cut above in terms of handfeel and quality. Though they're slightly pricier than the rest of the picks on this list, Cultiver's threads are some of the best quality that we've had the pleasure of testing: pre-washed for gentle smoothness and in 18 pleasing colorways and prints like the saffron color seen here. They feel something like an heirloom that's been worn-in over years, without any breakdown in quality.
The Best Linen Hybrid Sheets: Kassatex
The feeling of a fresh top sheet falling on your skin is truly a thrilling sensation. Sleeping in the Kassatex Linen Bamboo Sheet Set feels a bit like that. The sheets are weightless and airy and seem to perfectly float over you, even after a dozen flips and exposed leg swaps (shoutout to our fellow one-leg-out sleepers). The best way to describe them is to say they are bouncy and incredibly smooth. Because of their lack of scratchy stiffness, these sheets do tend to wrinkle like crazy. But the wrinkles don't look dirty messy, more like beautiful-life messy. Also, the brand only offers its sheets in king and queen sizes for whatever reason.
The Best Linen Sheets For Big Beds: Snowe
We've slept on a fair amount of linen, and the Snowe linen sheets are some of the airiest we've experienced. They’re perfect for those in-between June temps (warm enough for open windows but not quite time for the AC) that are best coped with by slinging both legs out from under the covers. And though they're a little too thin to sleep on all year-round, their delicate weave makes them perfect for the summer months.
One nitpicky downside: If you have a shorter mattress in terms of thickness, you might want to try another set. Snowe's come with "generous sizing" to accommodate any depth. That flexibility is nice to have, and probably makes sense for most people with a plushier mattress, but a slightly loose bottom fitted sheet can the worst if it slides off or bunches up in the middle of the night. For others, the flowiness probably adds to the sumptuous comfort. Another note for people considering buying: Though we didn't have any issues with receiving products, some reviewers note that the wait time for these sheets is frustratingly long, depending on supply chain issues (right now the queen size is backordered, for example). If you need sheets, like, yesterday, we'd still suggest Parachute's as our overall favorite.
The Best All-Season Linen Sheets: Tuft & Needle
We've previously crowned this Tuft & Needle set as the best budget linen sheets out there, though the brand seems to have recently hiked the price of a sheet bundle to $250 for a queen size (which is about the same price as the other moderately-priced direct-to-consumer picks on this list). Despite the price adjustment, you're looking at some of the softest, pre-washed linen sheets out there—with a durable weave for keeping in the linen closet for years and years. These ones are more of an all-season buy, since they tend to retain heat no matter what the weather, and we'd steer you towards airier options on the list for the hottest days of the year, like the Kassatex, Parachute, or Garnet Hill options.
The Best Patterned Linen Sheets: Garnet Hill
If you're more of a maximalist, or just a particularly hot sleeper, we were also a big fan of Garnet Hill's ample selection of “relaxed-linen” bedding—available in any number of handsome designs and colorways. These are some of the airiest linens we've ever slept on, like dozing off on tissue paper-thin bedding. They're pre-washed but maintain a slight roughness to them, and a little less starchy than their peers (so they wrinkle easier), but they're incredibly lightweight and breathable for helping you keep cool, without completely abandoning your covers in the process.
The Best Budget Linen Sheets: Quince
Quince is in the business of offering luxury goods at non-luxury prices. Case in point: its linen sheet set, which costs a fraction of the price of other options on this list. It’s soft (after an initial wash) and breathable (as linen should be) but we found it pills a little more easily than other linen sheet sets, both through natural wear and tear (or sleeping) and through cycles in the washer and dryer. It’s also a little sheer, so you can see through it and peek at the mattress, but that issue isn’t as bad if you opt for a darker color—and for the record, Quince offers a bunch of excellent color options for its linen sheets. For the price, you can buy worse things, though if you’re maybe trying to outfit a guest room with a new sheet set, this would be a great buy.
7 Other Linen Sheet Sets We Like
Riley's linen sheets emerged as an early favorite for us, setting the benchmark for how supremely soft and lightweight linen could be. We found that they felt remarkably similar to the Parachute linens, though the Parachute set still ended up claiming the top spot since they're available in a far greater size and color range. Currently, the Riley linen is only available for queen and king sizes, with a fairly limited range of only four shades.
The Brooklinen linen sheets are soft and gentle, even after one maiden wash, and as bright white as a fresh-out-of-the-bag Hanes tee. They fit on a queen mattress like a dream and lend your bed that cozy influencer-laughing-and-drinking-coffee-in-bed aesthetic that millennials crave. The rub? These linen sheets suffer from the same godawful problem as flannel sheets, which is that they remain resolutely body temperature at all times. No fresh side of the pillow, no rolling over into a chill zone. So despite how attractive an effortlessly rumpled bed looks, how airy and free-breathing the Brooklinen top-sheet was, and how feathery, beautiful, rich-feeling they felt, we didn't feel like they were doing quite enough to keep our body temp down.
Sijo's a relative newcomer to the bedding scene, but its biggest branding push centers around cooling bedding in all forms, from comforters to pillows to sheets. Its linen sheets are made from high quality French flax linen in small batches and come in a decent range of pleasing colors, from neutrals to pastels and stripes. For people who grumble about washing affecting the quality of a straight-out-of-the-box purchase, they also have the bonus of being pre-washed and pre-shrunk so they can slide onto your bed without a hitch. Though the sheets we tried were slightly rougher than other picks on this list, and not the most cooling (according to the brand, these sheets are less temperature-regulating than its eucalyptus and tencel sheet options), we did appreciate how polished they look on a freshly made bed, and the brand's commitment to sustainably sourcing its fibers.
As excellent as Coyuchi’s linen sheets are, it’s hard to enthusiastically recommend them since a queen-sized set costs over half a grand. Over $500 for bedding. At that price, we’d expect a duvet cover to be included, but alas, one is not (that’ll be another $498). The sheets have a 185 gsm weight, which is on the higher end of the spectrum, making these warmer than comparable options, so we can also see how that adds to the overall price tag. We can’t deny that these sheets are soft and wonderful, but the thought of sleeping on sheets that cost that much would have us struggling to get a good night’s rest.
The Citizenry is known for working with under-represented artisans around the world, and in this case, its linen sheets are made in partnership with Portugal-based Machado Linen Mill, a family-owned business that’s been around since 1921. From the get go, the sheets are soft—but that doesn’t matter since you’re going to wash them before you throw them onto your bed (right?). Their initial tumble in the washer and dryer yields a super comfy set of sheets, which are woven to a Goldilocks-friendly 160 gsm. The sheets are wonderfully made, but they’re designed to fit a lofty mattress, so they can seem wrinkly, baggy, and a little sloppy if you sleep on something thin. We do, however, like all of the color and pattern options.
