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Preface
I have ever really wondered if Americans have spent all their time of normal pursuit of gourmet food and elaborate clothes onto the study of mattress. For instance, the brand named Simmons was given to birth in 1870, brought the first kind of spring mattress in 1900 to market, and invented the machine then to make the mass production of individually packed spring mattress a reality, which was really something.
I have purchased several bedding articles from America by the online shopping platform. Based on the same range of price (if leaving out the transferring charge abroad), ones of America compared with on Taobao are better in quality, more diverse in style and more comfortable in texture. After all, they were already using spring mattresses, sheets, down quilts and pillow covers at the time our bed was hard boarded, blanket was cotton-padded and the blanket cover was sewn by hand.
Yet in contrast with the domestic four-piece set, bedding articles of America could be much more complicated. Various English words can dizzy you at once. As bellow is what I searched and collected previously. Now I wanna share it with you guys and hope it will give some suggestion when picking some mattress or other bedding articles.
Mattress
There were once three giants of mattress manufacturers as Simmons, Sealy and Serta(why they all begin with the letter s), where Serta I didn’t do some research. As to Simmons, many in the website posted Black Label, who must be rich people. So let’s take Simmons as an example.
Generally the smaller the number representing softness/hardness is, the mattress is harder and bigger softer.
Classified by the softness/hardness, Extra Firm denotes the hardest, Firm fairly hard, Plush softer than Firm.
In the range of Simmons Black Label, Calista Extra Firm is the hardest one, which is my recommendation if valuing cost-effectiveness, for children and the elder as it’s good for them to lie on a harder mattress. According to the softness/hardness index, Tatiana, the softest, lying in it is just like in the clouds. The price of mattress is also normally higher when softer because softer one follows higher standard of materials.
This is the structure chart of Calista.
This one is of Tatiana. Compare them and you will know why it has such gap of price in between.
Pillow Top, namely a cushion sewn on the top of the mattress, which soften further the mattress and hugely enhance the comfortableness of sleeper.
Pillow Top is separated with the mattress, but with that Euro Top is integrated, without gap in between. The top of such as Sealy Stearns&Foster range is reserved to be a Euro top, which is comparatively harder than Pillow top and so supports better for the waist.
Since they are all flagship ranges, the configuration won’t easily let you down, and how do you think them then depends on your requirement of softness/hardness and budget. For me, it’s totally easy to choose a mattress–after the decision on softness/hardness and the budget, choosing the thickest one within the range can hardly go hardly off the expectation. Concluded from above, if the hardest or softest is not the demand, Katarina range shall be the most cost-effective with a close price to Desiree but 4cm thicker than it, an extra Pillow Top added.
Earlier I saw a comment on SMZDM mentioning oneself with lumbar disc herniation that can hence only sleep on the hard (wooden) boarded bed paved by a layer of quilt, which is totally the fiercest of the ten great penalties! Don’t ask why I know that! My tear is going to pour!
Besides! This kind of “hard-board bed” shrinks the supported proportion of body, resulting in the uneven distribution of supporting power and the partial waist suspended in midair, which has no way to protect the spine but what’s worse, causes long-period muscular tension and contraction and finally induces muscular fatigue, soreness and strain!
Having watched a lot of diagram of mattress, sometimes I may suppose that if the designer of mattress just likes the waiter of Subway, standing in front of a big pile of dazzling different materials, matching them into different combinations by different preferred flavors of customers. A plus B plus C is a version, B plus C plus F is another…That is how my imagination works!
Mattress Protector
Mattress of over ten thousand Yuan has been bought, so a mattress worth several hundred will not be a big deal any more. That protector aims at dirt proofing, water prevention and mattress defense.
Bed Sheets
After talking about mattress, next, it’s bed sheet’s turn. American sheet is ordinarily Fitted Sheet or Flat Sheet.
This is a Fitted Sheet. It has an elastic band to tie tightly to the mattress to make sure of not moving.
However, I clicked the four-piece set with a fitted sheet before on Taobao, but received still a flat sheet, but the two of angles are curved while another two rectangular. Is that because of our distinct national conditions?
This is a flat sheet, quite similar to the homemade one.
This is a Sheet Set–Fitted Sheet*1 plus Fitted Sheet*1 plus Pillow Cases*2.
This type of set uses sheer cotton fabrics with quite nice texture, since it directly touches the skin. Commonly pure cotton satin or alike is in 300-800 thread count. The pure color and the pure cotton is always the protagonist, no much showy colorful patterns around.
Another set: Bed-in-a-Bag
Set with this kind of pillow case is ordinarily the Bed-in-a-Bag, a decorative-type Set. Some pricy Comforter Sets also include some decorative pillow cases, bed skirts, and also matched by curtains.
This set is not for using close to the skin (many are not pure cotton both inside and outside), but for decoration, some inside pure cotton but not outer part. It usually needs the match of or collaboration with Sheet sets. As for detailed configuration, please read the manual, the number of inner parts of which range from a dozen to two dozen.
The above set of Bed-in-a-Bag is placed beautifully, where the mainly attention-grabbing is this many pillows on the bed!
Know from one picture how many pillows Americans tend to use in bed.
Comforter
In America the color of comforters is bright and bold. Bedspread, Coverlet, Quilt are not popular in the daily life of Chinese, so I will skip them.
Comforter is what we usually call and use as blanket.
Filling fibers with not that perfect quality is honestly no need to be bought abroad, as the transferring charge could be higher than the price of item itself.
Goose/duck down filling is rather advanced. The criteria of picking a comforter is quite the same as ones of down jacket, involving filling content, filling power, fabrics, comforter structure, etc. I like this set on the XIJI.com, much the same in final price as on Amazon, mainly due to the tax subsidies.
Comforter Set, Comforter*1 plus Pillow Shams*2(with no bed sheets~)
Say something about the distinction between Pillow Case and Pillow Shams.
The one with the lateral opening is Pillow Case, simple in style, without decorative lace trimming.
Pillow Shams
The opening of Pillow Shams is on the rear part, with lace trimming.
As the pillow case is mentioned, what I saw on the XIJI.com is interesting.
Allergy-free pillow protective cover are for those whom prefer down pillow but meanwhile suffer allergy or cannot bear the odor of it. Down pillow is really so enjoyable that I changed my previous memory(slow-rebound) pillow and ordered online a new one like this soon after trying one night in a hotel.
Protector of down comforter also exists. Just cover it outside around the down comforter and washing only the cover must be easier. I didn’t even find these two stuff in the Tmall Flagship Store of Pacific Coast. It’s a magic! It seems like Americans take great pains on sleep!
Moreover, the bed size in China like of a double bed is measured as 1.5m or 1.8m, while for American is claimed as Queen or King. There are some differences in standard size of bedding articles between two countries. I have summarized some frequently-necessary sizes for reference.
All the stuff above is a little bit experiences based on my knowledge and shopping history of American mattress and bedding articles. Please feel free to correct me if I made some mistakes.
As the age is getting older, my desire on clothes, shoes or handbags is increasingly contracted. Nowadays I always spend money at some “invisible places to others” like for the bed we lying on at least 6-7 hours every day–changing a better mattress relaxes the waist spine and muscle; buying a bed sheet in 800 thread count for 3 coming months, which feels like your pajama directly touching your skin, gives more pleasure when sleeping nakedly and making love!
At last share with you some words.
Spending your money at some places invisible to others implies you finally learn to make it easy on yourself, not be driven by the desire of getting recognition. No matter how low or high the income, just be yourself and enjoy your life. This way of living must be good, cause every single cent you let go aims to make yourself more comfortable, enjoying and elegant.
