Material

Cotton Sateen

What it is

Sateen is cotton woven so that several threads float across the surface before being tied down, instead of interlacing every single time. Those floats catch light, which is where the faint sheen comes from, and they present more unbroken yarn to your skin, which is where the heavier and smoother hand comes from. It is the same fiber as percale doing a different job because it was threaded differently.

How it is made

The loom is set so that a weft thread passes over four warp threads and under one, or some similar ratio. Sateen is often mercerized, a caustic treatment that swells the fiber and increases luster and dye uptake. Thread counts run higher on sateen than on percale as a matter of construction, which is part of why high counts became a marketing habit in this weave in particular.

When it is wet

It behaves like the cotton it is: absorbent, slow to dry, heavy while damp. The floats hold slightly more water than a plain weave of the same weight simply because there is more yarn sitting on the surface. Sateen also shows water marks more visibly than percale because the sheen is disturbed wherever the fabric has been wet.

When it is hot

Sateen sits closer to the skin over more of its area than percale does, and it is usually the heavier of the two fabrics at a comparable count. People who sleep warm often describe sateen as the warmer sheet. That is a consistent report, not a measurement, and this site has run no tests.

After fifty washes

The sheen dulls. That is not damage, it is the floats being roughened, and it happens to every sateen eventually. The real failure is snagging: a long float is easy to catch on a ring or a rough heel, and a pulled float leaves a line that does not go back. Sateen also pills at the surface for the same reason percale does, but it is more visible because it interrupts the shine.