Fresh Sheets – Can They Last Longer Than a Week?

You've stripped the bed and dressed it in clean sheets, but if those sheets have been stuffed in a drawer all week, they could well have lost their lovely scent. It's the holy grail of bedding preservation, how to keep your bed smelling fresh for longer? I have a few ideas that will help turn long-lasting fresh bed sheets from a dream to a reality.

It starts from the moment the wash ends. Act quickly and get those sheets out to dry. Musty, stale sheets are a result of bacteria growth. The longer you leave your freshly laundered sheets in the washer, the more time bacteria has to settle in and make itself at home. So, put your cuppa down and get those bedsheets out to dry as soon as you hear the ping.

If you're putting your sheets away for some time, you'll want to make sure they're dry before you do. Dampness is the enemy of fresh sheets in storage; it only takes a few days for the musty smells to settle in. If you want maximum freshness for the maximum time, it's best to air dry them slowly on a clothes horse next to a gentle heat source. The problem with tumble dryers is that the heat will often burn off the scent. We use lots of essential oils in our laundry range fragrances, and they have 'flashpoints', this is the temperature where the oils burn off. If you need to use a dryer, try it on a cooler setting – the scent will last longer, and you get eco-friendly brownie points for saving energy.

Most of us cram their bedding in cavernous drawers and big bedding boxes. However, drawers and bedding boxes aren't always the best spots for storing your bed linen. Sheets tend to get a little stale as there's not much air circulation – that's why I store my bedding in my wardrobe. I open my wardrobe every day, and the air circulates in the process. The main objective here is keeping moisture at bay, the better you can manage this, the longer the freshness will last.

Well, the answer is definitely to fold. Store it neatly and reap the rewards. Fold your bedding loosely before putting it away, it doesn't have to be a perfect fold but stuffing your laundry into a tight spot won't help the freshness last, again, it's all about good air circulation to keep the mustiness at bay!

I'm going to let you in on a secret I learnt from someone in the hotel trade. For that perfectly laundered, fresh and pristine hotel finish, they use a little spray of fabric conditioner mixed with water. First iron your sheets (on a low heat) and make the bed, tucking the sheets in relatively tight and running an iron over the bedding while it's on the bed. Lastly, mix a little fabric conditioner with water and lightly spritz the bed. The conditioner will boost the scent of the bedding and help relax the fibres, pushing out any remaining creases. Just remember to pour any last drops of the fabric conditioner and water solution away as it won't keep (or use it on another bed of course).

Scents really are a personal preference, but if you're looking for a long-lasting laundry fragrance, keep your eyes peeled for those with heavier base notes. Base notes are the lasting part of a scent that appear more prominently once the top notes have evaporated. They mingle nicely with the middle notes and are usually warm and woody. Our Cedarwood scent is an excellent example of this - when you smell it from the bottle or straight out of the wash, it has a powdery, citrusy aroma but when it has been washed and dried those parts of the fragrance become more subtle, and the warmer woody notes start to shine. And because of those base notes, our laundry scents are longer-lasting and should easily keep for a week, if your sheets are loosely folded in a well-aired cupboard or wardrobe.

Take a look at our cedarwood laundry range here.

Sam