I just mentioned under Daily Operations that I had discovered the joys of bamboo sheets. You can read my review about them at in the article section of The B&B Lady.
I didn’t talk about another benefit of these sheets, and that is how environmentally friendly they are at the inn too. Bleaches are harder on bamboo and silk than they are even on other fibers, so you need a different way of keeping them bright and soft. Try baking soda in the wash cycle and white vinegar in the rinse cycle for soft, bright sheets.
Actually, that combination is great for all of your laundry.
The other savings in laundering bamboo sheets is that cold water is better for the fibers than hot water is. So by doing a cold-water wash, you save the fuel normally used in heating water. Perfect!
Sounds pretty nice, but the one part about your article that has me wondering is the no bleach part. When the guest orders Pizza delivered and sets the box on the bed and stains the sheet, will baking soda and vinigar be enough to get the job done? (and other bodily stains too?)
Steve, body fluids are our most common laundry challenge. Cold water is one part of the solution for cleaning body fluids. Baking soda and vinegar go a long way to helping remove them too. But blood is generally the most stubborn of those stains and wants pre-treatment prior to laundering. Food stains generally deserve attention too. Catching the stain quickly is part of the answer as well (won’t your guests just love you barging into their rooms in the middle of the night to pre-spot their stains?!?!?).
Rather than repeat myself, here’s the link to the discussion on stain removal.
http://www.thebandblady.com/bamboo-bed-sheets.html
I contacted the manufacturer of StainSolver, an oxygen bleach I highly recommend, about the problems with using this with bamboo sheets. He said that he didn’t know of any problem with bamboo sheets.
He went on to comment that oxygen bleaches with silk fabrics is a problem only if the silk isn’t washable. And I know that some silks don’t wash well and need to be dry cleaned, so that makes sense to me.
I’ll give it a try soon and let you know how it fares. That will give you an option of getting pizza sauce out of your laundry, and other things guests leave behind (like body fluids). You can order StainSolver through this link: http://www.TheBAndBLady.com/stainsolver.html Oxygen bleach is a great way to brighten and clean your laundry. Give it a try.
I love my Sam’s Club and Inn Style bamboo sheets.
Hi Kit, not meaning to pry into your personal life…
But how about a 4 month update on the bamboo sheets? How are they holding up?
Are you still thinking they are a good fit for B&Bs?
Seems like these sheets are not holding up at all to everyday B&B washing. They were tested against the Penny Nano sheets and are looking very worn. The nano sheets are doing great with no ironing necessary.
Thanks Erika,
This was your own test, or you read this somewhere?
And for everyone else, Erika is referring to
Nano-Tex sheets sold by JC Penney (in the bed and bath section, or just type “nano” in the search box on the JC Penney website)
___________
My sheets are doing very well. They are still soft and look great. Granted we don’t wash our sheets as often as we would if they were in a B&B, but we do use them *every* night — well, except when we’re out of town as we have been the past two weeks.
The oxygen bleach doesn’t hurt them, and helps get them clean.
I still rate them high.
Another time I’ll post about my bamboo towels.
Hi there,
I think it was mentioned on About.com’s forum. It was an innkeeper that noticed they were not holding up. But I don’t recall which innkeeper, sorry!
Anything we buy can have that reality, differences between experiences. Quality in sheets and towels will create different wear experiences. Cheap cotton sheets and towels will wear out much faster than quality ones. I’m sure that’s true of bamboo too.