Tell me, how often do you really wash your bed sheets? Is it once a week or once or twice a month? What is truly, the best way to maintain your sheets? Today, we answer your most raving question all in under 5 minutes. 

Living in the hot and sunny country of Singapore, we are all familiar with the warm and stuffy nights that we get sometimes. However, if you have an air conditioning system, that’s another story. But for the ones who choose to live without the privilege of having cooled air, nights can be unbearable, and our sweat often accumulates on to our bed sheets, further causing the accumulation of bacteria and germs to be around us for almost 8-10 hours daily. For the fur parents out there, the saliva and fur shedding from our fur babies are oftentimes unavoidable and inevitable. Hence, it is very important to make a constant effort to wash your sheets. 

So how often should you wash? Well, before we answer the raging question, allow us to show you why. 

The constant need to wash your bedding is important when it comes to maintaining the quality of your bedsheets over time and is crucial when it comes to stain prevention. Being the source of our restful slumber every single night, it is important that we put the utmost care into the items that affects us directly. We believe you should also have mattress protectors, for they are important in ensuring the longevity and cleanliness of our bed. You should see our article here.

So, when it comes to washing your sheets, the golden rule is to wash once a week, which is the most optimal for regular washing at home.

Often times, the change in climate and temperature may affect the volume of bodily fluids that we produce and not forgetting the sensitivity of our skin. If the weather is getting warmer and if you are sensitive to dust mites, do remember to change your bedsheets more often, hopefully once every 5 days!

On occasions when we are not feeling well and recovering from a flu bug, it is important that your bedding has to be changed right away after you feel better as the bacteria has accumulated in your sheets over time and to prevent falling sick again, it is most important to change and wash your sheets almost immediately after. To keep your bed sheets as white as possible, check out our article here.

If you’re still not convinced at this point, allow me to take another approach and show you what happens when you don’t wash your bedsheets as often.

The increased and prolonged exposure to the dust mites, bacteria, bodily secretions and dead skin cells on your bed is not enough to cause you to be sick, unless you have a really weak immune system. But it does increase the probability of triggering eczema in individuals and cause contact dermatitis. Further, for individuals with asthma and allergies, especially young children or older adults, their conditions may be triggered or even worsened when they sleep and are exposed constantly to these conditions.

Post wash: What should we do?

Drying your sheets under the blazing sun is the most optimal way to remove the stubborn mites and bacteria living in your sheets. After complete drying, another way to sanitize and ensure complete removal is to iron your sheets. Dust mites die after being exposed to over 50 degrees, so it is important to remember that.

Your other bedding:

For pillows, we believe that while you should always wash your pillowcase together with your sheets, it is important to remember that you should always wash your pillow at least once every 6 months. This can help with fluffing up your pillow and help them last longer!

For blankets and duvets, we believe that you should wash them once every week or once every two weeks, which would be the most optimal.

For stuffed toys on your bed, do clean them regularly, at least once a month!

In short, you should always wash your bedding in this frequency:

Sheets - once a week

Pillows - once every 6 months

Pillowcases - once a week

Blankets - once a week/once every two weeks

Duvets - once a week/once every two weeks

Mattress protectors - once every two weeks

We hope you have enjoyed this short article and have managed to grasp some takeaways!

Thank you for reading.