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What Is The Best Budget Linens For Your Airbnb?

Ikea vs BedSure vs Utopia vs Standard Textile

We’ve bought loads of linens for our personal short term rentals, and of course we try to stay as luxury as we can while staying budget. We have a few rules we like to follow when choosing linens, as we streamline everything, and buy in bulk. The linens first and foremost have to be easily obtainable, and have to seem like they will exist well into the future if we buy more, we like consistency, and like to keep to a certain standard. The second rule is the linens have to be durable and handle many guests uses, and washes. If they can’t hold up, then they’re a no-go. n Last is they have to look good in action, and continue to look good over time. It’s easy enough for something to look decent off the shelf, but how will it look with one wash? Maybe 10 washes? We want to make sure it looks as good after a month or two as it did on day one.

Ikea

We liked this option because quite a few large cities have an Ikea, and Ikea seems to have everything. Even to this day we still use quite a few ikea items, as the quality for the price is unbeatable, and they’re just down the road. For linens though I will keep it to the towels, sheets, pillow cases and duvet covers, as this is what we have used. Here is what I can say about most things from Ikea, if you want something that will hold up to a ton of washes, they are very durable. For duvets, sheets, etc. we have used DVALA and NATTJASMIN. They last amazingly, and hold up very well. The issue is, they will almost never look or feel like hotel luxury. It’s near impossible to get them to lay flat and be wrinkle free, they don’t have the softest feel, and they hold stains like nothing else. If all you care about is durability, we’ve had tons of use out of ikea linens and they’re in near as good shape as the day we got them, just these days they aren’t that luxury feeling we want to give guests. Other than their duvet covers, we have used a few of their duvet inserts. The issue is they are pricey, about $60-$80, and while they feel very good on day one, they really do feel like great quality. The edges come apart in the wash, even at low speeds. Inevitably we had all of ours fall apart, and switched to a cheaper yet better insert from another brand.

For towels we’ve tried two of ikea’s offerings. We’ve tried the SALVIKEN and the GUVIAL. The SALVIKEN towels are pretty much what I would say about their bed linens. If you want a bulletproof towel that will last a thousand washes, then this is the towel for you. The issue is, day one it will lay down and look amazing on a towel bar. After a few washes, they grey a little no matter what stain fighters you use, and they don’t lay how you would like. Wrinkles are apparent after some washes, and they stop giving the luxury feeling I would like in a waffle style towel (especially compared to the waffle towels we currently use which aren’t on this list). It was because of this we phased out the SALVIKEN as they didn’t give our guests the experience we strive to give. The GULVIAL towels was our other attempt to stay with some Ikea linens, and our of the box this towel is awesome. It feels great, it’s everything you would want in a waffle style towel. It lays really nice, it feels nice, I had nothing bad to say about it….until I washed it once. I bought 30 of these towels, and one after the other, even washing them on low-spin and cold temperatures, they would start to fall apart. I was so disappointed as I loved the towel so much, but I had 5 of the 30 start to degrade after a single wash, and the other show signs of impending doom. I hope Ikea fixes these towels as they came out not terribly long ago, but I could not recommend them even for home use, as we got maybe one use out of them.

BedSure

Bedsure is one of those brands that we like some of the things a lot, and some of the things were so close, but we had to send them back because it’s obvious issues would ensue. From bedsure we have only used their bedding and pillowcase options. Out of the gate we can say their duvet inserts are awesome, at $20 a piece they hold up washes vastly better than the $79 Ikea duvet inserts that fall apart after one wash. They are also way fluffier and softer, and look better when they are presented on a bed.

Bedsure sheets, duvet covers, and pillow cases are a different story. I don’t say this to dissuade anyone from using them, I use some of their stuff on my personal beds, and I like their products. The issue is their items are on the thin side. Even out of the package, there’s quite a few loose strings etc, and the fabric just feels thin. It’s easy to tell after a few washes, in a commercial setting that it will start to fall apart. Does their stuff look good? Yes, and for the price it displays really well. I just have a hard time using them for non personal stuff, as with the thinner material, they would definitely not hold up to daily washes.

Utopia

It’ll be easy to see why Utopia became a favorite really fast, and we were caught of guard. We originally just bought sheets from them as they had a bulk 20 pack and really good reviews. We used many other brands at this point, and were still on the search. For the price for 20 sets of sheets, we were pretty blown away. The fabric was soft, thick, and durable. Everything we wanted in a sheet, and it layed on the bed perfectly. So we tried the duvet covers. Again, thicker than bedsure, cheaper, and looked amazing on the bed. We paired these with the bedsure inserts and they look and feel amazing, I have no issues with the Utopia duvet covers. Since then we have bought their bulk pillow cases and have been very happy. For the price Utopia bedding has given that durable and luxury feel, I have no complaints as of yet.

We haven’t used Utopias towels, just their wash cloths (we use the kohls waffle bath towels, and the kohls towels with their discount and kohls cash are amazing. I didn’t put them on this list, as all I can recommend there are the towels.). The Utopia wash cloths can be bought in a 60 pack for $40, and we generally get them in black. They hold up great, people use them for showering, make-up, etc. They down bleed or fade, I have no issues with them. If I have any recommendations for newbies, it would be to get white bath towels, color hand-towels, and black wash clothes. Wash clothes will get dingy looking really fast if white is purchased. It does not matter how much bleach is used, it’s just too much upkeep. Save yourself the trouble and just get black, roll them up and put them in a cute wire basket. Thank me later.

Standard Textile

Standard textile is one of those commercial options that sells in bulk. One thing I like a lot about them is they will send you a couple huge boxes of items to test, absolutely for free. Literally, they sent us two big boxes of different pillows, towels, sheets etc to test at no cost to us. If you want to have very good customer service when it comes to your linens, standard textile has it down. The bad is, I was really not impressed at all with any of the stuff they sent me. The bed covers are the same aller-ease covers that can be purchased at walmart. The pillows were very basic and not what I would expect at a hotel, and the towels were very thin. A couple of the towels fell apart just from my own personal testing and not many washes.

I really wanted to be impressed with the stuff standard textile sent me, as the customer service just impressed me so much. But for the price of each item, and the quality, I just wasn’t impressed enough to move forward with them sadly. They may work really well for some people, they just didn’t for us.

The Winner?

This should be fairly obvious. Utopia for the price out of these just blows everyone out of the water. Now this isn’t to say their aren’t better brands to give people a luxury experience. There’s always pottery barn, and other high end brands where you can spend $80 a pillow or more. But for the average host that’s being a little more budget minded, I believe Utopia is a great place to start. They have the durability, the look, the feel, just about everything you could want. I’d recommend getting their white duvet covers, bedsure inserts, white utopia pillow cases, then have a nice colored throw, and a few colored accent pillows to really set it off. But as far as luxury on a budget, the sky is the limit here, and you can really do a lot with a little.