Caring for your linens that serve as the foundation for your sleep and ornament your bed is akin to caring for that little black dress that turns heads or that dashing suit you wear to special occasions—you know, the one that gleans you an exuberant number of compliments! Just as you pamper your clothes, you must pamper your bedding and linens for them to last long and stay luxuriously comfortable and beautiful.

Fine Bedding Care 

 

We know a thing or two about maintaining the prettiness (or handsomeness) of your linens at Pandora de Balthazár so we thought we’d share our expertise when it comes to fine bedding care. We’ve become aces at extending the life of our goose-down pillows and goose-down duvets, Italian sheeting, and even our antique linens so we’ll break it down for you, product-by-product, to make it easy for you to find the information that is apropos to your needs. Our services include assisting our clients with advice and using our technical skills to make sure their products purchased from us last them a lifetime. For prices on having us examine, launder or repair products you did not purchase from us, contact us so we can begin a conversation about keeping your fine bedding the finest it can be.

We’re illustrating the information below, which we hope serves as a primer, with lovely examples of our vintage and antique linens and fine bedding; let’s call it a bit of eye candy for your visceral pleasure!

Caring for Goose Down Bedding

 

Caring for the goose-down products we sell will keep you in comfort for years to come. With a bit of effort, these European Sleep System building blocks will make your dreamtime seriously dreamy. Be sure to fluff your pillows every morning, and take them outside as often as possible but no less than every two-to-three-months to let the sun penetrate them, as the ultraviolet light in sunlight kills the dust mites and helps to keep each pillow fresh until it is time to launder them. This also helps to infuse the pillows with air, which needs to flow between the down and feathers inside the pillows to free them from body moisture that penetrates them while you are sleeping. 

Though it’s a great help, taking the pillow outside to bask in the sunshine won’t kill all the allergens; you have to wash your pillows at least once or twice a year, depending upon your sleep habits. Sleepers who perspire heavily or anyone on medications that come out through the pores of the skin should wash them once a month. Of course, you can wash them more often if you prefer. You’ll know when it’s time because the pillows won’t fluff as fully as they did in the beginning. This is the case because dust mites and allergens increase the weight of the feathers and down, making them less fleecy.

 

 

This is equally true for all of our down products, including duvets and blankets. If you’d rather leave it to the pros, we offer laundry service for all of our down and feather products you purchase from us. Typically washing the pillows and duvets will bring them back to their original condition, however the feathers and down may break down from wear-and-tear over time so we also offer a service to add more content to the pillows, duvets and blankets as is needed.

Several ways to lengthen the lifetime of your down/feather products include changing your linens often: we recommend every third night and immediately following an illness. If you tend to use heavy body oils or lotions, find that you perspire heavily, have certain medical conditions or use an abundance of hair products, these can stain your linens and pillows so we recommend you use a pillow protector, or that you change your linens every two days. The higher the tread-count with linens the better performance you will glean from them, but adequate care is always at the heart of longevity.

 

 

Our pillow protectors are hypoallergenic, as are a number of other products we sell, and will keep dust mites and allergens from building up in the pillows as quickly. Always rinse twice, especially the down-filled items, and put fragile fabrics or laces in laundry bags meant for machine-washing delicate items. If you follow the level of care we are recommending here, except in severe cases, Pandora de Balthazár’s products will last for a very long time.

Caring for Antique Linens and Laces

Wash your laces, window treatments and tablecloths—any of your linens, in fact—at least once a year, even if you have not used them in the interim. We can’t overstate this: do not let them remain in the closet for over a year without washing them! If you don’t follow our advice, dry rot could set in over time. We recommend that you wash, dry and store them without ironing if you will be putting them away for a long period of time. If you notice any damage to your linens, repair them right away so that the damage doesn’t become worse because they will become increasingly harder to repair if left un-mended.

It’s important to remember that linens need handling, as natural oils keep them flexible. Much like your skin, without care, they can become brittle, spotted and aged. If you are squeamish about cleaning them yourself, we offer hand-wash laundering services and repair/restoration services for all linens purchased from us. We can examine linens that were not purchased from us as well, in order to advise you as to whether they can repaired, or how they should be laundered.

When we see items that are in such fragile or damaged conditions that repair to their original purpose is impossible, we recommend recycling them by turning them into different items, using the areas of an antique sheet that are not damaged, for instance, to make a tablecloth. We do realize, of course, that some pieces must be considered beyond usability, as a price tag cannot be put on sentimental value.

In closing, we would like to stress that ignoring fine linens comes with this caveat: use them or lose them. If you find time and again that are not using them, recycle or gift them to someone who will love them. If you don’t know anyone, send them to us and we'll find a great home for them. Linens are legacy products and should be passed along for future generations to enjoy. They are witnesses to our histories; portraits in thread; the gold of our foremothers and even many of our forefathers. Given our passion for them, we beg that you treat them with respect and enjoy their heritage. Linen has been with us for centuries, you know, and they will remain a part of our lives for centuries to come.