Bed Linens of "Mad-Made" Textiles
First came upon the American scene in the late 1950's or 1960's under such names as "Duracale" or "Lustercale" and were a cotton/polyester blend or 100% polyester. Billed as "no iron" the things were meant to free housewives and others from the bain of washday, ironing bed linens. Many persons still swear by such things, including hotels, hospitals, and other commercial establishments, for my part find them horrible.
Polyester does not breathe like cotton, thus tends to get very "warm" when sleeping. Also polyester does not launder the same as cotton, so one cannot use water temps >warm without risking thermal damage. Well suppose one could if the washing machine had a decent enough PP cycle, but still there is a risk.
Ironically polyester/cotton blend bed linens were a huge hit in the UK/Europe, and were one of the reasons many housewives on that side of the pond put all those wonderful pure linen, hemp,nettle and cotton bed linens in to cupboards, trunks and so forth; locked and threw away the keys. After ages of having to deal with the pain that laundering and ironing linen and later cotton bed linens entailed, many were happy to finally be free of at least ironing. Polyester being a hydrophopic fiber, things came out of the washing machine almost dry, requiring only a short time in a tumble dryer, or merely hung to dry. Since many did not own tumble dryers, fast drying bed linens saved all that hanging wet laundry all over the flat and so forth.
Commercial establishments love polyester/cotton blends for table and bed linen because it is eaiser (in some respects) to launder and feed through ironers. So restaurants, hotels, and such purchase them and or their laundry/linen rental service demands and or only stocks blended textiles. Should say "demand" is probably not the proper word, but the charges for laundering pure cotton or linen is usually higher than blends. When you have several hundred napkins, tablecloths, sheets, pillow slips and so forth per week, cost savings quickly add up.
Polyester/cotton blend also replaced what was considered "low end" of bed linens, that is cotton muslin.
Muslin, especially in the heavier (and thus more sturdy and long lasting) weights is a pain to launder and iron. Cotton absorbs lots of water and that water must be mostly evaporated before it can be ironed. Either that or such linens must be nearly dried then ironed with a professional steam ironing system.
...anyway, I never ironed my bedsheets, just folded them after they are dry (line dried indoors of course and washed no less than 60°C)
