The $140 sheets that showed me why it's worth paying more for bedding
- My husband and I have no trouble sleeping. You'll find us wiped out on trains, in the middle seat in economy, in the middle of casinos while standing up - we can fall asleep anywhere.
- We were using two-year-old bed sheets from Amazon, which were fine, but when we moved apartments, we decided that we needed more than one set of bed sheets.
- We tried out these $140 Gryphon sheets after moving into a new apartment, and they feel like silk but are surprisingly made of cotton.
- They've gotten softer with every wash and held up well in the six months we've had them. The fabric wrinkles very easily though - even during regular washing and drying - but we don't mind since we're not really looking at our bed sheets when we're sleeping.
My husband and I are very good sleepers. We have no trouble falling and staying asleep, and we'll wipe out in the middle seat in economy before the plane even takes off.
That's why we never really invested in our bedding - we have one set from Amazon that we bought a few years ago for maybe $50 when we moved apartments. And to be honest, I don't think I even know what a duvet cover or even a duvet is - isn't that just a blanket?
But when we moved apartments (again), we decided that we needed a second set of sheets - and nice ones too.
Read more: The best sheets you can buy for your bed
These Gryphon bed sheets are made with 100% Supima cotton but feel like silk
If you told me that these $140 Gryphon Luxury Suite bed sheets were made of silk, I'd probably believe you. They don't have that sheen that real silk does, but they're super smooth, lightweight, and almost fluid-like in texture.
But to my surprise, they're actually made with 100% Supima cotton, which is a type of long-fiber cotton that makes it much more durable and softer than regular cotton. The cotton is then woven in a way that makes it feel even smoother. Add the 300 thread count and you've got a good dupe for silk.
These Gryphon sheets are way softer and smoother than any cotton bedding I've slept with, and in the six months we've used, washed, and dried these sheets, they seem to have gotten softer. During the warmer months, they stayed cool to the touch even when we weren't run nng the air conditioner, and in the winter, they were breathable and we don't feel like we were suffocating even when the heat was blasting.
The sheet set comes with one flat sheet, one fitted sheet, and two pillow cases, and starts at $139.99 for a full; we have the king set at $169.99. The sheets come in seven colors; we have the light blue shade. The flat sheet has a helpful tag at the top to help avoid confusion, and all the trim on the sheets and pillowcases resemble that of fancy hotel bedding - which is what this collection is named after.
You can get a separate duvet cover and two shams (which are basically decorative pillows) separately, starting at $149.99 for a full/queen size.
Read more: The best cotton sheets you can buy
Gryphon has a $1 pillowcase sampler so you can try out different fabrics before investing, and a 100-day return policy too
I didn't pay anywhere close to $70 for our two-year-old bedding set, so dropping $170 for these sheets definitely made us pause initially. I mean, we wanted nice bedding, but we didn't realize that "nice" meant "$170-nice."
But then we saw the 100-day return policy and $1 pillowcase sampler set.
The pillowcase sampler is pretty great. You pay $1 for Gryphon to send you three standard white pillowcases in each of the three fabrics - Luxury Suite, Comfort Washed (made with 100% Supima cotton, but with a 200 thread count and woven for breathability), and Easy Care (80% Supima cotton and 20% polyester, and 360 thread count). That was how we decided on getting a bedding set in the Luxury Suite fabric in the first place.
As someone who doesn't have trouble sleeping, I wouldn't say that these Gryphon sheets have helped me sleep any better. But as someone who regularly bought whatever came up first in an Amazon search, these sheets have definitely shown me why it's worth paying more for bedding.
Our original bedding from Amazon was fine - it got the job done, nothing exciting. But with these Gryphon sheets, it's like I almost look forward to sleeping with them as opposed to just sleeping in general.
After these sheets get worn out (which might take a while), maybe we'll even buy a third set.