Our take: Quince’s sheets are closer to Target-quality, and our Brooklinen pick is better.
Most textiles arrive from the factory with chemical coatings to make them feel softer. Following our expert Jackie’s instructions, I washed the Quince Classic Organic Percale Sheet Set (which we bought in the Windowpane pattern) five times to ensure that all of those coatings were removed and I was getting the real feel of the fabric.
Both the Quince sheets and the Brooklinen Classic Percale Core Sheet Set (a set that we recommend in our printed sheets guide, and which comes in a Window Pane pattern, one of Brooklinen’s originals and available since 2014) have care instructions that require a cool wash and a tumble dry on low heat. When I pulled the Quince sheets out of the dryer for the first time, I was shocked at how wrinkled they were.
“Yeah, that’s just percale. All percale will do that, though some wrinkle more than others,” Jackie told me. “It’s about what I’d expect from these sheets. Our picks wrinkle less than the Quince, but I’ve seen a lot of the competition wrinkle more than the Quince sheets.”
Jackie tested a king-size set of the Quince sheets in Oxford Stripe. She washed the sheets the requisite five times, holding back one pillowcase so that she could compare the fabric’s pattern and texture for changes. She examined the washed sheets with a magnifying glass, and the pattern seemed to have significant fading.
“But when I compared the washed sheets to the unwashed pillowcase, the new one wasn’t great, either,” she said. “I don’t think these were printed well to begin with, and definitely not as well as other printed sheets we recommend. I went back and checked every set I could find from past testing rounds.”
She also found the stitching uneven and rushed, which can lead to seams unraveling.
We spotted an Oeko-Tex certification, which means an item has been independently tested and found to be harmless to human health, associated with the Quince sheets. We confirmed the certification to be valid via the Oeko-Tex label checker, even though the sheets themselves didn’t have the proper sewn-in label. A Quince spokesperson told us that it’s up to the retailer to decide, and that “adding another label does not provide value to the consumer—it comes with additional costs that we wouldn’t want to pass on to the consumer.”
The sheets did have a sewn-in label indicating a supplier with an affiliation with GOTS, the Global Organic Textile Standard, which a representative from GOTS confirmed as valid. Quince didn’t previously list that affiliation anywhere in the online product description, but a rep told us that they will be adding it. Unfortunately, they also provided us an invalid GOTS number, which created further confusion.
Perhaps more nettlesome is Quince’s head-scratching fabric claim. I asked textile expert and The Wirecutter Show co-host Christine Cyr Clisset to look at the Windowpane-pattern Quince sheets I brought to the office. Christine, Jackie, and Zoe were all dubious of the company’s assertion that the sheets are made from 100% organic long-staple cotton; that approach would involve a farming practice that’s extremely expensive.
“Organic cotton is usually lower quality,” said Alden Wicker, a journalist and sustainable-fashion expert, via email. “You can have organic (purported to be pesticide, GMO, and synthetic fertilizer-free) or you can have long-staple GMO cotton, but you can’t have both.”
Wicker thinks it’s possible that Quince ordered long-staple cotton that is certified organic, but in reality it could be long-staple, cheap cotton with an inaccurate organic certificate. (You can read more details about the murky world of organic cotton in an article that Wicker co-wrote for The New York Times.)
A Quince spokesperson, however, told us, “We can confirm the sheets are made with 30mm long-staple, 100% organic cotton. The cotton originates from organic-certified Spinning Mills in India.”
Christine put it succinctly. “Quince is reaching for prestige, direct-to-consumer brands, but I think what they’re actually providing is a little closer to Target quality,” she said, noting that it’s not a knock. “Target makes cute, high-quality sheets and towels for a really affordable price.”
Jackie piped up: “Target quality is better than Quince!”
Well, I grew so enamored with the light crispness of these Quince sheets (which I washed weekly) that I took them to my bed with my laptop during the workday several times, something I had never done before in my life. Not even Jackie’s numerous issues with the sheets could burst my bubble.
You can no longer buy the Windowpane or Oxford Stripe pattern. As we were fact-checking this article, both patterns disappeared from the Quince website, and a spokesperson told us that design details will be changing, such as improving the softness of the sheets, increasing the weight of the material to make it more durable, and updating the colors offered.
How they compare
