It honestly depends on your personal preference. Brand and thread count are only important up to a point. Material and weave are more important. If you prefer cool, crisp sheets (think nice hotel or rural grandma's house) go with a percale weave. If you want a warmer, clingier feel go for sateen weave. In general, stick with cotton, linen, or bamboo. Synthetics aren't as nice, nor are blends. Linen will be more expensive but if you don't have a particular yen for it, go with cotton. More on reddit.com

Percale is a weave style, while long staple Egyptian cotton is a fabric type. Percale sheets are often made of long staple Egyptian cotton. Thread count is often just marketing talk imo. It doesn’t necessarily say anything about the actual feel or quality of the sheets. More on reddit.com

"Thread Count" is no longer an indicator of quality, nor is "Egyptian Cotton". Scumbags have flooded, diluted then poisoned the market with "1200 Threadcount Egyptian Cotton Sheets ' sold in parking lots across the world.

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If you truly want 1000 TC you can get them, but let me quickly explain why thread count doesn’t actually mean anything when it comes to quality. When companies say 1000TC, it’s not a true 1000TC, it’s much more likely a 250TC with 4 ply or a 330TC with 3 ply. Brands that label themselves 600+TC do it because there’s a myth that higher thread count means higher quality, and there’s no universal standard on how to define thread count. This allows them to use tricks. In fact, most brands that show a high thread count are usually low quality. There are some exceptions where even though it says 1000TC, they transparently tell you it’s multi ply and it’s actually high quality. The two best 1000TC sheets would be the Matouk Gatsby and the St. Geneve Regency. What makes these two the best isn’t their thread count, it’s the quality of cotton. Quality of cotton is the one thing you truly need to pay attention to if you want to buy nice sheets. This relates to your other questions about Egyptian, Pima, and supima cotton. If you ever see a product that says 100% Egyptian cotton and that’s all it says, then you have no idea if it’s high quality or low quality. Egypt makes some amazing products but they also make some low quality products. The fact that they only say 100% Egyptian probably means they’re low quality and are just trying to manipulate you into thinking if it says Egyptian then it must be good since they know there are those who believe that. The true way to tell if sheets are good or not is to look at “staple length”. If a product says Extra Long Staple/ELS, that’s generally the best. If a product says Long staple, that’s generally decent. If it doesn’t say anything, it’s probably low quality short staple cotton. Not all Extra Long Staple is created equal, but anything that’s true ELS will be good quality. The best cotton you can buy is Giza 45 cotton. Giza 87 is also another amazing cotton. Sometimes the brand will only say Giza cotton, that’s perfectly fine. Giza is the cotton that made Egypt famous. This can be VERY expensive, $1000+ for a sheet set. Pima cotton is supposed to be ELS that’s grown in America. Supima is a trademarked name that is used by brands to highlight that their product meets the strict standards of the Supima name. Pima is pretty general and some people say that you should only buy Supima to make sure that the Pima you buy is top quality. Supima is generally much cheaper than Giza cotton and it’s also not always clear that the product is actual ELS. If you have an unlimited budget, I’d highly recommend buying Giza cotton from a reputable brand. Supima generally isn’t sold by top tier brands so it’s relatively more of a gamble. What you should do is pretty simple. Stick to brands like Sferra, Frette, Matouk, St. Geneve or schlossberg and buy the best quality cotton you can afford. I’d also recommend buying something that isn’t crazy high TC, it’s probably going to not be as comfortable as the equivalent quality in a 1-2 ply. A 250TC-500TC is probably the sweet spot. Buy a percale weave if you know your friend generally sleeps hot Buy a sateen weave if you know your friend really prioritizes silky softness or likes warmth There is so much fraud in this industry so it’s really important to pick a reputable brand. If these are all too expensive, Macys is probably the best budget set and they advertise 680TC. Just know this is a substantial step down in quality. Good luck! More on reddit.com