Aug 7 2022 - Sheets and Pillowcases

 

Sheets and pillowcases used to be made of cotton.  That's it.  That's all.  In winter, they would dry on the line into white cardboard sheets.  "Freeze-dried and snow bleached."  Now when I go into Sleep Country, there's everything imaginable.   I got the bamboo pillow cases - bamboo is used to make rayon.  Very smooth and cooling. And the trend now about smooth, soft and cooling in sheets and pillow cases.   And what's available today?  Not just cotton.  ,Cotton sateen is available - again very smooth and extra soft.  Sateen is different than satin - it is cotton and has more vertical threads than horizontal, so  it is more fragile.  Satin has very thin, high-thread-count synthetic materials such as nylon, polyester, or acetate.   The smoothest cotton is Egyptian cotton - it has extremely high thread count.  Generally a  high thread count also means warmer.   What about flax linen - they are said to be soothing and breathable, lightweight and sourced from fields in France and Belgium.  Doesn't that sound like a vacation as you sleep? We live in the time of luxury linens available to everyone.  Remember when the Westin Hotel introduced the "Heavenly Bed"?  That was just over twenty years ago.  It kicked off the luxury bed linen for all trend.  Now we're advised on how often we should replace everything in the bedroom - pillows?  1 to 2 years, sheets? 2 years, and so on.  Toss, toss.  That's part of luxury living. And today's picture continues the investigation of time.  Isn't time  elusive and strange?  I checked out this article in space.com  for a better understanding of time. They let me know it is also illusive.  Complicated.  I went to work on the floral clock and gave time a few twists.

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The Henrys are coming for Deluxe, Ultraluxe and More

Treasure Islands promise the riches of wealth and that means being able to purchase luxury.  Owning luxurious things - that signifies reaching high achievements, success, or rank.  There is super deluxe and ultra deluxe to distinguish even further levels of quality.   First world people keep getting wealthier so there have to be more levels to climb to the top. In simple terms "luxurious" seems to be about how much it costs.  The most expensive "luxurious" yacht is $4.5 billion US.  The most expensive parking spots are in Manhattan for $1 million US. Can a parking spot be luxurious?  From the pictures shown, it appears it can be - valets waiting to open the door. Watches have symbolized luxury for centuries. The values of the most luxurious watches are in the $25 to $55 million range.  And prestige watches come with provenance - Paul Newman's Rolex Daytona sold for $17.8 million - only one in the world. Take hotels.  Sleeping and eating can easily be understood as luxurious experiences.   And status experiences are replacing luxury goods as a status symbol.  What about the most luxurious hotels in the entire world?  How many are there?  Are there 10, 20, 50? It looks like there are a few hundred - maybe 200 - 600 hotels. Rather than looking up each item, could we go to a luxury living website and find out what the top luxury items are?  The top blogs and websites are HERE.  And what for the future? With the U.S. having the heaviest concentration of millionaires - 41% - over 17 millionaires live in the U.S. This is followed by China with 3.5 million, Japan 2.8 million and the U.K. with 2.4 million.  Forbes says these wealthy people will change luxury. The Forbes article says: "Looking across this vast generational cohort, defined by Pew as 73 million strong in 2019 and born between 1981 and 1996, there is one segment in that cohort that is most important for luxury brands: the HENRYs (high-earners-not-rich-yet). With higher incomes relative to the majority of the population, between $100k and $250k in the U.S., HENRYs hold the space above the bottom 75th percentile but below the top 95th percentile, where luxury brand’s traditional ultra-affluent customers are found. Since true affluence comes with age, the millennials aged 23-to-38 in 2019 are only now beginning to hit their stride in terms of income and wealth."  This comes from Pamela N. Danziger whose first book was "Why People Buy Things They Don't Need" and has since written 8 more. our pictures today show the finalist winners from the Betterphoto contest last month.  They had a peeling paint contest category for the first time.  There's one that looks like a tree, another like angel wings, another is a pattern of locks, and finally I went to look at who came in first place - and it turns out to be one of my images.  It is the horizontal image  Ebb and Flow.  This was peeling paint on a cafe wall. Here it is on Betterphoto  HERE.