June is here. Even before the rain arrives, the humidity has already begun. With the monsoon around, most of the Indian households are thinking about raincoats, umbrellas and waterproofing their windows. No one is thinking about their bed sheets. Every year, Indian households have weeks of dodgy-smelling bedrooms, ruined clothes and uncomfortable sleep.
What you do with your summer bed sheets during the fortnight before monsoon makes all the difference to how your bedroom smells, how your clothes smell and how you sleep through months of rain and humidity. You will know precisely what you need to do and why each step is crucial.
Clean Everything Before The First Rain
The foremost thing you need to do before monsoon hits is wash every bedding that you have been using throughout the summer. Not a gentle rinse, an actual full-on wash that scrubs four months’ worth of sweat, body oil, dust and detergent residue out of your pure cotton sheets in advance of the humidity coming in and making all that buildup much more difficult to shift.
The same sweat residue that lingers in cloth when monsoon humidity first strikes up a feeding ground for the mould and bacteria that give every Indian bedroom its musty whiff each June and July. If a sheet goes into monsoon with summer perspiration already embedded in the weave, mould odour will develop within days of monsoon humidity appearing, not because of anything that happens during monsoon but simply because a fresh influx of moisture acts like the ideal medium for bacteria, instantly reacting with existing organic residue.
Pure cotton Bed Sheets should be washed in liquid detergent. Pour half a cup of white vinegar into the wash, this essentially clears out those sweat and oil remnants that, after months of summer wear, are unlikely to be fully removed by detergent alone. Add a baking soda soak to your regular washing machine, and if your sheets have become yellowish over summer, dissolve half a cup of baking soda in warm water, soak for thirty minutes before washing. Swap sheets that look clean but contain four months of summer grime for properly laundered linen before the monsoon.
Last of the summer sun dry everything completely
This is your last real chance to dry things out for weeks. Use it. Wash, then dry every sheet, pillow cover and mattress protector directly in summer sun until they are completely and entirely dry, not just surface dry but through every seam, through every hem, through every thick section where fabric gathers together.
At this point sun drying does much more than just extract excess moisture. This UV in direct summer sun destroys mould spores, bacteria, and dust mites that have collected in your sheets through summer. No detergent can replicate this UV sanitisation properly. Take advantage of the last clear June days to sun dry EVERYTHING from your bedroom, sheets, pillow covers, mattress protector any light blanket or dohar using so far.
Inspect the corners that fit your mattress; seams and elastic on fitted sheets. The thicker, pile areas stay wetter well after the main fabric feels dry. Squeeze in between your fingers really tight. If still slightly cool/damp, leave for another hour. Having totally dry bedsheets in monsoon is the single best thing you can do to postpone mildew and musty smell bugs growing throughout the season.
Look Over Your Sheets Accordingly to Either Store Or Keep
The pre-monsoon season is a perfect time to assess which sheets need to be kept and which need replacement. Summer takes a toll on fabric, months of sweat, weekly washing in harsh Indian water and drying out in the scorching sun do it all. A sheet that seems acceptable to the naked eye across the room may well be already so degraded through handling during four months of monsoon washing as to require specialist attention.
Lift each sheet to a window or bright light and view through the cloth. Thin areas where light penetrates more easily than the surrounding fabric are weak spots that will be holes within a season. Run a hand over the surface, loose fibres will snag on your fingers but the surface pilling that does not come out with washing indicates deterioration and is irreversible. Test the elastic on fitted sheets, elastic that has lost its bounce and does not pull back tightly means the sheet will slip off your mattress before morning.
Cotton sheets that are in good shape are worth using in the monsoon. Without any synthetic alternative, pure cotton can better withstand regular washing during monsoon and quality cotton lasts for 3-5 Indian summers. The sheets that are at the end of life should be replaced before monsoon, not after.
What Goes On the Bed and What Gets Stored
You will not need every sheet you used through summer on rotation through monsoon. If you have a set of them, this is an opportunity to rotate in a more considered manner rather than simply keeping whatever is already on the bed.
Use your lightest pure cotton percale bed sheets on active rotation through monsoon. That same breathability that made them great for summer, makes them ideal candidates for the humidity of monsoon. Light cotton percale at 180-250 TC is a better moisture conductor than heavier sheets (important in a constantly high-humidity bedroom over the whole night rather than just for part of the night).
These would include clean sheets, in good condition but not needed for rotation. Never store in a plastic bag or sealed container, instead use a cotton bag or pillowcase (plastic traps moisture, and stored sheets in sealed plastic go mouldy during monsoon days even when unused). Use a silica gel packet in the storage bag to draw out additional moisture from air that seeped in, keep stored sheets inside an interior cupboard which will not as easily be affected by exterior walls which inherently carry greater degrees of wetness during heavy monsoon rains.
Protect your mattress before the first rain
Your mattress requires pre-monsoon care just like your sheets need it. A mattress going into monsoon will keep soaking moisture from the air incessantly for months absorbing all humidity and contributing to the musky odour responsible for stinking up your monsoon bedrooms, irrespective of how fresh your sheets are.
If you do not own a hundred per cent cotton mattress protector, purchase one before monsoon knocks on the door. That is, a thin washable cotton mattress protector is placed over the mattress and under the fitted sheet to absorb your body's moisture that you deposit while sleeping without letting it reach the mattress itself. During the monsoon, wash the protector every ten to fourteen days. This simple addition will all alone add significant longevity to mattress life and is one of the best monsoon bedroom odour removal weapons in your arsenal.
Strip your bed of all bedding, the top cover removed and the mattress moved against a wall for 2-3 hours with a fan in front. The mattress is aired before the monsoon season, which helps to remove the dryness accumulated through summer and makes it as dry as possible for monsoon. Do this on a bright day in late May or early June, once monsoon settles in, there is no chance of mattresses airing thoroughly without risking getting drenched.
Monsoon To-Do List
Everything needs to be washed, pillow covers and mattress protectors with liquid detergent and white vinegar. All the seams, all the corners, everything should be dried. Inspect all sheets with honesty and swap out those that are at the end of life. Add a cotton mattress protector. Place the mattress outdoors on a dry day. Move to the lighter pure cotton percale sheets for Monsoon Rotation. Pick up the clear fabric from the floor of the bedroom that does not belong there.
These steps take one afternoon. Imagine having to deal with weeks of musty smell, damaged fabric and sleepless nights over four months of Indian monsoon. The difference between a bedroom that will weather monsoon well and one that smells damp from the very first week of June depends almost solely on what you do in the fortnight leading up to those rains.
True 100% Cotton Percale bed sheets for Indian monsoon by www.belongindia.com for homes in India.