The first choice for many purchasers of silk bedding is seamless silk. Like its name suggest seamless silk is bedding that does not have a center seam or two off center side seams.

The standard width of pure silk is 45 inches which means silk bedding any bigger than twin size is going to have a seam in it. That seam is either directly down the center which is best for people who sleep on the side of their bed and not right in the middle of it; or two off center side seams which is better for people who do sleep in the middle of their bed. This prevents a person from having to lay on a seam or having a seam mar the smoothness of the sheet or comforter they are covered with.

But, many people prefer to have silk bedding without any seams and will check to see if the silk bedding is seamless before they check anything else such as the type of silk used and the weight of the fabric. That is a mistake. Much of the seamless available on the market is not pure silk. It is a blend or a knit of silk and something else and is of a lesser quality.

A relative of mine recently purchased silk sheets and was only interested in looking for ones that were seamless because he perceived them as being of the best quality. He was right and he was wrong. Pure silk seamless sheets are the best quality, but he didn't read any further on the label to notice the sheets he was buying were a blend of wild silk and another fabric that have been woven together to create a blended fabric wider than 45 inches. He got the sheets for a great price, one that was too good to be true. He now realizes why the sheets were so affordable. They are of inferior quality and are quickly wearing out.

High quality, 100 percent, seamless bedding is available but it does come at a higher cost than seamed silk bedding. There are some producers of silk who use specially made oversize looms to weave the fabric in order to produce a high quality wide width seamless silk.

What should you look for in seamless bedding to ensure you are getting a high quality product that will last?

Look for bedding made with mulberry silk (also called cultivated silk or bombyx silk). Avoid Habotai silk. It has a rougher matte finish and is made from wild silk which is of a lower quality than cultivated silk. Wild silk strands are not extremely long like cultivated silk strands are so they need to be spun together to create length creating a silk that is not as durable as the long single thread filaments harvested from cultivated silkworms.

Look for a momme weight between 16 and 19, although you can have a momme weight (mm) as low as 12 and still be purchase a quality product. Momme weight is a standard measurement used in calculating the heaviness of the silk. The higher the momme number the heavier that piece of fabric is and the more silk that was used in the construction of that piece of fabric. Any silk bedding product, whether it is made from mulberry silk or a more affordable wild silk, that has a momme weight of under 12 is not going to be durable and last a long time. You will save money initially but over the long term purchasing low quality sheets will cost you more than if you would have purchased a high quality set of sheets right away. This is because you will need to continue to replace those lower quality sheets at a far faster rate than high quality sheets which will last a long time if cared for properly and according to manufacturer's instructions.

After checking the kind of silk used and the momme weight, then you can look at the thread count. A thread count of 400 or higher is the most desirable for silk bedding.

So the next time you go shopping for silk bedding, don't automatically assume that sheets with a seam are of a lower quality than a set of seamless sheets. Instead check for: the type of silk used, the momme weight, and the thread count. Those are the indicators that will tell how high or how low the quality of the sheets are.