A woman in champagne sleepwear beside a champagne silk pillowcase in an airy late-summer Paris bedroom.

Too hot at night: 8 fixes for a cooler bedroom

The short answer

Start with the room, then the bed. Turn the bedroom heating down for the night and air the room before bed, switch to the season’s duvet, sleep in fibres that breathe (linen, cotton percale, silk at the pillow), shower an hour or two before bed and tie long hair loosely, off your neck. Silk at the pillow is the finishing touch, not the first fix.

The first week of October, and the heating has just come back on. At bedtime the room feels lovely. An hour later the duvet is down at your knees, you have turned the pillow over twice looking for the other side, and the person next to you is fast asleep under the same duvet, perfectly content.

Feeling too hot at night is rarely one thing: it is the room, the bed and the hour before bed, added together. Here are eight fixes, in the order we would try them, and a straight answer on silk, silk sheets included.

Why do you feel too hot at night in autumn?

Two things change in October. The heating comes on, often set for the evening in the living room and left there all night. And the winter duvet comes out on the first chilly evening, weeks before the nights call for it.

Bedtime has its own logic too: your body temperature needs to drop slightly before you fall asleep, as the Sleep Charity, a UK charity, explains. A warm room under a heavy duvet slows this down, which is why you can feel fine on the sofa and too hot ten minutes after lying down.

How warm should a bedroom be at night?

1. Turn the bedroom down for the night

ADEME, the French public agency that advises households on energy, suggests programming the heating to 16 to 17 °C at night when you are at home, against 19 to 21 °C during the day.

If your heating has a programmer, give it a night slot. If not, turn the bedroom radiator down an hour before bed.

2. Air the room before bed

ADEME’s advice holds in winter too: open the windows wide for five to ten minutes every day, and air the bedrooms just before you go to bed. Opening windows on both sides of the home renews the air faster, in two to five minutes, while a window left ajar does little, the agency adds. The warm, damp air of the day goes out, and the room starts the night lighter.

Which duvet and sheets suit a hot sleeper?

3. Choose the season’s duvet, not the warmest one

Duvets are graded by warmth: a tog rating in the UK, a weight per square metre elsewhere. The Sleep Charity pairs breathable sheets with a lightweight, low-tog duvet on warmer nights and keeps 10.5 tog or more for the colder months. In October, with the heating on, a mid-season duvet, or a light one with a blanket at the foot of the bed, is often enough until the first frosts.

4. Share the bed, not the duvet

If one of you runs warm and the other runs cold, one duvet cannot suit you both. The charity’s answer is layers: a lighter duvet for the bed, and a throw or a light blanket that each of you adds on your own side. Two single duvets on a double bed do the same job.

5. Sheets in fibres that breathe

What touches you all night matters as much as what sits on top. The Sleep Charity points to breathable sheets in fibres such as cotton, and notes that synthetic fabrics often trap heat and restrict airflow.

  • Linen. According to Encyclopaedia Britannica, linen takes up and releases damp quickly and conducts heat well, which is why it feels fresh to wear.
  • Cotton percale. Percale is a plain weave: each thread passes over one thread and under the next, which gives the sheet its matte, crisp hand.
  • Light nightwear. The same logic applies to what you sleep in: the charity suggests light cotton nightwear.

6. Silk where your face rests

Your face spends the night on the pillow, and it is the pillow you turn over when you feel warm. A silk pillowcase gives that spot a smooth, fluid surface, for your face and for your hair. It does not set the warmth of the room; the thermostat, the window and the duvet do, which is why silk comes sixth on this list and not first.

What helps in the hour before bed?

7. Shower an hour or two before bed

A warm shower just before bed leaves you warm as you lie down. Engineers at the University of Texas at Austin, who reviewed the studies on warm baths and showers, found that timing matters: taken one to two hours before bedtime, the warm water sends blood from the body’s core to the hands and feet, where the heat leaves, and people fell asleep about ten minutes sooner on average. Shower after dinner, then, not on your way to the pillow.

8. Tie long hair loosely, off your neck

Long hair spread over the neck and shoulders is one more layer under the duvet. Gather it loosely on top of your head, or in a loose braid, with a soft tie. The American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) advises wearing hair loosely pulled back and using covered bands made for styling hair; a silk scrunchie, wound once, is exactly that.

Is silk good for hot sleepers?

Silk is a fibre; satin is a weave. Britannica defines satin as any fabric made with the satin weave, so a satin pillowcase can be silk or polyester. If yours is polyester and feels warm and slippery by midnight, the fibre is the first thing to change, since synthetics often trap heat, as the Sleep Charity notes.

So yes, silk suits a hot sleeper at the pillow, and what we say about our own is short: temperature-regulating silk, comfortable in every season. As for silk sheets, we make the pillowcase rather than sheets. A practical pairing for a warm sleeper is linen or percale sheets for the body and silk where your face and hair rest. For the fibre-versus-weave question in full, read silk vs satin, and for the rest of the room, a hotel bedroom at home.

Where Siluxe fits

Fix 6 is ours. The Siluxe silk pillowcase is made of 100% mulberry silk, 22 momme (about 95 g of silk per square metre) and Grade 6A long fibre: OEKO-TEX® STANDARD 100, certificate 26.HCN.36686, tested for harmful substances, and designed in Paris. It is temperature-regulating silk, comfortable in every season. Your hair spends the night there too, and hair glides over silk instead of rubbing, so blowouts last and mornings start with fewer tangles.

It comes in Standard 50 × 70 cm (Rose gold or Gold) or Euro 65 × 65 cm (Gold), with an envelope closure and an embroidered S monogram, at $99. See the pillowcase. Complimentary delivery from $100 on USD orders: the pillowcase with a scrunchie M qualifies.

FAQ

What temperature should a bedroom be at night?

ADEME suggests 16 to 17 °C at night when you are at home. Air the bedroom for five to ten minutes just before bed, windows wide open, and choose a duvet for the season rather than the warmest one you own.

Are silk sheets good for hot sleepers?

Silk is among the breathable fibres a warm sleeper can choose, with linen and cotton percale. We make the pillowcase rather than sheets: temperature-regulating silk, comfortable in every season, where your face and hair rest. For the rest of the bed, breathable sheets and the season’s duvet do most of the work.

Will a silk pillowcase make the bedroom cooler?

No pillowcase changes the warmth of a room: that is the job of the thermostat, the window and the duvet. What silk changes is the surface under your face and hair, which is why it comes after the room and the duvet in our eight fixes.

Is 22 momme silk too heavy for warm nights?

Momme measures the weight of silk: at 22 momme there are about 95 g of silk in each square metre, a dense, smooth fabric. On a warm night, the room and the duvet count for far more than the pillowcase.

Sources

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