Stonewashed is a finish. It is not a fiber, not a color and not a grade of quality — it describes something done to the cloth after it is woven and before anything is cut from it. What it changes are three things you can actually feel: how the piece behaves on the first night, whether it shrinks, and how the color sits in the weave. Here is what the wash does, what the word does not guarantee when you meet it in someone else's shop, and what the fourteen colors we make it in measure.
What stonewashing does to the cloth
The finished cloth is washed before it is made up. That is the whole of it, and three things follow from that one step.
It arrives soft. Raw linen comes off the roll crisp and softens over the first weeks of use; washed cloth has already been through that, so there is no break-in period and no starched hand on the first night. It reads matte. Washing relaxes the fibers and takes the crispness out of the weave, so the surface loses its slight sheen and the drape falls loose rather than sharp. And the shrinking is already done, which is the reason most people arrive at this question in the first place.
None of that is a coating. Stonewashing is something done to the cloth rather than a substance added to it, so there is nothing that can rinse out in the third wash or wear off in the second year. What you feel on the first night is the fabric itself.
The word is not a specification
Worth knowing before you compare one shop with another. The name comes from denim, where jeans really were tumbled with pumice to beat the stiffness out of them. In linen it has drifted into a general label for a family of softening washes — mechanical, enzyme, or some combination — and nobody polices which of them earns the word. Garment-washed, sand-washed, softened and plain washed linen are used across the trade for finishes ranging from a serious wash to a rinse.
So the term tells you a shop's vocabulary rather than what happened to the cloth. Two questions do tell you something, because they ask about outcomes a wash either produced or did not: does the piece arrive soft, and does it shrink? The second one you can settle yourself — measure the cover, wash it, measure it again.
Stonewashed and raw linen, side by side
We make both, which makes the comparison easy to state exactly rather than in adjectives. Every colored duvet cover and every colored pillowcase is stonewashed. Everything else — white and oatmeal, across sheets, the three remaining pillowcase styles, bed skirts and table linen — is raw linen.
| Stonewashed | Raw | |
|---|---|---|
| Cloth washed before cutting | Yes | No |
| First night | Already soft | Crisp; softens over the first weeks |
| Shrinkage | None — it has already happened | 3–5%, so the cloth is cut oversized to allow for it |
| Surface | Matte, relaxed drape | Slight sheen, crisper drape at first |
| Weight | 170 or 200 GSM, depending on the color | 170 GSM throughout |
| Colors | Fourteen, all dyed | White and oatmeal |
| Made in | Duvet covers, so far | The whole range |
The shrinkage line is the one worth a sentence more. Linen shrinks because the fibers relax the first time they get properly wet, and that happens either to the cloth on the roll or to the finished piece in your machine — there is no third option. Washing the cloth first spends it up front, so the cover is made at its listed size and stays on it. Cutting 3–5% oversized spends it in your first wash instead, which is what our raw linen does. Both end with a piece that fits; does linen shrink has the arithmetic.
The weight does not follow the shade
Seven of the fourteen are cut from a 200 GSM cloth and seven from 170 — Copper, Dark Teal, Dusty Blue, Forest Green, Graphite, Olive Haze, Sky Blue at the heavier weight, Dusty Gray, Dusty Pink, Mineral Green, Pearl Gray, Pink Rose, Sage Mint, Soft Peach at the lighter one. The 200 GSM cloth has more body in the drape and more presence on the bed; 170 is the same weight as everything else we make, so a stonewashed cover in it hangs like the rest of the range. Both are well inside what a bed wants, and neither is warmer to sleep under in any way you would notice.
It is tempting to read the split as dark-equals-heavy, and it very nearly is — then it breaks twice. Mineral Green is the second darkest color here and the lighter cloth; Sky Blue is the lightest of all fourteen and the heavier one. Read the number on the page rather than inferring it from the shade. What GSM means for linen covers what the figure can and cannot tell you.
The fourteen colors, measured
They are listed dark to light, and that order is measured rather than judged: each hex below is the median of a scan of the actual cloth, and the rows are sorted by its lightness. Copper is the most saturated of the fourteen by a wide margin — about half again as strong as the next one — and Graphite is the most nearly neutral, with Pearl Gray behind it.
| Color | Measured | GSM | What it is |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dark Teal | #204C5F | 200 | The darkest cloth we make — a deep blue-green that reads close to black in low light. |
| Mineral Green | #334F43 | 170 | Dark and cool, a muted green with most of the yellow taken out of it. |
| Graphite | #5B6060 | 200 | The most nearly neutral color in the line: a mid-dark gray with almost no cast either way. |
| Forest Green | #61705F | 200 | A mid green, heavily muted — more gray in it than the name leads people to expect. |
| Copper | #B1693E | 200 | The most saturated of the fourteen by a wide margin. A muted burnt orange with a clay undertone. |
| Olive Haze | #8D8763 | 200 | A soft warm olive at mid lightness, nearer khaki than green. |
| Dusty Blue | #788E96 | 200 | A gray-blue with most of the blue taken out; on a bed it behaves more like a neutral. |
| Soft Peach | #C7A47E | 170 | The warmest of the pale colors by a clear margin — a light tan with an orange cast rather than a pink one. |
| Pearl Gray | #A8ABB1 | 170 | A light gray with almost no cast; the second most neutral color here, after Graphite. |
| Dusty Gray | #B9AAAB | 170 | A light warm gray with a rosy cast that reads mauve beside the other neutrals. |
| Sage Mint | #97B8AB | 170 | A light green-blue, cool but muted. |
| Pink Rose | #E79FA8 | 170 | The strongest of the pinks — light, warm, and clearly a color rather than a tint. |
| Dusty Pink | #E9B9B3 | 170 | Paler and softer than Pink Rose, with more beige in it. |
| Sky Blue | #B1D9F0 | 200 | The lightest cloth of the fourteen: a pale cool blue. |
A word on how far to trust any of that. The hex is closer to the truth than a styled photograph, because it comes off a scan of the cloth rather than out of a lit room — but it is still a number rendered by your screen, and screens disagree. Dyed linen also refuses to be one flat value: the fiber takes dye unevenly by nature and a stonewash lifts that further, so expect slight variation across a large panel and between batches. That variation is the fabric, not a fault. If the exact shade decides the purchase, judge it in the room and the light you actually live in.
What washing does to the color
The shade is dyed into the linen rather than printed on it, so it runs through the cloth and reads the same on both faces — there is no right side to keep facing up, and a worn patch does not show a paler layer underneath.
Fading is slow and mostly under your control. Strong sun and hot water are what pull color out of any dyed natural fiber; washing at 40 °C (104 °F) on a delicate cycle and drying on low does not. Wash with like colors, especially the first time. And keep bleach away from these entirely — chlorine or oxygen, both. That is one of the few places the colored cloth and the white part company: oxygen bleach is safe on white linen and is not safe on any of these fourteen. The rest is in the linen care guide.
Where the finish appears in the range
In the duvet covers and in two of the five pillowcase styles. All fourteen colors are duvet covers in 22 named sizes across UK/EU, US and Australian beds plus a custom option, and both ruffled and housewife pillowcases across the US, EU and square sizes. The sheets, the three remaining pillowcase styles, the bed skirts and the napkins are raw linen in white and oatmeal at 170 GSM.
Which raises the obvious question, and the answer is yes: a stonewashed cover over raw linen sheets is a normal way to use them. Same fiber, same wash temperature, same certification. The two finishes do not look identical up close — one is matte and loose, the other has a little more sheen and holds a crease more sharply — and that difference is much of the reason to put a colored cover on a white bed in the first place. Start from linen bedding if you are building the bed rather than replacing one piece of it.
All of it is cut and sewn to order in our own workshop near Riga from European linen, woven and washed in Europe before it reaches us, and certified to OEKO-TEX Standard 100 for both the fabric and the sewing thread.
Common questions
Is stonewashed linen better than raw linen?
Neither is better; they trade different things. Stonewashed is soft on the first night and does not shrink. Raw is crisper to begin with and softens into itself over the first weeks, which some people prefer precisely because they can feel it happening. Most linen bedding sold anywhere, ours included, is raw.
Is stonewashed the same as garment-washed or sand-washed?
Not reliably. No standard governs any of those words, and different shops use them for finishes that range from a heavy wash to a rinse. Judge by the two outcomes instead: whether it arrives soft, and whether it shrinks.
Does stonewashed linen keep getting softer?
Yes. The wash starts it further along the curve rather than ending the curve. After several washes the drape loosens again and the surface picks up a slight texture.
Do the colors run in the wash?
Wash with like colors, and cold or warm rather than hot. Strong sun and hot water are what pull color out of any dyed natural fiber; a 40 °C delicate cycle does not. No bleach of any kind on these — not even the oxygen bleach that is safe on our white.
Why is the weight different from one color to another?
Because they are not one cloth in fourteen dyes. Seven measure 200 GSM and seven 170, and the split does not follow the shade. Each product page states its own number, and the difference in drape is enough to be worth checking before you order.
Can I put a stonewashed cover on raw linen sheets?
Yes — same fiber, same 40 °C wash, same OEKO-TEX certification. The finishes read differently side by side, which is usually the point.