Before delving into specific details behind how we price our items, we will give an overview of how our products are produced, from scratch:
The Mulberry silk we use to make our products come from silkworms of the Bombyx mori moth. The silkworms, once hatched from the eggs produced by the mother moth, are immediately placed in a strictly controlled environment with constant temperature, humidity, and natural ecological balance. Sound over a certain limit is strictly prohibited as it may startle the larvae and hinder silk production. The silkworms are fed constantly with fresh Mulberry leaves that are completely pesticide and fertilizer free for over one month before they start spinning their cocoon. After completing their cocoon in 3-8 days, the silkworms start pupating and the cocoons are ripe for harvest.
The cocoons are first kept in a warm place for several days, while workers carefully watch and ensure none of the worms hatches and break the silk filaments. The cocoons are then placed in water and softened silk filament can then be unwound from the cocoon. Mulberry silk threads are then created by weaving several silk filaments together, and the threads are weaved into sheets of silk fabric after.
A single 19mm kingsize silk sheet requires approximately 3000-5000 cocoons to make, and this is without taking into account the amount of silk that has to be picked out and thrown away due to having lower quality fibers. 22 and 25mm silk fabrics require even more cocoons due to the higher requirement of fiber quality. Putting together the cost of breeding the silkworms, unraveling threads, and weaving the threads which all involve a good amount of manual operation from our skilled silk workers, it is not surprising that just our silk fabric alone is more costly than materials like cotton and polyester, the production of which has been largely automated and requires little human intervention.
If you search around for other bedding alternatives, you will find the down duvets are roughly the same or slightly higher priced than silk items in the North American market, and yet offers significantly fewer benefits to one's health. The hypoallergenic version of down duvets is decidedly more expensive than silk duvets which are hypoallergenic by nature. You can read about a complete list of silk benefits in our Silk FAQ section here.
Now, looking back on our prices, we ask you to think about this question:" Do I think it's reasonable to pay a slightly expensive price for something as luxurious, comfortable, and beneficial to my health as Lilysilk's bedding products that are actually 20%-25% percent less expensive than other bedding products of similar or lesser quality?" Remember to also take into account our free and fast shipping, responsive and helpful customer service, and the unbeatable up to 30 days no-hassle return policy, and you should find that our prices are, in fact, not that expensive after all.