The number that matters

Buy on cost per use, not on unit price

Almost every hostel linen budget goes wrong the same way. Three quotes come in, the cheapest one wins, and the sheets are being thrown out halfway through the second year. The price on the invoice was never the real number.

What cost per use means

Cost per use is what one piece costs you every single time it goes back on a bed. Work it out like this:

cost per use = (price of the piece ÷ number of times it can be washed and put back into service) + what one wash costs you

Two sheets can carry exactly the same price on the invoice and be a long way apart on this number. A sheet that survives twice as many launderings costs you half as much per night, even if it was dearer to buy. A sheet that goes grey, tears at the hem or shrinks out of size after one term costs you far more than it saved.

The three inputs, and the one everybody forgets

Purchase price. Usable life in washes. Cost of each wash. Those are the three inputs, and a supplier who only talks about the first one is telling you about a third of the story.

The fourth thing, the one that ruins budgets, is loss. Linen that walks out of the building at the end of term has an infinite cost per use, because it was never used again. That is why marking is not a nice-to-have on this page; it is part of the cost calculation. A faster-drying fabric also lowers the cost of every wash, which is why fibre choice and cost per use are the same conversation.

Fabric choice

Why we usually propose a poly-cotton blend here

Pure cotton is the nicer cloth to sleep in. It is not usually the right cloth for a hostel, and here is the plain reason why.

Pure cotton loses roughly 20-25% of its tensile strength after about 200 industrial wash cycles Typical industry range. That is, it gets measurably weaker the more it is washed hot, spun hard and pressed. Tensile strength is simply how much pull the cloth can take before it gives, so a weakened sheet is the one that tears when a student pulls it straight over the mattress corner.

A poly-cotton blend holds its strength better over the same number of cycles, dries faster, which cuts both the time and the fuel your laundry spends on it, and comes off the line with fewer creases, so less of it needs ironing. All three of those reduce cost per use.

The honest trade-off: cotton breathes better and feels better, especially in a hot Islamabad summer. Where comfort is the point (a guest room, a warden's flat, a VIP room), specify cotton or a higher-cotton blend and accept the shorter working life. Use the blend where the bed is turned over term after term.

Stacked folds of undyed cotton and linen cloth in ivory, oat and stone — Cloth is chosen at sampling, in the hand: cotton, poly-cotton or all-poly, against the way your laundry actually runs.

Typical industry range. Exact specification confirmed at sampling. The figure above is a general finding for cotton in commercial laundering, published here as guidance for specifying. It is not a Paragon test result and it is not a durability claim about any particular Paragon product.

How to buy it

Buy a pack per bed, not a pile per store room

The simplest way to budget hostel linen is to price one bed, then multiply by beds. It makes the annual figure obvious, it makes issuing to a new student a single action, and it stops the store room filling with 400 pillowcases and no sheets.

A standard per-bed pack is:

Two flat sheets, or one flat and one fitted: fitted saves the housekeeping time of tucking, flat is cheaper to make and easier to replace.
One pillowcase, housewife or Oxford style.
One bath towel.
One hand towel.

Add a mattress protector, a pillow and a blanket or quilt if the institution issues those too. Most hostels then work to a par level, one set on the bed, one in the wash, one on the shelf, and buy in that multiple, so the sets in circulation never fall below what the laundry cycle needs.

Constructions stay deliberately simple: plain weave, straight hems, a generous tuck allowance, and no piping, embroidery or decorative border that will only fail first. Simple is what survives an institutional laundry.

Bath linen & towels

Two rolled cotton bath towels in white and ivory with a triple-dobby border — Bath and hand towels are matched as a pair so the pack issues, launders and replaces as one unit.

Per-bed pack: what we can confirm today
Composition	Poly-cotton blend, cotton or all-polyester, selected with you at sampling.
Fabric weight / thread count	On request
Finished sheet sizes	Made to your measured mattress size, its depth and the tuck you specify.
Hem and make-up	On request
Pillowcase style	Housewife or Oxford, to your finished size.
Towel weight	Confirmed against the band you select. See the towel table below.
Marking	Name tape, woven label or block coding, applied in production.
Colours	White and cream from stock. Other shades matched to a Pantone reference on order.
Payment terms	30% advance, 70% before pick-up.

Where a value reads “On request”, it is because Paragon has no documented figure published for it yet: the figure is set for the cloth you approve and confirmed in writing with your quotation and sample. We would rather leave the cell honest than fill it in.

Loss control

Mark it, or replace it

Unmarked linen leaves the building. Marked linen mostly comes back, from the laundry, from a room clearance at the end of term, from the block next door. Marking is applied in production, which is cheaper and lasts far longer than tapes sewn on by hand afterwards.

Institution name tape

A woven tape carrying the institution's name, stitched into the hem during make-up. The cheapest form of marking and the one that survives commercial laundering best, because it is stitched in rather than stuck on.

Woven label

A woven satin or damask label with your name and, if you want it, your crest. Paragon already produces woven and printed labels for its own goods, so your label is made the same way and applied on the same line.

Block, room and batch coding

Sequential numbering, a block or hostel code, or a coloured hem thread by block or by year of intake. It costs almost nothing at the point of make-up and it settles the argument about whose sheets the laundry has lost.

Tell us the exact wording, the crest artwork if there is one, and where you want the mark to sit. Marking is confirmed on the approved sample before bulk production begins.

Sizes

Measure the mattress before you order anything

Hostel beds are rarely all the same. Older blocks, newer blocks and staff quarters often run three different mattresses, and a sheet that is 10 cm short will be pulled off the corner every night until it tears. Walk the blocks with a tape measure first: length, width and depth.

Hostel mattress sizes
Bed	Mattress size Typical industry range	Where you will find it
Small single / bunk	75 × 190 cm (2 ft 6 in × 6 ft 3 in)	Dormitories and bunk rooms, older blocks.
Single	90 × 190 cm (3 ft × 6 ft 3 in)	The standard hostel room bed.
Single, long	90 × 200 cm (3 ft × 6 ft 7 in)	Newer blocks and any accommodation built for taller students.
Small double	120 × 190 cm (4 ft × 6 ft 3 in)	Warden flats, staff rooms, guest rooms.
Double	135 × 190 cm (4 ft 6 in × 6 ft 3 in)	Married staff quarters and institute guest houses.

Typical industry range. Exact specification confirmed at sampling. Finished sheet sizes are worked back from your measured mattress plus its depth and the tuck you want on each side, so send us the depth as well as the length and width.

Towels: what weight to ask for

Towel weight is quoted in GSM, grams per square metre. Heavier towels feel better and absorb more; they also take longer to dry, which costs your laundry money every cycle. For a hostel the sensible bands are the lighter ones.

Towel weight for institutional use
GSM Typical industry range	Band	Why it suits a hostel
300-380	Gym / sports	Lightest and fastest drying. Sports halls, swimming, high-turnover issue towels.
400-450	Pool & economy	The usual institutional bath towel, enough substance for a student room without the drying cost of a hotel weight.

Typical industry range. Exact specification confirmed at sampling. Hand towels and washcloths are typically specified 100-150 GSM below the matched bath towel.

Re-supply

Agree the top-up at order, not in week six

Hostels re-order in the middle of a term, after a laundry loss or an intake that came in larger than planned. The problem is never finding sheets. It is finding sheets that match the ones already on the beds, so a room does not end up with two different whites.

Things worth settling in writing when you place the first order:

The batch reference for the goods you receive, recorded on your side as well as ours.
A retained sample, held by both parties, that any later delivery is checked against.
Whether a reserve quantity is set aside for top-ups, how much of it, and until when.
Whether later top-ups may be issued to a whole block rather than mixed into rooms.

We are not going to guarantee that cloth woven next year will match cloth woven today, no honest manufacturer can. What we will do is hold the reference, tell you which batch you are getting, and let you check it against your retained sample before it goes into the store.

Colours: white and cream from stock. Other shades matched to a Pantone reference on order. Most institutions stay on white for a practical reason. It can be washed hard, bleached where policy allows, and any block can lend to any other block.

Woven for Everyday Living. Fabrics that support homes and institutions

Payment terms: 30% advance, 70% before pick-up.
Weaving and knitting in-house; production guided by defined protocols and measurable benchmarks.
Institution name tape, woven label and block coding applied in production.
White and cream from stock; other shades matched to a Pantone reference on order.
No minimum-order or lead-time figure is published. Both are confirmed with your quote.

Connect now for orders

Send us your bed count. We will price a pack.

Tell us how many beds, the mattress sizes you measured (including depth), how many sets you keep in circulation per bed, what your laundry can handle, and the wording you want marked into the linen. If you would rather start from a sample, say so and we will work from a piece you already have in the store.

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Organisations Paragon has supplied include Pak Army, DHA Islamabad-Rawalpindi and Kulsum International Hospital. Marks shown with permission; no endorsement is claimed. References

Three folded white cotton bed sheets with a printed Paragon Textile Company label — Made up per bed, marked to your institution, packed by block.

Linen for Hostels & Educational Institutes