When buying a sofa bed, not only design or comfort is essential. The choice of cover is also significant. It should be robust and ideally easy to care for – after all, you want your new piece of furniture to last a long time. Textile or leather cover, which is right for me? We will explain the respective advantages to you. To avoid making a wrong purchase, you should also consider a few special criteria when looking for the right sofa cover.
You can browse sofa beds from manufacturers with a large, high-quality selection of fabrics here in advance: Sofa beds from sofa plus and Softline sofa beds.
A sofa cover – the partner for your situation
Would you prefer a coarse cotton fabric, fine leather, or a blended fabric? In addition to finding the right design, finding a suitable upholstery material can also be a challenge. So what’s the best way to go about it? Go inside and reflect on your current life situation. Do you have children? A dog? A cat? Who sleeps on the sofa? How often should it be used – and where should it be?
The furniture is also used differently depending on the living situation and life situation. It is best to get advice from an expert!
The right sofa cover – textile or leather?
If you have children or pets, you should find out more about an easy-care (smooth) leather cover. Stains are easier to wipe off, and pet hair is less likely to get stuck in the fabric fibres. It gets a little more comfortable with a fabric cover, such as cotton, microfibre or polyester. If you prefer a fabric cover despite your pet, it should be woven as tightly as possible and have a smooth surface. If you have children and want a textile cover, you should look at mottled and darker fabrics. These can be both finely and coarsely woven. Tip: It is best if the covers can also be removed.
Incidentally, good polyester covers can hardly be distinguished from cotton these days. These have evolved significantly over the past few decades. The advantage? They are very durable and robust. Polyester fabrics are also easy to clean.
This is how you recognize an excellent fabric cover.
What should you consider when choosing fabric? First, on sound quality. Find out about the various options in a reputable online shop or specialist retailer. It is also possible to have fabric samples sent to your home. So you can touch the textiles in peace – and feel whether you like them.
Have you ever heard of pilling or lightfastness in this context? These measurable quality criteria can help you find the right non-slip sofa cover. You should know these quality criteria for upholstery fabrics:
Abrasion resistance: In the context of the industrial textile term “abrasion tours”, abrasion resistance describes a fabric’s resistance to abrasion. Choosing a cover that will last as long as possible is very important. The Martindale test, an increased simulation of daily use, collects and publicly displays values for better classification. The higher the value, the more robust it is. According to the German Furniture Quality Association (DGM), the value should not be less than 10,000 Martindale. So if you have rampaging children or pets, it is better to use fabrics that can withstand at least 12,000 to 15,000 tours. And everything above that? All the better.
Pilling: This term describes the tendency of the fabric to form pills in the fibres. Knots (pills) can either arise from the fabric itself (self-pill) or through the action of foreign fibres, for example, clothing (foreign pill). Natural fibres are usually less susceptible than synthetic fibres. The formation of pills is primarily an optical defect because the nodules can usually be easily removed with a lint brush. Pilling is also checked using a Martindale method. For better classification: The scale ranges from 1 (strong pilling) to 5 (no pilling).
Abrasion: This technical term is more than rub fastness or abrasion resistance. It indicates how easily colours (e.g. from jeans) rub off on the cover. Level 1 means very low rubbing fastness, and level 5 is very high. Nowadays, almost all fabrics can be cleaned well, but it is still worth paying attention to this value, especially if it’s going to be a light-coloured fabric like grey sofa covers.
Lightfastness: Almost every fabric fades when exposed to light. But how quickly or how strongly it fades varies from fabric to fabric. Lightfastness is the resistance of textiles to light. Darker fabrics are more robust than light ones. In addition, synthetic fibres are more resistant than natural fibres. A test with UV light results in particular values ranging from 1 (low lightfastness) to 8 (excellent lightfastness).
Faux leather or genuine leather?
If you compare a leather sofa with a fabric sofa, the former is usually more sensitive and requires more care. But with the proper care, they last much longer – a purchase for life. This also justifies the often significantly higher price. But in contrast to the natural soft leather, there is also the option of a synthetic leather cover. The advantages: it is cheaper, less prone to staining and animal-friendly.
Good artificial leather can now hardly be distinguished from genuine leather. It has a pleasant feel and is also breathable. But here, too, the motto is: take a close look and get informed! In the lower-price segment, less high-quality imitation leather is often used. These usually do not have a pleasant feel and are less breathable.
