Choosing the right duvet can be a daunting task, there are so many options its mind boggling at times and finding someone to talk to about the terminology can be just as frustrating. You hear words like fill power, tog ratings, cassette construction, internal baffle walls, cotton cambric percale or cotton sateen weaves, it just goes on and on. Some of the things you will know is what duvet size you want, single, double, king superking or emperor duvet, these are all pretty standard here in the UK.

So before we get into the more in-depth features and benefits, after the size you will need to know about the type of filling you will want. Should you have a natural filling or a synthetic filling, the two are very different and give very different levels of warmth, breathability and comfort. Natural fillings like duck and goose down are considered to be at the better end of the luxury duvet scale, they feel superior in terms of touch and they drape over the body better, they are far better at temperature regulation also. Most people who have allergies tend to stay away from natural fillings especially feather filled duvets, but with better processing and treatment of the feather and down fillings you can now get NOMITE and DOWNSAN treatments that make them hypoallergenic too. Synthetic filled duvets in the past have also been looked down upon as being at the lower end of the quality range but in recent years that have been producing fillings that can match the naturally filled duvets, Aerelle and Dacron manufacture Cool Nights and Comforel synthetic downs to a luxury quality, not only do they help with dust mite allergies they are fully breathable and some are even better at keeping you cool all night. Synthetic downs are also fully machine washable and tumble dry safe at home whereas natural down and feathers really need to be dry cleaned unless you have a suitably large capacity washing machine and tumble drier like you would find at the local laundrette.

duvet fill power test

So now you a good idea of the fillings, what is this fill power rating I hear so much about? Well, this test is mainly used for natural down fillings, it is test of its pure loft and bounce. The lighter and cleaner the down the higher the rating. Standard feather duvets would have a typical fill power rating of around 450 whereas a top of the range pure down duvet like a Canadian or Hungarian down would have a superior 800 plus fill power. If you get hot at night and you want to cool down, if your duvet has a lower rating it will just trap warm air as the fillings do not sperate when it gets warm. This natural separation is why ducks and geese can live in the coldest and the hottest environments on the planet, they naturally dissipate heat as well as staying warm. The feathers and the down combine to keep them at the right temperature no matter what the condition. This is why you pay more for a branded down from a colder country.

Right, I now know what filling I want, so do I need a luxury cotton case or will just standard one do. There is a simple answer to this, if you want a feather duvet you will need a thicker cotton cambric case to stop the feathers poking through, they are normally a 233 thread count. They need to have cassette construction to keep the feathers firmly in the cells as you do not want the filling to migrate to another cell and internal baffle walls, these are like internal sails inside the duvet square cells, as you move the filling around it distributes the feather back into the middle of the cells and stops them from gathering in one corner. Now if you want that luxury feeling and you have good quality cotton bedding you will want a more opulent feeling of duvet case, premium 100% down duvets should come with a 300 count cotton case, there are no sharp quills to poke through and the higher thread count makes the case lighter and more breathable to.

We have covered the basics and the most important factors when choosing a new duvet, there are others which we will cover in more blogs, but just to ensure you don’t fall asleep if you do have a question that we have not covered please do not hesitate to contact us for some advice as we are more than happy where we can.