Goose down, duck down, microfibre, wool – which should you buy? We tested the best duvets, and we've never slept better
As with a supportive pillow, comfortable mattress, mattress topper and cosy bedding set, the best duvet can have a tangible impact on your sleep quality. Better sleep advocates the Sleep Council say a duvet should be replaced every two to five years, so you’re probably due an upgrade. But it’s hard to know which to choose – duck feather, goose down, synthetic fill, microfibre, cotton or wool? Simba, Brooke + Wild or Soak and Sleep? What is the best duvet for the summer heat, or for a cold snap in winter? Do you go for a budget-friendly option, temperature regulating or breathable? Embroidery Thread
We answer all those questions in the FAQ section at the bottom of this feature. In short, duvets range from extremely cool 1.5 tog to extremely warm 15 tog and the most sought-after filling is goose down, due to the ‘loft’ (puffiness) it provides, although wool and synthetic fillings have their own benefits. If you already know your preference, here’s a quick glance at our top five. Scroll down for the reviews in full.
Everyone has their own preference in terms of thickness and weight (our review of the best weighted blankets would certainly not appeal to everyone), so we were looking for quality. Sleeping under each duvet for at least a fortnight, first in summer and then in winter, we assessed their thermoregulation properties – see the FAQ – and how cosseting they felt against the skin. The down duvets with the most ‘loft’ felt the most luxurious, but some of the thinner duvets had special properties that goose down can’t match.
We also looked at tog sizes, fillings, and whether the duvets were machine washable. Here is what we found, starting with our favourite.
£230 for a double, The White Company
We like: the luxurious, cloud-like down and feather filling
We don’t like: there are no returns allowed
Light yet warm and deliciously plump and cosy, there’s a reason this duvet has aced our tests and won the top spot, despite being expensive. It’s made from a high proportion of Hungarian goose down – 90 per cent down to 10 per cent feather – and you can really feel the quality of the down in its cloud-like softness. The down and feathers down are sourced from cruelty-free suppliers as a by-product of the food industry.
The filling is distributed evenly, and the breathable cotton percale cover means I feel snug but not sweaty. I find the 10.5 tog version to be the perfect weight for most of the year, but it also comes in 4.5 and 13.5 togs, or two duvets can be buttoned together for customised warmth through the seasons. In short, it’s a worthy investment – and since White Company duvets come with a 10 year guarantee, it’s an investment that will last.
We like: it’s light and airy enough for summer, but still cosy
We don’t like: the artificial down is crunchy and noisy
As proven by a number of other duvets on this list, down is expensive because it’s so difficult to obtain. Dreams has solved this by creating a polyester dupe, at a fraction of the cost.
The key characteristics of down are being lightweight, fluffy and natural insulating. Having slept under this Dreams duvet for a couple of weeks, during both a hot spell and colder nights, it does regulate temperature well. It helps that it’s soft and airy.
The duvet casing is made from 230 thread count cotton, which keeps it breathable. For reference, anything above a 200 thread count is considered to be good quality.
The one thing I’m not so keen on is that it’s quite noisy. Dreams, in replicating the crunch of down feathers, has used fibres that rub against each other when I adjust the duvet. It’s only a slight issue and it’s never loud enough to awake me at night. But then again, not much is.
£435 for a double, Ava Innes
We like: the utterly luxe feeling of sleeping under cashmere
We don’t like: it’s more expensive than some mattresses
Cashmere guard hair is the outer coat of the cashmere goat. It can’t be used for weaving because it’s straight, but it’s still light, fine and remarkably warming (they live in the Himalayas, after all) – the perfect material for a winter duvet. Scotland’s Ava Innes blends it with Yorkshire wool to create these extremely indulgent comforters, which have S-shaped stitching to keep the precious filling evenly distributed.
I was expecting something puffy and fluffy, but it’s both slimmer and heavier than expected, similar to the merino and wool duvets below. The magic is in the heat regulation. If you’re in one of those couples where the wife prefers oven-like warmth and the husband prefers access to oxygen (guess which side I’m on), it can be very hard to find a winter duvet you both like, but this one manages it.
The wool, cashmere and cotton are cossetting and cosy, but all entirely breathable. My wife and I both slept very well throughout an autumn that swung wildly between Mediterranean and Arctic conditions. It’s still doing the trick as we head into winter proper. It may be expensive (the superking version is over £900), but if you want to feel special while you sleep, the Ava Innes is the one to go for. Just be careful with your breakfast in bed.
Best cooling duvet for summer, 9/10
We like: the special cooling ‘Stratos’ material
We don’t like: it won’t suit anyone who loves a fluffy duvet
Online sleep specialists Simba took the top spot in our guide to the best mattresses with their Hybrid Pro mattress. Hybrid in that case means a combination of springs, foam and wool (and, incidentally, it’s recommended as a good mattress for relieving back pain). Here it’s a bit different.
The Simba Hybrid duvet is thin (about an inch) and very light, with a fleece filling made of recycled plastic bottles. But the big news is the temperature-regulating ‘Stratos’ cover, identified by a subtle hexagon-patterned sheen to the fabric. The sheen comes from polymers which absorb heat from your body, transferring it to the airy filling. If you sweat, the polymers wick that away too. If your body temperature cools, the material ‘phase-changes’ back to normal. Allegedly this was developed to regulate astronauts’ body temperature.
The cooling effect definitely works. During a run of hot nights I sweated less, woke up less and slept better. It’s expensive, but I’ve yet to find a comparably cooling duvet.
It might also be worth investigating their Hybrid 3-in-1 duvet (£261.75 for a double, Simba Sleep). It’s actually two duvets – a 3.5 tog summer duvet (without Stratos) and a 7-tog spring/autumn duvet that can be fastened together to make a 10.5 tog mega-duvet for the coldest nights. It’s obviously more expensive, but works a treat and saves space in the cupboard.
£120 for a double, Fine Bedding Company
Best duvet for hot sleepers, 8/10
We like: the filling is very even and light
We don’t like: 10.5 tog is high for summer duvet
Curiously, the cooling duvet from hundred year-old British firm The Fine Bedding Company appears to use exactly the same high-tech, hexagon-pattern heat-wicking material as the Simba Summer Hybrid, above. Compared side by side, the fabric looks and feels identical. The difference is that the British firm’s duvet is £60 cheaper and they don’t sell you a story about astronauts...
Here they call it HeiQ Cool technology, which after a bit of research turns out to refer to a Swiss high-tech materials firm. It definitely does the job, feeling cool to the touch and removing moisture on the hexagon-patterned side. (There’s also a normal cotton side.) You feel far less sweaty when the temperature rises.
However, the Smart Temperature Duvet only seems to be available in 10.5 tog. Testing it in a 30-degree heatwave, this was too warm for me. It was perfect for my wife, who likes to feel snug even in sticky weather. The filling is a little on the thin side, but still thicker than the Simba equivalent, and feels very light, fluffy and appropriately luxurious.
I’d say this is a great all-year duvet for hot sleepers, rather than a special heatwave purchase. But no-one ever went broke betting on the British summer being short...
We like: it’s fluffy and keeps you cool
We don’t like: it’s not machine washable
Merino – a particularly fine, soft wool – is becoming something of a buzzword in both clothes and bedding thanks to being moisture-wicking, lightweight but insulating, temperature-regulating, odour-resistant and breathable. It’s a popular choice for duvets because the temperature regulation means it should be good for both summer and winter (although Piglet in Bed also sells a lighter version of this duvet).
This Merino Wool Duvet lacks the dramatic puffiness of down duvets, but it’s still soft and plump. The 100 per cent cotton casing helps with breathability. Although it doesn’t claim a tog rating, Piglet in Bed estimates it to be somewhere between eight and 10, which is perfect for all year round use.
One of the measures I use to test duvets is my quality of sleep. My Fitbit tells me I slept excellently, repeatedly under this duvet. All in all a natural, midrange duvet that has all the characteristics of one much more expensive.
£65 for a 10.5 tog double, Soak and Sleep
We like: it really does feel ‘soft as down’
We don’t like: it’s a little less breathable
I usually have a strong preference for natural fill duvets, but if you suffer from allergies, a microfibre or hollowfibre alternative might suit you better. Plus, synthetic duvets are significantly cheaper. The reason this one from Soak and Sleep is so good is that it really does emulate the plump feeling of goose down.
It’s filled with a very fine denier polyester fibre that has the loftiness and softness of down and feathers, and is cased in natural cotton to help with temperature regulation. No microfibre duvet is going to beat the luxurious feeling of down, but this is a close second.
We like: brilliantly light and breathable
We don’t like: it doesn’t feel as luxurious as down duvets
A far cheaper version of The Wool Room’s excellent woollen duvet is available at £80.49 for a double, but I wanted to try the organic and washable version, which is fully sustainable and traceable right back to the specific British herd. While expensive, if properly cared for this is the only duvet on our list that could literally last a lifetime.
Funnily enough, the duvet this most resembles is Simba’s warm/cool synthetic fibre hybrid. It’s not puffy - or ‘lofty’, as the experts say - but relatively slim and cool to the touch thanks to the 200 thread count cotton outer layer. It feels nicely cosseting at night without feeling at all heavy. Wool, as any sheep will tell you, is good for temperature regulation, keeping you warm at night but allowing moisture to escape easily.
That was definitely my experience. I tried the 2-5 tog light version which would easily see me through nine months of the year, although I am a very hot sleeper. Warmer 7-10 tog medium and 11-14 tog warm versions are available, as well as an even more expensive all-season version. These are certainly not budget duvets, but pound for pound (they pack away very small) they’re one of the best sleep aids nature can provide. They’re hypoallergenic, too.
We like: perfect for summer when you still want a cover
We don’t like: it’s so thin it struggles to fill duvet covers
I’d been on the hunt for a light summer duvet for a while when I came across this Silentnight number. I’m the kind of person who would rather sleep under something and be hot than sleep under nothing.
The Silentnight Summer Fresh was just the thing. Being only 4.5 togs, it’s incredibly lightweight but still has enough of a presence to make me feel cosy, without overheating. The microfibre cover has a slight cooling effect to touch, though it’s nowhere near the high tech of the Simba Hybrid duvet above. The duvet is labelled as anti-allergy, which is perfect for my sensitive skin and partially made from recycled water bottles.
The only issue I had with the duvet cover is that it was so thin it didn’t properly fill out my duvet cover. I had to push the corners of the duvet back into the corners of the covers most nights. Other than that, it was a welcome addition to my bed.
We like: feels cool all through the night
We don’t like: silky surface means it slides around a lot
On a very hot night, there’s no such thing as a duvet that actually reduces your body temperature (unless you’ve kept it in the freezer) but if it can wick away sweat, at least you’ll sleep more comfortably. This specially-designed duvet – so thin that it’s perhaps better described as a blanket – is moisture-wicking and breathable, but it really comes into its own where one partner sleeps hotter than the other.
Some people can’t sleep without being covered by something. The Evercool, being somewhat heavier than it looks, gives those people the cosseting feel of a duvet without heating them up too much. Others spend hot nights alternatively shaking off the duvet then, when they’ve cooled down, going back under it.
I’m one of the latter and my wife is the former. What most impresed me was that, every time I touched the Evercool, whether to pull it on or take it off, it felt genuinely cool to the touch. None of the other duvets here have the same feel. A drawback of this silky effect is that it does slide around the bed a fair bit, especially with my annoying tossing and turning. But it’s a small downside to a summer blanket with these semi-magic powers
The best duvet should keep you cool and comfortable in the summer months and warm in winter. This is called thermoregulation and it’s the key to a good night’s kip.
“Down is really very light,” says Emma Casson of The Bed Expert. “Feather-and-down is cheaper and a bit heavier – and some people like a bit more weight. Then you’ve got your synthetics, like microfibre. You can have really good quality synthetics nowadays. They’re really breathable.”
If you are allergic to feathers, you may want to opt for a synthetic duvet. These are usually filled with microfibre (a fine polyester yarn) or hollowfibre (which is very similar, but slightly warmer), but you may see them called, ‘soft as down’ or ‘down alternative.’
There are other natural duvet fillings out there, including wool, which Casson says is rising in popularity, “because it’s breathable, it’s good for heat and regulates your body temperature so in the summer it keeps you cooler, and it’s natural and hypoallergenic.”
Other options include silk and linen, but down and feather remain the most popular for their warmth and breathability. Casson herself sleeps with a down duvet from luxury German brand Mühldorfer, “as it’s the lightest and most luxurious.” (Mühldorfer duvets are used in luxury hotels in over 100 countries, which answers the common question, “What duvet do hotels use?”)
The warmth of a duvet is measured in togs, which span from a light 1.5 tog to a thick, warm 15 tog duvet. “Tog rating is a very UK thing – I don’t know if anyone truly understands them,’ says Casson. “Those in Europe laugh at us.”
However, it’s the easiest way of working out a duvet’s warmth here in the UK. “10.5 tog is a good mid-range that should last for most of the year, unless your house is very warm,” says Casson. “Otherwise, 4.5 tog is most common for summer and 13.5 tog is for winter.” Another option is an all-seasons duvet which consists of two layers which can be buttoned together.
That comes down to your personal preference. Natural-fill duvets are generally more breathable and can be recycled when you’re done with them. But they may not be suitable for those with allergies, plus they’re more expensive than microfibre or hollowfibre duvets.
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