What makes a Down & Feather Co. down comforter so awesome?

by David Smith

Down comforters (or duvets) are actually pretty hard to design and manufacture. It’s equally difficult to purchase sight unseen, but that’s the world we live in now.

There are some things you need to know about our insanely awesome down comforters and what you can do to ruin it if you win or purchase one. (Yep! you read that right!) 

What makes a Down & Feather Co. down comforter so awesome?

Our perfectly designed baffle box construction.

Our incredibly breathable batiste fabrics.

Our ‘Certified’ Hungarian white goose down.

Many come to us with this request: “I want a really thick and fluffy down comforter, so my bed looks like the sleeping sanctuary that I’ve always wanted, but I don’t want to ‘bake’ my sleeping partner out of the bed.”

Would you like to know what the number #1 reason why customers return their newly purchased down comforter? 

Reason #1 - IT’S TOO HOT!

Reason #2 - IT’S NOT FLUFFY ENOUGH!

And that’s literally the challenge. How to make a down comforter thick and fluffy while keeping it from being too HOT. 

What you need to know!

The ‘thicker and fluffier’ the down comforter, the hotter it sleeps!

The ‘thinner and cooler’ the down comforter, the thinner it has to be!

Unless you sleep in a bedroom less than 68 degrees, you consider yourself a ‘cold’ or ‘normal’ sleeper, sleep with a ceiling fan constantly blowing air over your bed, then you need a year-round down comforter. Think of it as the “Goldilocks” of down comforters: Not too cold, not too warm - just right. 

You can now find out the right comforter for you. Our quiz is designed to help you sort through the number of important factors that go into your comfort. 

TAKE THE COMFORTER QUIZ

Or, you can do what some customers do and buy two down comforters (one lightweight and one winter weight) and rotate them seasonally as the weather changes. We absolutely have customers that do that. 

All of our down comforters come with a travel/storage bag that allows the comforter breath so storing your down comforter properly is actually ‘a thing’ and needs to be done properly.

Baffle Box Designed Down Comforters

Baffles are the interior vertical walls of fabric in the middle of the comforter (see ‘baffle box’ arrow). They’re usually 1 to 2 inches tall. The outer shell, the top, and the bottom attach to these vertical walls creating a 3-dimensional square, or baffle box, that we then fill with a very specific amount of down just for that square. 

This design allows the down to reach its maximum loft without being compressed by the stitching around the perimeter of the boxes that make up baffled box. Hence the name Baffle Box Design. 

The good news is that this design allows the comforter to reach its maximum loft within the baffles.

The bad news is that the design doesn’t look ‘thick and fluffy,’ and because of the uniformity of the baffles this design, sleeps a little warmer or hotter than a down comforter made using another design method.

Therefore, it’s a constant trade-off between thickness and warmth, which in large part is a function of the design method chosen to manufacture the down comforter.

Men typically sleep a little warmer than women.

We are seeing a very interesting trend in the bedding industry.  Fewer and fewer people are sleeping with a flat sheet and using their down comforter and duvet cover as the primary sheet.  From a “sleep temperature” perspective, this is a significant change in sleep habits, and we welcome that change.  

Remember, the more ‘fabric’ or layers of cotton between you and the luxurious Hungarian goose down that you have invested in, the warmer you’re going to sleep, and the less efficient the down will be.

The down clusters within the shell of your down comforter (duvet) are wrapped or ‘contained’ within a cotton shell which does provide some warmth by the mere fact that it is on top of you.  

The higher the quality of cotton, not necessarily thread count, the lighter and thinner the cotton fabric is, and the less impact it will have on the down clusters contained within the duvet shell.  

We may sell fewer flat sheets but our down comforters perform more closely to their intended design.  

More fabric, more sheets, more heat.

By eliminating the flat sheet from the equation, the Hungarian goose down and all its insulation qualities perform as nature intended.

The 800 fill power down clusters sleep the warmest regardless of your selected weight.  Lightweight sleeps the coolest, and winter weight sleeps the warmest.