Which duvet: advice please!

Well, I've a mixed goose and duck down one which I've had for thirty-seven years and which I'm still using, and it's fine. It's my winter one, 12 tog. At the moment I'm using a 9-tog one which will probably see me through the summer except for a few warm nights which may occur sometime. Whopping 15°C max here today and below 10° at night. On very cold winter nights, I wear a cashmere jumper over my pjs, and socks, and a hat (well, it's a snoody thing, actually). Snug as the proverbial bug .

So, in short, down duvets are good value, I think, though an expensive outlay initially.

We have a down duvet, and we love it. But since we bought it we found that there is a lot of cruelty involved in down harvesting- mostly in Eastern Europe, where geese are plucked naked, alive, about 5 times in their lifetime before being gassed. Sorry about this- but it really upset me.

DD and OH bought a silk duvet a couple of years back and they say it is wonderful. Warm in winter, cool in Summer, light and totally allergy free. Expensive but they say worth it.

jura, [shocked]. Gosh! I didn't know that either. Oh dear!

Hollow fibre quilts drape very well; both our quilts (summer and winter) are from IKEA and are lasting very well.

A silk duvet sounds great! I've never seen one! Any information please?

www.silksleep.com

Lots of adverts and info on Google.

What happens to silkworms to get silk is as bad as what happens to the geese granjura was telling us about.

Oh granjura that sounds ghastly. The most expensive ones in JL seem to be from Eastern Europe.

I do care about that kind of thing. I already have a 10.5 tog goose down duvet which I've had for years. I might look into silk or hollow fibre now.

What happens to silkworms, Elegran?
Our duvets are all synthetic and I have no complaints!

My friend has a silk filled duvet she bought when she was doing a walk along the great wall of China for a charity - she says they are beautifully warm but because they are thin you expect them to be the same as a summer weight - eventually for the worst of the winter they had to resort to thicker and heavier type - a mental thing really.

"silkworms" at that point in the proceedings are pupae, filled with caterpillar soup.
I like my silk duvet.
i like sleeping under micro fibre blankets even better, really soft, light and they don't seem to build up heat like duvets.

Here is another address for you jeni

www.gingerly.co.uk

I got ours from there. Fabulous.Plenty of choice ,tog wise, and beautifully made.

I really do not think that the gassing of silkworms can be compared with repeated live plucking of geese in factory farms, sorry.
Plenty of videos and info on Google- but won't post any links as they are NOT for the faint hearted.

I hear silk duvets are lovely except you can't wash or dry clean them.

I wonder if that's because of the way the silk fibres are laid inside the quilt, and not anchored down very much, so washing would scrunch everything up too much? Because silk is washable. Dry cleaning is not advised for any kind of duvet.

I think you are right about the silk fibres Bags . They suggest hanging them out in the sun occasionally (yeh-well, this week then) - UV light has a very strong antibacterial effect.

Good old John Lewis! Just googled goose down and cruelty and up came a statement from JL saying they ensure all their down is a by-product of the food industry. They do not use any live-plucked down.

Good! Now I can buy a goose down duvet!

That's good to know, petal! I had always assumed that was the case and am glad to find it still is for good merchants.

I wrote to the White Company to ask them about their policy about live plucking, and they never replied. So came to my own conclusion and won't use them again.

In the Summer I just take the duvet out of the cover , which we then sleep under , seems to warm enough for us . If it does get a bit chippy , there"s a little opportunity to have a snuggle up

Very relieved that I bought my down duvet from JL. Our summer one is 3tog and it is plenty warm enough.

I'm going in to JL tomorrow to get a 2.5 tog goose down duvet.

I find just the duvet cover with nothing in it gets all tangled up.

Here's one more address for you:

www.jasminesilk.com/

The quality is great. By the way, silk linen will be cool in summer,so it means comfortable for you

I'd rather silkworms turned into moths. This is how silk is made.

www.infonet-biovision.org/