Most bedding is ruined by washing it too often or drying it too little. Here is the routine for each fill, and the two things never to do.
Air it. Fold the duvet back when you get up so the bed can dry out, and once a week hang the duvet and pillows over a chair by an open window, or outside in the shade, for an hour. A body loses a quarter of a litre of moisture a night and most of it goes into the bedding. Airing takes it out again; washing is for the rest.
Never put a down or feather item away damp — it smells within days and clumps within weeks. And never machine wash anything marked for professional laundering: the winter down duvet, the wool winter duvet, the feather topper and the wool topper. The guarantee does not cover what a domestic machine does to them.
| Do | Avoid | |
|---|---|---|
| Daily | Shake the duvet out, punch the pillows back into shape | Leaving it flat and made up all day |
| Weekly | Air by an open window for an hour | Direct midday sun for hours — it dries the down out |
| Washing | Summer and all-season duvets, pillows and the four-seasons layers: 40 °C, a drum of 8 kg or more, a down detergent, an extra rinse | Fabric softener, which coats the down; a small drum, which crushes it |
| Drying | Tumble low with two or three dryer balls, for as long as it takes — often three hours — until no clumps remain | Line drying alone; it never gets the core dry |
| Frequency | Duvets once a year or two; pillows twice a year | Monthly washing, which wears the down out |
| Heavy items | Winter duvet and feather topper: a laundry, once a year | A domestic machine of any size |
A quill through the shell: push it back from the inside and the weave closes behind it. Pulling it out leaves a hole.
Wool wants airing and almost never wants water. It does not hold odour, dust mites do not thrive in it, and it stays fresh for years on a monthly airing alone. When something is spilt, spot clean with cold water and a cloth. The summer and all-season wool duvets, the wool pillow shell and the wool protector will take a 30 °C wool cycle with a wool detergent, at most once a year, dried flat; hot water or a normal cycle felts the batting into a board. The winter wool duvet and the wool topper go to a cleaner. The felted wool balls in the pillow are never washed; air them in the shade.
The easy one. Duvet and pillow both wash at 60 °C in a domestic machine and tumble dry on medium in two or three hours. Wash them every two or three months if you like; the fibre will flatten a little faster but that is the trade you made for washability. Replace when it stays flat.
Unzip the outer and wash it at 60 °C. The hulls themselves must stay dry: once or twice a year, spread them on a sheet in the sun for an afternoon, then pour them back. After eight to ten years they begin to crush to dust and the pillow loses its grip; we sell refill hulls by email.
The cotton protector washes at 60 °C with the sheets, every week or two. The membrane protector also washes at 60 °C but must line dry: a tumble dryer cracks the membrane within a year. The wool protector takes a wool cycle two or three times a year. Both toppers are air-only — spot clean, flip and turn quarterly, keep a protector over them always.
The cotton quilts wash at 40 °C and come out of the dryer damp onto the bed. The fine wool throw and the recycled wool throw take a 30 °C wool cycle and dry flat; brush off early pilling with a cashmere comb and it stops. The boiled wool throw is dry clean or cold hand wash only, because hot water felts and shrinks it further. The cotton knit washes at 30 °C and dries flat, never on a line.
Silk: hand wash in cold water with a silk detergent, roll in a towel, dry flat out of the sun, never wring. Cotton: 40 °C in a laundry bag, reshape the cups while damp. Linen weighted: spot clean the cloth only; the flaxseed must never get wet, and if it does the mask is finished.
Dust weekly, or vacuum on low with a soft brush head. Wipe a mark on the drum with a barely damp cloth; brush the pleated shade along the pleats and never wipe it. Use an LED of 40 W equivalent or less. Fabric shades yellow slowly with heat and smoke over five or six years, and there is no washing them back.
Air it for a day, make sure it is completely dry, then fold it loosely into the cotton bag it arrived in and put it somewhere dry and dark. Never a vacuum bag for more than a journey: months of compression breaks down clusters. Never plastic: it traps moisture. A cedar block in the cupboard keeps moths off the wool items, which they do like; they do not eat down or cotton.
If a baffle wall or quilting seam opens, or the fill migrates to one end and will not shake back, within 5 years of delivery, we repair or replace the item and pay the postage both ways inside the EU. It covers how the item was made. It does not cover the results of a domestic machine on an air-only item, tears, burns, stains, pets, or the described settling of the wool topper. Email a photograph and your order reference.
After 5 years we still repair seams for the cost of postage while we make the item, and we can top up a down duvet that has lost loft at a quoted price.