My friend Bud recently texted me with a baffling problem. Literally, he was baffled by the lousy baffling in several down comforters he’d purchased.
Bud is 80, a widower and skinny. He gets cold at night. So, as winter approaches, he wants a good down comforter. He likes to get cozy while watching TV and eating, so the white ones aren’t practical. He bought four colored down comforters online at a retailer we’ll call Company C, then returned all four because 30 percent of the sewn-in squares meant to keep the puffy down in place had no fill.
Who knew down bedding was such a shifty business?
He ordered two more from Company L. Same problem. Dead spots. He returned them. Determined to figure out what was going on, Bud (a retired attorney who specialized in product liability) called Company L’s comforter manufacturer.
The woman he spoke to blew some fluff up his shorts about “sewn-in” vs “blown-in” down, claiming sewn-in was better, because the blown-in variety used openings in each compartment to accommodate tube-like blowers, and those openings later became escape hatches for down. She insisted the comforters Bud bought had “the preferred” sewn-in down. So why did they still have empty pockets?
“She was wrong,” Bud said.
I text Bud back. “Instead of a comforter, why don’t you get a well-made white down insert and a colored duvet cover that you can remove and wash?” For those who need a refresh, a comforter is one piece; a duvet has two, an outer cover and an insert.
“You may be better at stuffing the down part into the duvet cover than I,” he responds.
He’s right. The task can feel like arm wrestling an octopus.
Now curious, I set out to get the lowdown on down, and to find out why some comforters and duvet inserts have flat spots. Neither Company C nor Company L returned my call. So I called Missy Tannen, founder of Boll & Branch, a leading luxury linen line. Tannen is the only person I know who is fussier about bedding than I am. The reason she started her company 10 years ago was because she couldn’t find sheets she liked.
When customers kept asking what pillows or duvet inserts she recommended, Tannen added down inserts, comforters and pillows to her line. But first she took a deep dive into down to figure out what made a great product. Here’s what she shared:
Down is that light fluffy foof found beneath the feathers of ducks and geese. Down keeps the birds warm and regulates their temperature — and does the same for us in bedding. Down clusters are three-dimensional spirals. (Feathers are flat, provide no loft and poke through fabric.)
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Source:: The Mercury News – Entertainment
