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Feeling the winter chill setting in. Then now might be the right time to upgrade to one of our best duvets. And with Amazon Prime Day just around the corner, you may well be able to grab a deal on one next week.
As we reputedly spend a third of our lives in bed, it makes sense to ensure we’re cosy and comfortable while we’re there. Unless you’re a dedicated sheets and blankets fan – seriously are you living in the 70s? – then it’s likely you’ll already be sleeping with a duvet of one kind or another.
Read all about the best pillows, mattresses, toppers and more in our buying guides section
With a type to suit every sleeper from those who feel the cold to allergy sufferers, they’re the quick and easy bed-making solution. Read on to discover the best duvets in 2019 – and more importantly, find the best duvet for you!
What is the best duvet in 2020?
- Our tester has rated the Luxury Hungarian Goose Down and Feather duvet by The White Company as the best duvet for 2020.
- Our best value duvet was the Argos exclusive Allery Protection duvet by Slumberdown, which costs £27 for a double.
What is a tog rating?
Image credit: Silentnight
The tog rating of a duvet essentially measures the ability of the duvet – without a cover – to trap air. The higher the tog, the more air it can trap and therefore the warmer it will be.
Remember, though that this doesn’t take into account any warmth from the duvet cover, or clothing you might wear in bed, or for that matter, your mattress itself. A heavy cover can increase a tog rating quite significantly, while memory foam mattresses are natural conductors of warmth so if you have one you might want to team it with a lower tog duvet for optimum comfort.
Most duvets run from 3 up to 15 togs with the former being cooler and more suited to summer and the latter better for cold winter nights. A 3-4.5 tog duvet is best for the summer months, a home that’s quite hot or people who get overheated in the night. Tog rated duvets from 9-10.5 are good spring and autumn choices as they’re a little warmer to cope with those colder nights.
For winter, pick a duvet that’s around 13.5 or even higher if your house is super cold at night. Within that, of course, it depends how hot or cool a sleeper you are and someone who overheats at night might prefer to have a duvet that is no hotter than 9-10.5 tog, even in the dead of winter.
Most duvets come in a range of togs, so if you’ve found one you like but it’s 13.5 tog and too hot for summer, there will probably be a 4.5 one in the same range. Some duvets can be combined with poppers or buttons, allowing you to buy separate 4.5 tog and 9 tog duvets, which can then be joined together to create a 13.5 tog duvet for winter. A great idea if storage space is limited.
Best duvets 2020
1. Luxury Hungarian Goose Down and Feather duvet, The White Company – best duvet overall
The 80/20 ratio in favour of goose down in this 4.5 tog summer duvet definitely makes it a luxury bedding choice, as does the price. However, the 329-thread cotton percale outer is so soft and smooth to the touch we were almost tempted not to hide its beauty with a cover.
Despite its lightness, it is well filled and squishy, so you don’t feel as if you’re sleeping with just a sheet for cover. The box-stitch construction ensures the feathers are distributed evenly – and importantly stay that way – to ensure perfect coverage all over. It is also available as a 10.5 and 13.5 tog.
We also loved the fact that the design included buttons and buttonholes around the edge so it can be combined with another duvet of the same or heavier weight to allow you to build your own tog rating for the winter months. It can be machine-washed and tumble dried but we’d recommend professional laundering to keep it in tip-top condition for years to come. It has a 10-year guarantee.
Ideal Home’s rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Buy now: Luxury Hungarian Goose Down and Feather duvet, £175 for a double, The White Company
2. Brook + Wilde Marlow Goose Down duvet – best duvet for ultra-lightweight luxury
If you’re looking to replicate the duvets you might have encountered during a stay at a five-star hotel in your own bedroom then this duck-down filled duvet could be the one.
It’s pricey, we know, but from the beautifully stitched, supremely soft 305 thread count cover to its responsibly sourced 90% white goose down filling it is likely to be a favourite for years to come so we think it’s worth the initial investment.
The square stitched cells help to keep the filling evenly distributed meaning it won’t clump. It’s super lightweight, too – even the king size our testers tried – but also as puffy as a cloud, giving it depth and plushness but not heft.
It comes in just one tog choice, 10.5, but its lightness combined with the warmth level meant it worked just as well for our hot and cool sleeper. If you need the reassurance of a cover weighing down on you at night then this might not be for you but for those that prefer a lighter option this is a great choice.
Ideal Home’s rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Buy now: Marlow Goose Down duvet, from £419 for a single, Brooke + Wilde
3. Slumberdown Allergy Protection duvet– best value duvet and best for allergy sufferers
Do you suffer from ‘Home fever’? Not sure? Well, this is the term used by Allergy UK to describe out-of-season hay fever symptoms, the most common of which are runny nose and sneezing along with itchy skin and eyes. Unlike hay fever, some of these symptoms can be caused by – look away now if you’re squeamish – the millions of dust mites that could be present in our bedding.
One of our testers is a martyr to ‘home fever’ and has yet to find a cure, so we were super keen to try the Allergy Protection duvet from Slumberdown, which has an Allergy UK Seal of Approval to recommend it. The 10.5 tog double duvet is 100% pure cotton and filled with luxuriously silky hollow fibre for protection against dust mites. It’s machine washable at 40˚C and can be tumble dried.
The synthetic filling meant it felt light on the bed but was substantial enough for cooler nights. While it’s a little too early to tell if it’s helped out allergy sufferer, there did seem to be less sniffing and it’s a reasonable price so well worth trying out if you suffer from allergies and you’re in the market for a new duvet.
Ideal Home’s rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Buy now: Slumberdown Allergy Protection duvet, from £22 for a single, Argos
4. Panda Cloud duvet – best duvet for eco softness
This duvet features a Rayon outer made from bamboo and a filling that’s a 50/50 combination of bamboo and nano microfiber and it professes to give the ‘down feather feeling’ in a more ethical package.
Bamboo is uninhabitable for both mites and fungi and therefore naturally both hypoallergenic and antibacterial. This makes is great for allergy sufferers and those who suffer from skin complaints such as eczma and because it is bacteria that cause fabrics to smell, the makers claim the duvet will stay fresher for longer with fewer washes.
That’s a definite bonus for those of us that don’t enjoy taking regular trips to the dry cleaners. It has a 10.5 official rating, but we found the thermo-regulating properties meant it was fit for all seasons and the moisture wicking bebefits of bamboo mean we’ll be cool but cosy all year round.
Bamboo is and eco-friendly resource that doesn’t require pesticides to thrive. It uses less water than cotton, produces more oxygen and absorbs more Co2 than hardwood trees and is fast-growing so it’s an all-round eco-solution. It has a five-year guarantee
Ideal Home’s rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Buy now: Panda Cloud duvet, £121 for a double, Amazon
5. Temperature Regulating duvet, Soak & Sleep – best duvet for hot sleepers
If you regularly experience disturbed nights because you’re constantly waking to either throw off your duvet because you’re too hot or scrabbling for it at the bottom of the bed when you’re too cold, then this hi-tech temperature regulating duvet could be the answer.
Filled with a new German engineered ‘Phase Changing’ filling, it is designed to absorb heat from your body when you are too warm and release it when you are too cool. The filling changes its state to create a temperature of between 27-32 degrees, which apparently is the optimum temperature for sleep.
The 55% Tencel and 45% cotton outer also helps to absorb moisture and support the body’s natural heat mechanism. One of our sleepers – definitely an over-heater – found this to be revolutionary solution to restless nights, experiencing an unusually undisturbed night, while the other slept soundly as always.
It’s on the flatter, lighter side of the duvet divide but still has a comforting heft to it so you don’t feel as if you’ve just got a flimsy layer between you and the night air.
Ideal Home’s rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Buy Now: Temperature Regulating duvet, from £35 for a single, Soak & Sleep
6. Silentnight Yours and Mine duvet – best duvet for couples
If your night-time sleeping experience is hotter than Hades while you partner is cooler than ice then this might be the perfect solution to your different sleeping types. The unique two-tog design features a higher rating on one half of the duvet and a lower on the other.
There are two combinations to choose from, 4.5 partnered with 7.5 tog for warmer spring and summer nights and 10.5 and 13.5 for winter. We tested in summer and as one of our testing due is very much on the side of warm when sleeping, we opted for the 4.5/7.5 duvet.
Made from hollowfibre inner and microfiber outer, it’s hypoallergenic, great for our allergy sufferer, too. It’s lovely and light but still kept our slightly cooler sleeper snuggly warm through the night, while the hotter – in all ways – of our two testers slept through without needing to throw off the covers in the night.
Definitely a tale of two good nights…
Ideal Home’s rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Buy now: Silentnight Yours and Mine duvet, from £30 for a double, Argos
7. Next Touch of Silk duvet – best duvet for a little luxury on a budget
This duvet comes in one of the widest ranges of warmth rating we’ve found, from a super-lightweight 3 tog to ultra cosy 15 and includes an all-season one that combines 4.5 and 9 tog duvets that can be clipped together or apart to suit the weather.
We tested the all-season duvet pair, which arrived in a compact, neatly rolled package, much like a memory foam boxed mattress. The outer polyester cover has attractive grey piping and seersucker detail and feels pretty silky to the touch, while the inner is a combination of 95% polyester combined with 5% pure natural silk for a super-soft filling.
The benefit of silk in bedding is that it naturally helps to regulate your body temperature, helping you to stay cool when it’s hot and vice versa. The compact packaging meant it took a little while to fill out and we were worried at first that it was a little thin – particularly the 4.5 tog.
However, despite that it was surprisingly cosy while still keeping us cool at night. The 9 tog was a little thicker but still lightweight. Another tick in its favour is that it is machine washable, too.
Ideal Home’s rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Buy now: Touch of Silk duvet, from £25 t0 80 depending on tog rating and size, Next
8. Best duvet for winter – Airmax duvet, Silentnight
The marshmallow lightness of this duvet appealed to one of our testers immediately, declaring it something they could happily spend all day snuggling under watching box sets on Netflix. Surprisingly light despite its plump construction it’s still reassuringly warm enough to feel like it’s a good all-season choice.
We tried the 10.5 version, which was perfect as a spring/autumn option but it also comes in a 13.5 tog for colder nights. It has specially constructed airmesh walls, just like the mattress toppers and pillows of the same name, which help to increase airflow and provide more warmth with less weight.
The outer micro fibre cover is soft and silky to the touch giving a luxury feel even when encased in a duvet cover and off-set stitching construction helps to prevent it developing cold spots. Available in four sizes, from single to super king, the 100% hollow fibre interior and micro fibre exterior ensure that it’s hypoallergenic and it’s machine washable at 40˚C too.
Ideal Home’s rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Buy now: Silentnight Airmax duvet, £38.27 for double, Amazon
9. Best hi-tech duvet – Simba hybrid duvet
This hybrid duvet from mattress specialists Simba is double sided, with one featuring Outlast fabric technology, which was initially designed by NASA for astronauts. It utilises phase-change materials that keep a sleeper’s body temperature steady all night long by absorbing, storing and then releasing heat as it’s needed.
The other side features a 300-thread-count breathable cotton outer. These two sandwich a less techy but still gorgeously soft filling of largely duck down with a little feather to add heft. Initially, the Outlast side felt a little stiffer and more constructed – a bit like a topper rather than a duvet – but a few nights using it and it lost that ‘just out of the box’ feeling and felt more malleable.
For hot summer nights it still might feel a little warm for very hot sleepers but is a good partner with a memory foam mattress as it can counter the slight overheating some produce. It comes in four sizes but just one tog – 10.5 – and is machine washable, always a bonus, and can be tumbled dried, too. The box-stitch construction keeps the down from bunching, avoiding cold spots.
Ideal Home’s rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Buy now: Hybrid duvet, £245 for a double, Simba
10. Best duvet for all seasons – Our Perfect Duvet, Loaf
This duvet has a soft and strokeable cotton outer and a nicely plumped 85% goose feather and 15% down mix filling on the inside. A little heavier than the mostly down-filled duvets we tested, the boxed construction ensures that the feathers don’t gather in clumps, although we gave it a vigourous shake each morning to keep it squishy.
It was light enough for our hot sleeper to have mostly undisturbed nights apart from when the temperature spiked in an unseasonably warm few spring nights. We liked the fact that you can buy the duvet in a bundle with pillows, too, perhaps when you’re picking up Loaf’s Our Perfect Mattress (see our mattress reviews to see how we rated it) making for a one-stop bedding shop.
Sold in four standard sizes, but just one tog of 10.5, if you just want to invest in just one, quality natural filled duvet for pretty much all year round this is definitely a good, reasonably priced choice.
Ideal Home’s rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Buy now: Our Perfect Duvet, £85, for a double, Loaf
Get the perfect match: Best memory foam pillows – the top pillows for better sleep
How to buy a duvet – everything you need to know
Choosing your duvet filling
Image credit: TI Media
While a soft, high thread-count cotton outer will feel lovely to the touch, it’s what’s inside a duvet that counts and also what decides the tog rating (see below). There are a variety of fillings and which one you choose will often depend on what kind of a sleeper you are and whether you have any allergies.
Feather and down duvets are the luxurious, and often most expensive, choice. Usually a mix of feathers and down – the softer underbelly feathers – from geese or ducks, the higher the down count, the squishier and airier the duvet will be. More feathers make for a weightier and snugger cover.
Silk is another ‘treat yourself’ choice, and can be beautifully lightweight while also warm and is great at wicking away moisture. Mountaineers don’t use silk-filled jackets for nothing… It’s very strong and hypoallergenic, too and great for those who have a tendency to overheat at night.
Wool-filled duvets are chunkier, so a particularly good choice for winter where you want something with some weight to snuggle under on a chilly night. Finally, synthetic duvets such as microfiber or hollowfiber are a practical choice for those with allergies to feathers or wool.
If you want the cushioned feel of down and feathers without the cost then opt for microfibers, while hollowfiber has a denser structure that means it’s longer lasting.
What size duvet should I choose?
It’s best to choose a duvet that is the same size as your bed base so that you get the right amount of drape around the sides. Buy something too small and you’ll not be properly covered, something too big and you could end up feeling slightly suffocated under the weight of excess material and filling that will pull down at the sides of the bed.
Some companies do make specialist duvets for cots and for European sized beds but as a general rule single, double, king and super king are the most popular sizes.
How much should I spend on a duvet?
Image credit: Dominic Blackmore
If you want a duvet that will last a long time without loosing it’s ‘puff’ then natural materials will outlast most synthetic fillings but they will cost more initially. While you can pay upwards of just £10 for a microfiber double duvet with man-made fiber outer, a 400-count cotton outer filled with duck down could cost upwards of £150 for a single.
It’s best to decide the filling you prefer then look at the price range within that type to ensure you have a duvet that fits your budget restrictions well as your needs as a sleeper.
What’s underneath matters, too: Best mattress – the top choices for a perfect night’s sleep, now updated for 2019
What else should I look for in a duvet?
Pick a duvet that has a stich detail that serves to contain the filling in separate chambers, ensuring that it is evenly distributed and won’t cluster at the bottom or sides.
Shake and air it occasionally to loosen up any filling that has bunched or slightly compacted over time. This is particularly important with natural filled duvets but less so in synthetic ones as the filling has a construction that ensures it stays evenly distributed.
Duvets with man-made fillings will be usually be machine washable, although they can be bulky so only suitable for big-load machines. While some natural fillings such as feathers can also be machine washed, it is often recommended that they be professionally laundered to ensure they last.
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