Our winter duvet was causing us all sorts of problems. Mostly warm enough, but with a lot of patches that weren’t, super heavy and bulky, rather uncomfortable, generally getting old and falling apart.
It’s basically me, but in duvet form.
It was affecting our sleep, and that is never a good thing.
So, time for a new duvet inner, but OMG, the choices, and THE PRICES!
Having gone through a rigorous process of elimination on the price front (not difficult, we’re not remortgaging the house again), we found ourselves staring down the beak of the Hungarian goose. Despite being a bit of a bird nerd, I’d never heard of a Hungarian goose before, although using some basic etymological, geographical and biological knowledge, I had kind of worked out at least the basics.
But why Hungarian goose and not any other goose stuff?
Well, here’s a Hungarian goose, and wow, just look at this bad boy:
BEHOLD HIS WARMTH!
But I still had to consult the experts:
The simple difference between Hungarian goose down and other goose down is that it is from Hungary.
Thanks, Einstein.
Hungarian goose down has many characteristics that make it a superior option to other types of goose down. It provides superb insulation properties, exceptional comfort and high-quality durability, thanks to larger natural cluster sizes, greater resilience and high fill power.
I have no idea how natural cluster sizes work or what fill power is, but they’re large and high and that sounds good.
Hungary faces long, freezing winters each year, and Hungarian goose down is sourced from the coldest parts of the country.
It’s also more humanely produced than many other goose downs.
There’s a whole world out there that I had no idea about. But now I do and the Hungarian goose down is clearly the premium goose down that there is in that world. And this is coming from a company that sells a lot of other downs as well.
So we ordered. And it arrived. And it was SO DISAPPOINTINGLY THIN.
“That’s going to have to go back,” we thought.
But we gave it a try with some Egyptian cotton covers. At this point, it’s important to note that good cotton is Egyptian and good goose down is Hungarian.
DO NOT MIX THESE TWO UP.
Hungarian cotton is (possibly, I haven’t really checked) generally of decidedly poor quality, and don’t – DON’T – get me started on damn Egyptian geese.
But I digress. Often.
Incredibly, when it comes to the sales pitch on the Hungarian goose down thing, all that stuff that they eulogised about is absolutely true. So warm, so nice, so light.
In a competition that I never thought I’d be dull enough to judge: Best Duvet Ever.
I am planning on test driving it plenty more over this weekend, specifically investigating if its thermal loveliness can last well into the late mornings on Saturdays and Sundays.