You should probably be washing your bedding more often.
It’s a bold statement, we know - but did you know it’s recommended that we wash our bedsheets every 7 to 10 days, and our bedding once every 2 to 4 months?
It’s a fact that most people take longer than this, with the average time between washes standing at two weeks and six months respectively.
Yes, our duvets and pillows are often the most neglected items in the house when it comes to washing. Since they don’t come in direct contact with our skin - and are generally big and bulky - washing bedding items always seem to slip down the priority list.
Can you imagine not washing your trousers for six months but wearing them every day? We certainly can’t.
Duvet & Pillow Cleaning Guide
From this point onwards, this guide is specific to Nauralmat’s range of natural-fibre duvets and pillows. For care instructions for a synthetic duvet or pillow, you should refer to the care label on your item.
If you’re interested in seeing our range of natural-fibre duvets and pillows, shop them below
Wool Duvet Cleaning Guide
Starting off with our most popular bedding item - our Organic Wool Duvet. Our Lambswool Duvets are carefully made from locally-sourced, certified organic wool - and should therefore be treated with equal care when they get home.
Due to the careful design and organic filling of our Lambswool Duvets, we do not recommend cleaning them in a washing machine. To keep your Lambswool Duvet in top condition, we suggest that you have them professionally dry cleaned at an eco-friendly dry cleaner such as Johnsons - see ‘ Eco-Friendly Dry Cleaners’ below for details.
Natural Feather Duvet Cleaning Guide
As with all of our natural-fibre duvets, we strongly recommend that our Goose Down Duvets and Duck Feather Duvets are dry cleaned for best results and longevity. However, if absolutely necessary, our Goose Down and Duck Feather Duvets can be machine washed.
For optimal results we recommend washing your natural feather duvet at 40°C. However, in the interest of sustainability they can also be washed at a lower temperature of 30°C, saving energy. We recommend using an environmentally friendly detergent such as Ecover.
Whatever temperature you wash at, we suggest that you use your machine’s ‘delicates’ or ‘gentle’ cycle, preventing undue wear and tear and further extending the lifetime of your duvet. Once washed, our natural feather duvets can either be tumble dried on a ‘gentle’ cycle or line dried.
Our Natural Feather Duvets are incredibly light and lofty - and should be cleaned on a gentle cycle to preserve their loft.
Natural Fibre Pillow Cleaning Guide
From our Duck Down Surround Pillow to our sumptuous, luxuriant Goose Down Pillow and even our choice of Organic Wool Pillows, all of our natural fibre pillows are machine washable at 40°C.
We recommend using your machine’s ‘delicates’ or ‘gentle’ cycle, and using an environmentally-friendly detergent such as Ecover. Once washed, we recommend that all of our natural fibre pillows are air or tumble dried at a very low temperature, until fully dry.
Eco-Friendly Dry Cleaners
Many associate dry cleaning with nasty chemicals - however, in recent years there has been a switch to dry cleaners using more sustainable methods, offering the same professional quality without the use of harmful chemicals.
GreenEarth is a dry cleaning company who, like Naturalmat, has been pioneering sustainability in its industry for over 20 years. Instead of using Perchloroethylene (a hazardous, carcinogenic pollutant which is the most common solvent used for dry cleaning in the US), the GreenEarth dry cleaning solution is based on silicone, an environmentally non-toxic, non-hazardous and extremely gentle alternative to petrochemicals.
GreenEarth cleaning methods use low amounts of water and energy to produce odourless, hypoallergenic results while ensuring the best possible results for both fabrics and the environment.
We recommend finding your local GreenEarth cleaner online via their store locator. With over 350 dry cleaners across the UK using GreenEarth techniques, it’s easy to care for your duvet in an environmentally-friendly way.
Duvet & Pillow Care Guide
There’s more to caring for your bedding than simply washing it every 3 months.
The natural fibre fillings that we use in our bedding are very different to the synthetic hollowfibre fillings that you may find elsewhere - and in order to maximise your bedding’s lifetime, we suggest regular care in-between washes.
Airing is Caring!
Every time we go to bed, our duvets and pillows work hard to ensure that our body stays comfortable, and at the perfect temperature for a great sleep. Our bedding effectively regulates our temperature by trapping a layer of insulative air around our body, which retains heat in the cold winter months, and disperses it during those hotter summer nights.
In fact, this is more or less exactly how the wool coat on a sheep, or the feather and down of a duck works. How quaint!
In the morning we often rush to make the bed - just as we were taught when we were little - often ignoring the need for fresh air to pass through our duvets and pillows, which are still full of air from the night before. Even with the excellent breathability of our natural-fibre fillings, this air can quickly become stale and stagnant with time.
So, to enjoy that fresh bedding feel night after night, we recommend that you air your duvets and pillows as often as possible. This might seem like a frustrating task, but it’s as simple as airing your duvets while you wash your bed linen.
Simply remove your pillow protectors & bed linen for washing, and while the linen is in the machine you can air your bedding on your washing line, airer, balcony or bannister. At the same time this will provide a small amount of airing for your mattress too, which is an added bonus.
How To Spot Clean our Dry-Clean Only Duvets
Sometimes small spills are unavoidable and bound to happen - however, if caught just in time, the damage to the duvet can be isolated and dealt with by spot cleaning - saving you the risk of a stain as well as having to take the entire duvet to the dry cleaners.
So if you’ve been clumsy with your coffee, fear not - just keep these tips in mind. As soon as possible after the spill:
Your stain should be all gone and you can continue to enjoy dry, clean and cosy night’s sleep!