Duvet Togs for the Season
If you ask us, there are few things as important to the good life as a full night’s sleep which has been proven to improve mental and physical wellbeing across the board, and so the right equipment to promote beneficial sleeping habits is essential.
One of the best places to start when setting yourself up for a good night’s sleep is with the duvet – and that means getting a good grasp of the duvet tog rating system.
What is a tog rating?
To put it simply, a duvet tog rating is the rating system used to indicate the ability of a duvet to retain its heat through thermal insulation.
The scale runs from 1 tog up to 15 tog, with 1 tog being the coolest and lightest rating, and 15 tog being the warmest and cosiest. Each duvet has its own tog rating, suggesting how well it traps hot air between layers and in turn, how warm or cool it will keep you through the night.
At Feather & Black, we’ve got three tog ratings to choose from with our duvets: 4.5 tog, 10.5 tog and 13.5 tog. It’s worth experimenting with a variety to get an idea for how warm you like your bed to be and it can also be a good idea to have different duvets for the different seasons. All our stores have duvet feeler samples to help you choose.
A duvet that has a tog of 13.5, for example, makes it the ideal choice for those frosty mornings and bitter winds of winter, letting you curl up in absolute comfort in the deep midwinter nights. A 4.5 tog duvet, by contrast, means its lightweight nature makes for an excellent cover for the gentle heat of those long summer evenings. If you want to strike that sweet spot between seasons, then a 10.5 tog duvet works a treat for the gentle warmth of spring and the brisk mornings of autumn.
It’s important to remember that a high tog rating doesn’t necessarily make the duvet thicker or heavier - different tog ratings can depend on a variety of different factors, one of the most important of which being the filling.
How does duvet filling make a difference?
Duvets are normally filled with either natural or synthetic fibres, both of which can result in different tog ratings.
Natural duvets are generally associated with luxury, given a higher-price tag but also provide a higher level of comfort. They tend to be filled with feathers from different parts of a bird, commonly down (the feathers from a bird’s chest area) or regular feathers (feathers taken from other parts of the bird). Naturally filled duvets are often able to preserve more heat than their synthetic counterparts simply because feathers are naturally designed to trap air for insulation.
The key benefit of a synthetic duvet is that they are non-allergenic, offering a perfect solution for those who might be allergic to natural fillings. They also come in at a lower price tag and are generally lighter than natural duvets. Inside, they are filled with one of two kinds of fibre. The first is hollowfibre, which is synthetic fibres that are hollowed out to maintain heat more easily. The second is microfibre, whose extra fineness is closer to natural down, maintaining the same warmth, but with a far lighter weight.
Whatever your duvet needs, we’ve got you covered with our comprehensive range of duvets with three different tog ratings. For more information on our bedding collection, read our Bedding Guide.