Removing Natural Down Or Feather Odor

Over the years we have gotten requests from customers along the lines of ‘How long will the pillows have an odor?’

Anyone who has bought a down or feather blend pillow knows that natural products have a natural odor. Typicaly the reason a product may have an odor is related to heat, humidity or moisture. Every down bedding manufacturer has to meet specific industry standards for cleanliness. In addition, most bedding manufacturrs have their own ’story’ about how they clean their fillings above and beyond government standards. Some manufacturers process their fillings domestically or they bring in the fills pre-cleaned.

DOWNLITE is unique in that 85% percent plus of its fills are processed in the states for domestically made items including pillows and comforters. Our special cleansing process is called RestAssured and it certifies that our fillings are processed to the same standard in the USA with 3-4 times higher standards then the governments.  Although we process all of our fills ocasionally the filling material might become moist or heated in which case the ‘natural’ odors can come out and cause discomfort. DOWNLITE stands behing all of its products and any cases of ‘odor’ are replaced and researched to pull those fillings off the market ASAP.

If a product smells is it bad?
Aside from the unpleasent sensation caused – it is likely that the filling has remnant oils inside the clusters or small feathers which when heated have an odor.  This is an occassional happening with duck down products [duck down or duck feathers have higher oil content].

All you need to do is wash the items in question with a teaspoon of dawn which is a degreaser. Be sure to dry the items extra well so that all moisture is removed. To learn more go to our informational website on bedding care.

A cheap trick for a feather pillow used as a sham stuffer on your bed is to place a fabric softener sheet in the sham or case [just don’t sleep on them as the scent can be too powerful].

Can A Comforter Be Embroidered?

I just had a customer send us an email asking if a down comforter can be embroidered as a gift? Well the quick answer is not really. I wrote the customer and gave two examples of alternate solutions. Solution #1: Embroider a ‘Corner’ Silk and attach to the lower corner of the comforter. You can have a local seamstress take a piece of satin and embroider it and then attach it to the comforter. Solution #2: Buy a Duvet and embroider the duvet instead. Because filled bedding – whether it is down or polyester or whatever are finished – it is nearly impossible to embroider a filled item. There are a couple reasons for this. First – the filling can leak out of or near the embroidery. Secondly – the process of opening up the item embroidering and then stuffing the filling back in – is very messy. 

So – when buying or making a gift – the cheaper solution is to buy a duvet and embroider that instead. Actually an even cheaper and maybe more visible option is to embroider the matching duvet shams. Finally – you can also just buy ala carte shams and embroider them and simply toss on the bed – a far cheaper solution.  Embroidering shams at a local gift or embroidery shop should run you about $12 or so.

Down Bedding Vs. Polyester Bedding

Often we get a question from a concerned consumer about the eco impact of their buying decisions.  In this case they want to know which bedding has the least eco impact. So we will discuss the two options we know pretty well – natural down and feathers versus polyester.

We’ll start with the easy one – polyester. Polyester filling can come from virgin polyester or reclaimed polyester. Virgin polyester comes from petroleum. Reclaimed polyester comes from recycled polyester from plant scraps (remnant fiber from carpet manufacturing is one example).  Some polyesters are carcinogenic in some form and can off gas. Polyester fibers used for bed fillings can have some distinct advantages – they can be made hypoallergenic and with the right materials – antimicrobial.

Natural fillings are a by product of the poultry indsutry in China and Eastern Europe. They are renewable, sustainable and breakdown (like hundreds of years later). Natural fillings can also be reclaimed by simply washing the fibers and sanitzing them again. Down and feathers can be washed to such a clean state as to make them hypoallergenic like our RestAssured process.

Both filling materials can be used with various cloths like cotton or TENCEL blends for an extra green solution. Both down and down alternative fillings can keep you warm. Down, however being natures best insulator does a more efficient job at it. Therefore – to lower your home heating bill you can use quality down bedding to allow the thermostat to go down and still keep you warm and snuggly.

That is the green truth!

Adjustable Bedding

I had recently taken a series of phone calls from customers with adjustable beds searching for sheets. It turns out that many adjustable beds feature seperate sides which are basically two twin xl adjustable beds. Normally, we see most of our twin xl bedding being bought by potential dorm students or their families. After some further research it appears that one of our fastest growing segments we serve is twin xl adjustable bed owners. It was a pleasent suprise because when we designed our new fine linen collections we specifically wanted to have twin xl bedding for dorm students and or older customers with seperate beds.  We did not plan or know about the market for twin xl adjustable bed bedding.

One thing we did learn is that our deep pocket twin extra long sheets were really too deep for most of these beds – which ranged from 12 to 14 inches at most. We have told customers to try sheet clips as a way to hold on to the fitted sheets from below.

We also heard from another customer whose husband had Parkinsons with issues of getting in and out of bed and wanted a ’slick’ sheeting material in a twin xl size. In that case we recommended our Tencel Lyocell Cotton sheet set in twin xl.  The cool touch, moisture wicking Tencel Lyocell sheet set is a great choise for sleepers with night sweats.

‘I swear the pillow at the hotel was down’

At ShopDownLite.com we get lots of emails from folks who stay at a hotel and love the hotel bedding. They track us down through either asking housekeeping or googling us – eventually they find us and have lots of questions. A common thing I hear from customers after telling them the hotel they were at had EnviroLoft Down Alternative pillows is this:

‘I swear the pillow was down – are yous ure – it felt like down -and it says DOWNLITE?’

So couple points here we can discuss – first DOWNLITE is our brand name – not the name of a filling material or style or model number. Secondly – we do sell tons of down pillows and feather pillows to hotels. However, if the pillow you enjoyed said DOWNLITE on the law tag and had the word EnviroLoft on it – then it is in fact our polyester down alternative filling we call EnviroLoft.

We make several EnviroLoft pillows – most of them look the same – thread count might be different, pattern might be different – but the filling stays pretty much the same.

EnviroLoft is great because it is easy care – you can machine wash it and machine dry it.

p.s. unless a pillow has a performance fabric like TENCEL – the outer material really will not impact the pillow too much.