The difference between down, duvet and comforter.

The difference between down, duvet and comforter.

Down is the natural soft undercoating found on geese or ducks. A single unit of down is called a cluster.

A duvet which originates from the French means down. Here in North America we have used the word duvet for a number of uses, however at isleptsowell we always call our down filled bedding a down duvet and the cover for our down duvet would be a duvet cover. These qualifiers make it easy to figure out which is which. Some refer to a down duvet as a duvet insert however this name is not as clear and could be filled with something other than down.

A down duvet which is made from tightly woven down proof cotton contains the down in separate compartments and usually a queen size down duvet has 36 compartments. Normally these compartments are referred to as boxes and the top and bottom layer are separated with a wall called a baffle. The boxes keep the down from shifting and the baffle walls help the down to loft to the maximum.

A comforter is typically a fashion bedding item that would not require an additional cover and would most likely be used with flat sheets (top sheet).

Some people call a down duvet a down comforter, and in this context, they would be the same.