Choosing a silk comforter can quickly become a headache, as the range is so varied. Between the differences in weight, silk quality and manufacture, it's easy to fall into certain traps. Maison de la soie guides you step by step to avoid mistakes and invest in a silk comforter that's truly adapted to your needs.
Pitfall 1 - The fake silk winter comforter
A winter comforter is a comforter designed to protect you from the cold in an unheated bedroom during winter. The standard weight for a silk winter comforter is 500g/m². Some sites offer "winter" silk comforters whose weight of 360g/m² is totally insufficient for winter. In reality, 360g/m² is the weight of a mid-season or temperate comforter. For example, you'll find 320g/m² mid-season comforters on our site, just 40g/m² lighter.
Pitfall 2 - False grammage
The grammage indicated normally corresponds to the silk grammage inside the comforter. To save silk, some brands indicate the weight of the comforter including filling and cover. This deceptive practice is to the detriment of the customer, who once again ends up with a comforter that is lighter than expected.
Pitfall 3 - Low-quality silk
There are different types of silk with very different thermal properties. The best silk is mulberry silk. It is highly absorbent, insulates against both heat and cold, and breathes. If the seller doesn't indicate the type of silk, you can be sure that it's not mulberry silk, but rather wild silk or habotai silk. These low-cost fibers are very mediocre and do not allow for manual manufacture.
Tip: Quality silk comforters will always have a zipper to check the quality of the silk filling.
Pitfall 4 - Machine-made silk comforters
Machine-made silk comforters are topstitched. The topstitching is used to maintain a silk filling made of broken and cut short fibers, extracted mechanically. But short fibers have lower thermal properties. What's more, topstitching creates thermal bridges and prevents the silk filling from breathing and playing its full insulating role.
Pitfall 5 - The fake washable silk comforter
These same sellers of overstitched silk comforters often promote the fact that they are "machine washable". This is not true. Whether the comforter is topstitched or not, the silk filling cannot be washed in water. Topstitching conceals deterioration of silk fibers but in reality, wash after wash, silk fibers degrade and lose their thermal properties.
Pitfall 6 - Buying 3 comforters instead of 2
Most comforter sellers encourage their customers to buy a summer comforter, a mid-season comforter and a winter comforter. The latter is not only the most expensive, but also the most bulky. Instead, we recommend buying the four-season package, which includes a summer comforter and a mid-season comforter which, once attached, replace the winter comforter for substantial savings.
Pitfall 7 - Chinese websites
The riskiest of all is certainly ordering from a Chinese website. The most common problem is not receiving anything at all, as many customers will testify. The second problem is having your parcel intercepted at customs and having to pay customs duties, VAT at 20% and a possible fine for non-declaration.
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We hope this article will help you make the right choice and avoid disappointment. For further information, you can also read our article dedicated to 4-season silk comforters
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