Glossary
When choosing the right duvet or pillow, you must consider two factors: the type of filling and its density.
TYPE
All our duvets and pillows have natural fillings, which provide excellent insulation and allow for a light, airy and soft feel.
Natural fillings consist of down, feather or a combination of the two. Down is the fluffy layer under the exterior of the bird’s feather. Compared to feather, it is lighter and typically longer-lasting. Feather is flatter, larger and heavier, which means that more feathers are required to achieve the same insulation as down.
Natural filling is available in either goose or duck. Goose feather and down is widely agreed to be superior due to geese having larger feathers and fluffier down, which results in better insulation. Duck feather and down fillings are generally less expensive as a result.
TOG / DENSITY
The density of the filling is most commonly measured in togs. Fillings up to 7 tog are lighter and airier, making them ideal for the summer months. Higher togs are more suitable for the colder months.
We recommend you buy a higher tog if your bedroom is not well-insulated or if you prefer to keep the windows open at night. Retailers often recommend buying a higher tog for the winter months, but a 4.5 tog can work equally well if you live in a well-insulated space.
BED LINEN
The luxuriousness of our bed linen is driven by our primary focus on two qualities, the type of cotton and the thread count.
TYPE OF COTTON
House Babylon bed linen uses 100% Egyptian cotton, grown and crafted in Egypt.
Egyptian Cotton is a species of cotton that belongs to a family of extra-long staple cotton called Gossypium barbadense. Egyptian cotton grows with unusually long, strong and silky fibres that, when spun, produce supremely resilient and soft fabrics.
Other types of cotton with shorter staple fibres tend to generate many more exposed ends, resulting in a weaker and less comfortable fabric.
THREAD COUNT
Thread count is the number of threads horizontally and vertically woven per square inch of fabric. Usually, the higher the thread count, the denser the material will be and the softer it will feel. However, a high thread count alone does not result in luxurious fabrics.
Luxuriousness is wholly dependent on the quality of the cotton used. Longer staple fibres mean more uninterrupted fibre used to compost yarn and threads, which makes the thread – and ultimately the fabric – stronger and softer. As Egyptian cotton produces a stronger and finer yarn, there is also more space for a higher thread count into each square inch.
Most weavers will agree that the number of threads that can be woven into one square inch of fabric is 600. Bedding with higher thread counts such as 1000 and 1500 is produced with cotton of poor quality. Cotton which is not Egyptian, naturally produces more exposed ends, which are then woven into the weft threads to increase the thread count of multi-ply weaves.
While thread count can easily be misleading, the buzz about Egyptian cotton is true. Egyptian cotton is the very best in the world.
At House Babylon, we know that fabric using Egyptian Cotton with a thread count of 400 is ultimately softer, stronger and more luxurious than fabric using lower quality cotton with a thread count of 1500. For this reason, we pay close attention to the thread count but never at the expense of the quality of our cotton.