Keep Your Bedding Cool This Summer With Our Guide To Summer Duvets

When summer temperatures climb, and as they reach new heights thanks to climate change, the top question for many folks trying to keep their home protected in extreme heat and survive a summer heatwave is, "How am I going to sleep through this?" The late-night struggle often involves violently kicking our bedding off and finding ourselves unable to fall asleep without the comfort and weight of the duvet. While our go-to duvet may be perfectly suited to snuggling under during a winter storm, it can leave us feeling suffocated, hot, and sweaty during the warmer months. Replacing the duvet is an obvious place to start, but it's important to know what to look for in a cooling summer duvet, so you don't end up feeling trapped in similar, equally warm bedding. 

The TOG scale and the fabric type are two major considerations when it comes to everything you need to know before buying a new duvet for the summer. But these aren't as intuitive as you might think. Luckily, we've got the details, including how to understand the TOG system and which number range is best suited to hot weather, as well as which fabrics are best for keeping your duvet nice and breathable. 

TOG stands for Thermal Overall Grading and is basically a numeric indicator of heat retention in bedding and garments, with lower numbers leaning cooler and higher numbers warmer, typically in a range from 1 to 15. The majority of duvets made for summer months should be somewhere in the 1 to 4.5 range. 

Your impulse may be to shop for 1 TOG duvets only, and these do work for some folks, with several caveats. For one, some popular duvet manufacturers, such as IKEA, don't sell duvets with TOGs lower than 2.5, so your options may be somewhat limited. Additionally, 1 to 2 TOG duvets are incredibly thin and lightweight, so much so that some may find them more akin to a top sheet and long for a more substantial covering. However, if you run extremely hot or don't have AC in your home, a 1 to 2 TOG duvet may be just right. If it's too skimpy to make you comfortable, try upping the number to 3, with 4.5 at the max for a made-for-summer duvet. 

Though the TOG rating can be very helpful, it isn't used across all duvets. Some warm-weather duvets are filled with heavy but cooling materials, such as wool, and are categorized by weight. In this case, this system is counter-intuitive because a higher weight doesn't necessarily mean the duvet is warmer. Look out for keywords like breathable and cooling, and know which fabrics you want in a summer duvet. 

When you look up what the best material is for a summer duvet, you will come across all kinds of answers, ranging from wool to cotton to synthetic fabrics such as polyester. Remember that duvets are a type of filled comforter, so you need to keep the outer shell's fabric and fill material type in mind. Fabrics that are soft to the touch but breathable for a shell would be cotton, bamboo, linen, or muslin, an open-weaved cotton blend fabric. 

For the filling, wool is a popular choice — despite being commonly used to weave winter sweaters, wool is actually very breathable and has moisture-wicking properties that keep sweat drawn away from the body. So even if you find it a bit itchy on the surface, it's a good duvet filler. Bamboo filler has also been touted as a natural, temperature-regulating duvet material and is beloved for its sustainability. If you want to go classic, goose down is another popular choice that manages to be fluffy and cozy without being overly warm. Not interested in the expensive price tag that comes with natural materials, or want to avoid animal products? You can always try synthetic microfiber fills. These replicate the goose down texture but are made from very thin tufts of polyester. With your ideal fabrics in mind, the hardest part about buying your new duvet insert will be putting the cover on (try out the viral burrito method hack to make it easier!)