What Makes a Down Comforter Puffy?

What makes a down comforter puffy? This is a question of a lot of confusion among shoppers, but it’s really quite simple to understand. There are a few main factors:

1. Fill power
2. Filling weight
3. Weight of cover fabric

Fill power is the amount of space in cubic inches occupied by 1 ounce of down. The higher the fill power, the more loft the down has. Fill power ranges from 500 to 900 becoming increasingly more expensive as the number increases.

You could expect to pay less than $200 for a 500fp comforter and several thousand for comforters with fill powers over 800. Higher fill power down occupies more space with less weight, so it’s a very highly prized commodity.

A lot of shoppers get hung up on fill power, and think it’s more important than it really is. In truth, the really high fill power comforters are very nice, but you have to test them in a lab to tell the difference. If someone gave you a 700fp comforter and an 800fp comforter, you wouldn’t know the difference. However, you would be able to see that an 800fp is puffier than a 500fp comforter.

So before you spend money on that super high fill power down, consider beefing up the filling weight. Filling weight is the number of ounces of down in a comforter. You can get a more puffy comforter simply by choosing one with more down. MORE DOWN = MORE PUFFY That’s easy to remember, and it’s a much less expensive alternative to increasing fill power.

There’s a lot of commotion in recent years about high thread count fabrics used in luxury bedding. They are very nice, though don’t serve all purposes in making down comforters. High thread count cotton fabric is very soft, drapes well, and is down proof, but because there are more threads per square inch, it also weighs more. High thread count cotton covers used in a down comforter prevent the down from expanding fully. So if puffy is what you’re looking for in a down comforter, you may want to opt for a lower thread count cover.