I swapped my Night Lark coverless duvet for a budget-friendly £35 Dunelm option – and I'm impressed

I put the Dunelm Coverless Duvet to the test to see how it compared to some of the best duvets on the market.

In a nutshell

Dunelm's coverless duvet is one of the most affordable coverless options on the market, and has just been launched in two stylish looks - the striped version I tested, and a gingham check option.

A double costs £40, which is a lot cheaper than one of the most well-known branded coverless duvet makers on the market: Night Lark, whose most affordable double coverless duvet costs £75.

And I was impressed by this budget-friendly option. I found its all-in-one printed design felt less plasticky than the Night Lark Coverless Duvet I recently tested, although there are fewer style options available, and fewer warmth options. The Dunelm option comes in a 10.5 tog only, but it's a useful year-round tog.

Plus, I found the king-size Dunelm Coverless Duvet I tested was easier to bung straight in my normal washing machine (which is the main point of a coverless duvet after all). In contrast, the larger sizes of Night Lark's duvet are recommended for a large-capacity washing machine only. My Dunelm duvet also dried outside on the line in around two hours on a mild autumn day.

Overall, I think this is a great affordable option if you're considering giving a coverless duvet a whirl; I did find its polyester fill lacked breathability and made me a little too warm on hot nights, but if you want an easy to care for duvet, that could be a price worth paying.

Specifications

• RRP: £35 / £40 / £45
• Sizes: single / double / king
• Tog rating: 10.5 tog
• Materials: outer: polyester
• Care: machine wash at 40ºC, tumble dry on medium
• Manufacturer sleep trial: machine washable, tumble dry on a low heat setting

Feel

The Dunelm duvet comes in a drawstring bag with the same pattern as the duvet. This is super handy if you’re storing this duvet away – especially because you can tell what’s inside the bag without having to unpack it.

The duvet is made from 100 per cent polyester. As a sleep-product reviewer, I'm super fussy about what goes on my bed. So I was a bit dubious about how nice a 100 per cent polyester duvet would feel to sleep under. (Yes, my job has made a sleep snob out of me). Sometimes man-made-textile duvets can feel slippery like a sleeping bag, but not this coverless duvet.

If I were doing a blind test, I’d guess it’s made from cotton. When I slept underneath it, I preferred this because it didn’t feel like it was constantly slipping off and I was having to clutch on to it as I slept. I definitely found it less plasticky than the Night Lark coverless duvet I previously tested.

I usually sleep with a (far more expensive) scooms Hungarian Goose Down Duvet, which is super marshmallowy. The loft on the Dunelm coverless duvet is pretty thin in comparison, and it feels pretty lightweight too. This is probably on par with the Night Lark coverless duvet.

Temperature regulation

Temperature regulation is a real bugbear of mine when I’m asleep. I overheat easily, and man-made fibres often exacerbate the issue because they lack breathability and can result in me feeling like a sticky mess. When weighing up feather and down vs synthetic duvets, polyester duvets are generally less breathable as they let less air flow through than other duvets.

So I was keen to see how the Dunelm coverless duvet fared at keeping me cool. I tested the duvet during early autumn, which gave me a good mix of warm and slightly cooler evenings. At 10.5 togs, this duvet would probably be too hot for very warm summer nights.

I found I was warm as soon as I slid under the Dunelm coverless duvet. It’s quite lightweight, so it didn’t drape too snugly to me. This allowed air to flow and kept me cooler. Any heavier and I think this duvet would have felt very hot.

While the Dunelm coverless duvet is nowhere near as temperature-regulating as my feather and down duvet, nor a wool duvet (my spare room has the wool-filled Woolroom Deluxe Wool Washable Duvet on the bed, which we rate as one of the best duvets for hot sleepers), I did find it on a par with the similarly synthetic Night Lark coverless duvet in this area. It was warm for sure, but not too sweaty.

Ease of care

Coverless duvets are appealing if you want something that’s easy to clean if you often need to wash a duvet. As a parent, I see that having a duvet you can just pull off, stick in the wash, and stick another one on in the middle of the night – so long as you have one to use, one to wash.

What I think coverless duvets are particularly great for is camping, spare rooms and kids’ beds – they’re great for nighttime accidents. This is because you can bung the whole duvet straight in the washing machine, and that's where Dunelm's coverless option trumped the Night Lark’s coverless duvet I'd recently tested.

With the Night Lark duvet, the king size had to be washed in a large-capacity washing machine. However, the Dunelm coverless duvet has no such recommendations so you can stick it in the washing machine at 40ºC. While line drying is recommended on the label, you can also tumble dry it on low.

I dried it on a warm September day on the line, and it took about two hours to dry. If you’re storing your duvet away, it’s really important that the duvet is absolutely bone dry to prevent it from going mouldy.

While it doesn’t pack down super small if you’re a hardcore hike-and-camp type, it’s ideal for campsites and campervans where you can cram all your stuff into your car. It’s also great for student bedrooms as you can quickly and easily give your room a refresh by wholesale washing your duvet.

Sleep trial

There's no sleep trial available on Dunelm's bedding, which does mean there's no option to test this option out before you commit to keeping it.

However, that's the case with every coverless duvet I've come across, and Dunelm's option is at least one of the most budget-friendly on the market, so it's less of an investment if you're on the fence about whether a coverless duvet will work for your needs.

Value for money

Any king-size duvet that's only £45 is impressive value for money, and this Dunelm coverless duvet is no exception. Especially if you consider you don’t have to buy a duvet cover. It’s just £35 for a single and £40 for a double, and it also comes with matching pillowcases, which pleasantly surprised me for the price.

I also liked that this was a double-sided duvet cover. One side has stripes, and the other a solid colour. While I went for taupe stripes, Dunelm also sells a stylish blue gingham coverless duvet if you want something more vibrant.

Conversely, the most affordable Night Lark coverless duvet starts at £45 for a single, and £85 for the king-size. Admittedly, Night Lark has a lot more style options to choose from, but if you're happy with stripes or gingham checks, I think the Dunelm coverless duvet is very competitive on price.

How I tested

Zoë Phillimore

I’m Zoë, a mum of three and a sleep product tester who helps the Ideal Home team put all manner of bedding through its paces to find the top recommendations for our readers.

I spent two weeks testing the Dunelm coverless duvet during a period of mild weather in early autumn. I slept on the job, testing it while asleep next to my husband – who is also a very hot sleeper and extremely vocal about what duvet he will and won’t sleep under.

While testing, I considered the look, feel, and quality of the duvet, how it draped across me while I slept, how quickly I warmed up underneath it, and if I overheated at all.

Along with my own experience, I used an Oura Ring 4 as a sleep tracker, which gives me all the stats about my sleep I could want or need. This helped to detect every disturbance and how restful my sleep was.

I also factored in how easy this duvet is to care for, and, of course, value for money is always part of the duvet testing process at Ideal Home. I compared this duvet to similar options on the market and considered how its performance compares to its price point.