Vegan Food & Living Magazine - Ethical Bedding - Vegan Bedding
Choose Cruelty-Free Vegan Bedding - it’s easier than you think!
The three most common types of animal-based bedding are down, silk and wool.
Cruelty-Free Vegan bedding options like linen, cotton and bamboo are really plentiful, very affordable and with a little planning, it’s easy make the switch.
The down industry claims the majority of down is a by-product of the meat industry (meaning it was plucked from already dead birds), but there have been reports that 50%-80% of down still comes from live birds.
Silk bedding is often pitched as an alternative to down due to its hypoallergenic properties but traditional silk is from silkworms, farmed for so long they can no longer exist in the wild. If allowed, a silkworm would follow the natural stages of metamorphosis. We don’t realise that silkworms are boiled or gassed inside their cocoons before they can further mature to create silk.
Wool according to Peta is not much more ethically comforting so what are the cruelty free options?
The main vegan ethical alternatives are cotton, bamboo, Linen and eucalyptus silk. We take a look at how they are produced and where we can buy them.
For those who don’t know much about bamboo, it’s naturally hypoallergenic and antibacterial, very soft and quite breathable. But the main reason it is ahead of the others and winning eco awards around the world is it needs way less water than cotton to produce.
Panda is a london based UK company specialising in all things Bamboo. They’ve just won “Best Eco-Friendly Pillow” award for 2023. The core of the award winning Panda pillow is made of memory foam with the outer cover made of bamboo. It even comes with a 30-night trial period and a 10-year guarantee! retailing £44.95. Their range of products include pillows, sheets, towels are both sustainable and affordable. Their luxurious The Cloud bamboo Duvet is a national best seller. They have also launched a range of temperature control, anti bacterial mattress toppers from 385. Their products all feel very luxurious and have a distinctive black panda paw print. https://pandalondon.com/
Duvet Hog told us “ We make our duvets from the finest spun vegan-down. (recycled PET plastics from water bottles!) Our duvets and pillows are soft, light, warm and breathable, like real down, but without plucking a single feather.”
The Duvet Hog duvet is made without chemicals or toxins and are hypoallergenic. The other fantastic thing about this brand of duvet is you can wash and tumble-dry it at home. The company promises that they come out like new every time! www.duvethog.co.uk
The Ethical Bedding company was started byJames Higgins and specialise in Organic Eucalyptus Silk which uses 95% less water used than traditional cotton production - 150 litres vs. 3,000 litres. It’s grown on non-farmable land in biodiverse forests and uses no pesticides, herbicides or toxic chemicals in the process. “After years of working in FinTech, I realised my work no longer filled me with joy, and began impacting my health. I wanted to do something that would have a positive impact on the world, and saw that building a B2C brand would enable me to spread kindness through my business. I've always loved nature, and the protection of the planet is always front of mind with every business decision I make, so when I discovered the incredible properties of eucalyptus, I knew this was a fabric of the future. I set about scoping products suited to using this as a base textile, and this was how Ethical Bedding came about.” Higgins told us.
“It takes about 19 kWh to make our sheets, compared to 27 kWh for cotton sheets. 99% of the chemicals, water and waste is then reused in the unique closed loop system.”
Their silk fabric is made from eucalyptus pulp and has won awards for its environmental process. Creating pillows, duvets, sheets and blankets - The Ethical Bedding company is worth a visit.
The Linen Cupboard, based in Yorkshire have been in the ethical bedding business for over 20 years and offer a range of vegan sustainable sheets and duvets created from responsibly sourced raw materials. Their luxurious, quality filled duvets are finished by hand in their own Eco-Factory. They have a vast vegan section and a full range of British made bedding also linencupboard.co.uk
John Lewis is leading the way for department stores stocking multiple lines of vegan and sustainable duvets and bedding supplies.
'Our customers are telling us that they want to be more sustainable and live healthier, more responsible lives,' says Unna Patel, Partner & Filled Bedding Buyer at John Lewis & Partners. 'As plant based and vegan lifestyles are becoming increasingly popular, we think this product will delight our customers, providing them with a beautiful product that will give them a great night’s sleep.’
The Botanic Duvet range made in Devon from Tencel Lyocell, (a natural pulp derived from sustainable wood sources.) come in 2.5 and 4.5 tog versions, in single, double, king and super king sizes. Prices start from £125 for a single 2.5 tog duvet. www.johnlewis.com
When it comes to commercial use, incredibly there is only one totally vegan option in London if you choose to have a vegan hotel experience. The Hilton Bankside has one vegan suite available, created in partnership with multi-sensory design experts Bompas & Parr and given the thumbs up by The Vegan Society. It offers a vegan experience throughout, from a plant-based check-in desk and keycard to vegan-friendly bedding and eco-cotton carpet. where you can experience a range of features that embrace a plant-based lifestyle with all aspects thoughtfully designed including:
Pillow options include anti-bacterial, non-allergenic and environmentally sourced material to replace feather down such as Buckwheat pillow made with 100% organic buckwheat hulls, Kapok Pillow made from natural kapok, Millet Pillow made with organic millet husks, Orthopedic memory foam pillow made with bamboo shredded fibre along with Anti-Allery Foam Pillow, made with 100% recycled cluster polyester. There’s even a hand-embroidered Piñatex leather headboard (plant-based natural leather made from pineapple fibres) hilton.com
Bristol - The Base Retreat
Bristol’s Base Retreat is a vegan retreat and small animal sanctuary with luxury rooms and cabins, using all vegan bedding. We spoke to Jacqui, one of the owner who told us “Our bedding is very important to us. We have vegans and non vegans staying, so we like to show them that comfort is very important and possible to be completely vegan.
Our bedding is the "soft as down" range from a company called Soak and Sleep. It’s beautifully soft, light, warm and cozy without the cruelty”
Www.thebaseretreat.co.Uk
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