How often should you wash your pillows and duvet?

Why bother

The fill soaks up sweat and feeds dust mites. A thorough-tier job. Skippable when life's busy, worth it when it isn't.

Why it's a range

Sleep right under it, or with pets on the bed, and it's every month or two. A protected insert goes six.

What the job involves

1. Strip the covers and read the care tag before anything else. Most synthetic pillows and a lot of comforters are machine washable, but some down, wool, or memory foam is dry-clean or hand-wash only, and a machine will wreck the wrong one.
2. Wash two pillows at a time so the drum stays balanced, on a gentle cycle with a little mild detergent and an extra rinse. A duvet usually wants a large-capacity machine or a trip to the laundromat.
3. If the tag allows it, use hot water, at least 120 to 130 degrees F. That is the temperature that actually kills dust mites; a warm or cold wash just moves them about.
4. Tumble dry it properly, with three or four clean tennis or dryer balls thrown in to knock the filling back into shape and stop it clumping. Make sure it is bone dry before it goes back on the bed, or you have just swapped sweat for mildew.

Do it yourself, or pay someone?

Yourself, for anything machine-washable, which is most synthetic pillows and many comforters; the only cost is detergent and dryer time. Send down, wool, or an oversized duvet that won't fit a home machine to a dry cleaner, about $30 to $60 each, with a queen or king most often $35 to $45.

What skipping it costs

$30 to $300 per pillow, and $50 to $300 or more for a comforter or duvet. That isn't a repair bill, it's the new bedding you end up buying. Leave a pillow or duvet unwashed and it soaks up sweat, body oil and skin cells, yellows, mats, and turns into a dust mite farm; at that point most people bin it and start again rather than launder it. A wash and a dry cycle is a great deal cheaper than replacing the lot a year or two early.

Signs it's overdue

• Yellow or brown stains creeping across the pillow or the duvet. That is built-up sweat, body oil and saliva, and it has been building a while.
• Morning sneezing, congestion, itchy eyes or asthma that eases when you're away from the bed. That is the classic dust mite pattern, and the bedding is the most likely culprit.
• A musty or sour smell, or a pillow that won't fluff back when you fold it. The filling has matted; it is overdue for a wash, or for the bin if it's already a year or two old.

When to start thinking about it

A few days' warning does it. Grumpty grumbles 3 days out, then leaves you alone. Mark it done and Grumpty sets the next one, every 3 months, so you can go back to forgetting it exists.

Questions people ask