Scooms Hungarian Goose Feather & Down Mattress Topper reviewed

The Scooms Hungarian Goose Feather & Down Mattress Topper is a 7cm baffle-box topper filled with 85% Hungarian goose feather and 15% goose down in a 233 thread count cotton cover, hand-made in Hungary and priced from £195 for a single. It is one of the better-documented feather toppers sold in the UK, with published fill weights and four named standards.

Construction and fill weights

Scooms’ product page describes a baffle-box build of 7.5cm squares, double stitched and edged with white cotton piping, a down-proof 100% cotton cover and four 3.5 x 50cm elastic corner straps. Scooms designs the topper in the UK and has it made in small batches in Hungary. It also publishes the fill weight for each size, which few feather toppers do:

Worked out per square metre, every size carries about 1,300g of filling, so a super king is filled as generously as a single.

What the four standards mean

• OEKO-TEX Standard 100 (certificate 25.3.0205, INNOVATEXT): OEKO-TEX says labelled items have been tested against a list of more than 1,000 harmful substances.
• Responsible Down Standard: the standard run by Textile Exchange prohibits live plucking and force-feeding.
• Downafresh: the mark certifies the hygiene and cleanliness requirements of EN 12935, and Downafresh says the filling is washed and dried at 100°C or more.
• NOMITE: an anti-allergen mark for people with a house dust mite allergy, which Scooms applies to its tightly woven cotton casing.

Feel and upkeep

We rate it soft, 3 out of 10. Feather-rich fillings compress under the body and give the sink-in feel of a hotel bed, but they add cushioning rather than support. Scooms says to shake and rotate the topper regularly to keep the fill even. It is spot clean only, so a washable protector on top is part of the cost. The NOMITE casing helps with dust mites, but the NHS still suggests synthetic bedding for people with allergic rhinitis.

Delivery is free and next day to mainland UK on orders over £50, which every size clears, in one-hour DPD slots. Scooms’ 60-night trial covers its duvets and bed linen, not this topper, which can be returned within 30 nights if unused, unwashed and in its original packaging. It carries a one-year manufacturing guarantee.