John Lewis £45 pillows smell of sulphur "not uncommon"

donglefan

A few months ago I bought a pair of duck down pillows, £45 each from John Lewis. We started using them recently and noticed an unpleasant smell of sulphur from them.

I asked JL CS for a refund but they say because we did not discover this within their 28 day window, all they will offer is an exchange. Moreover, their manufacturer "advised this is not uncommon with Duck Down and is not regarded as a fault."
I have some other brands of duck down pillows that have no smell so I guess JL has a low quality supplier.

Given that it seems likely any replacements would smell the same, I want a refund, and I wondered if anyone has the contact details of the JL CEO, which can sometimes cut through the red tape.

topbadger

It is indeed not uncommon, and I doubt the CEO would thank you for wasting his time!

Run them through the tumble dryer on low setting for a couple of hours with a couple of Bounce (or similar) sheets. That will help the (completely natural!) sulphur-based compounds to evaporate more quickly.

donglefan

Thank you, but I don't want to cover up the smell of sulphur with the smell of an artifical perfume product.
I want to be able to purchase a different brand that doesn't have the smell.

topbadger

You don't actually have to use the Bounce sheets. What will make the real difference is warming the pillows up so the completely natural sulphur-containing chemicals can evaporate more quickly than they otherwise would.

It really is completely normal for good-quality duck-down pillows to have this sort of smell – it comes from the duck feathers themselves. Cheaper ones (and also expensive ones that don't smell) are much more likely to contain the masking chemicals you want to avoid, or have been chemically treated to remove the smell. You can't have it both ways, I'm afraid – the only other alternative is synthetic pillows!

dmg24

donglefan wrote: »

Thank you, but I don't want to cover up the smell of sulphur with the smell of an artifical perfume product.
I want to be able to purchase a different brand that doesn't have the smell.

I agree with topbadger, and buying the same item from a different manufacturer will not solve the problem!

donglefan

Thank you for the ideas.

After a bit of nudging JL agreed to have them in to give them the sniff test, which I'm happy with. After all, you can't really make a judgement on this without sniffing.

neilmcl

JL are well within their rights to offer a replacement, you can't insist on a refund on the basis of what the replacement "might" be like. Get the new pillows and if they still have the issue then go back to JL for a refund.

vyle

neilmcl wrote: »

JL are well within their rights to offer a replacement, you can't insist on a refund on the basis of what the replacement "might" be like. Get the new pillows and if they still have the issue then go back to JL for a refund.

I'd love to see how OP would try to exercise their rights:

"Yes, I want a refund because these duck down pillows contain duck down. How dare they!"