20+ year old goose down sleeping bag, giving my nose allergic reaction

textbook

Got a 24 year old goose down sleeping bag, ii use it my nose gets blocked. Some sort of allergy. It says 30 degrees hand-wash. Shall I take to laundrette for professional wash or just replace ?

JosephK

Do you use it just for, say, summer use in a caravan or all 4 seasons up the mountains? Personally, at that age, I'd replace for comfort.

poseidon1

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6681213/20-year-old-goose-down-sleeping-bag-giving-my-nose-allergic-reaction

I had a 40 year old double size goose down duvet ( from the Swiss Centre central London), but after many years in storage had developed a very musty aroma and likely had developed mould.

Took it down to my local Waitrose who act as receiving agents for specialist cleaners Jonhsons. For £25 had it specially cleaned and treated.

It took Johnsons two goes to completely deal with the smell ( no extra charge), but I now ( safely ) use as my regular seasonal summer duvet.

Certainly reccomend them for reinstating a duvet that would likely cost around £400 to replace new.

Sapindus

It's probably full of dust mites and that's what is giving you the allergic response.

GrubbyGirl_2

I have a goose down jacket which is white (stupid colour to buy!) so I have to wash regularly. I use a specialist detergent and it comes up fine each time. This is the one I use

https://nikwax.com/en-gb/products/cleaning/clothing-cleaning/down-wash/

Jemma01

😭😭 I didn't know these were called a goose down sleeping bags, I thought WTH how did the goose get there 😭🤣

I would get it professionally cleaned, for things like that, I don't buy used items.

tooldle

I have an eider down duvet. Was a gift to me as a child. It’s a single bed size and fits nicely in the washing machine. I use Down Wash on a low temperature setting. It comes up lovely. You’ve nothing to loose and the bottle of Down Wash is considerably cheaper than professional cleaning.

textbook

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82117468#Comment_82117468

So would professional clean kill them or just replace?

poseidon1

The professional clean of my down duvet certainly remedied all the issues which aggravated my asthma, when I took it out of storage.

Sapindus

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82123199#Comment_82123199

I expect any sort of clean would kill them, but they will still be in there and their dead bodies could still make you sneeze.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82123313#Comment_82123313

Duvets are made of different fabric to sleeping bags? Maybe the casing had some mould spores from storage.

I don't know, I just recall some statistic saying that x% of a five year old pillow is composed of dead dust mites, and I can't get that vision out of my head.

Silvertabby

This thread has, unfortunately, brought back memories of Service issue sleeping bags.......

IYKYK!