The process
The eiderdown process
The Common eider lives at sea and comes ashore only to nest. Our farm, Hraun á Skaga, sits at the tip of the Skagi peninsula in North Iceland, surrounded by the North Atlantic, and each spring, the Common eider returns to nest along its shores. For over a century, we have nurtured a bird sanctuary by enclosing the nesting area with a fine-meshed fence to keep out Arctic foxes and mink, the latter of which is an invasive species in Iceland. The protection of the area has led to a steady increase in the numbers of eiders that come to nest on our farm and a special relationship between us and the bird that makes world’s softest down, Eiderdown.
The ethical way
A special relationship
When the female eider has laid three to four eggs, her chest starts shedding the precious down, which allows her to transfer warmth from her body to the eggs and insulate the nest. Near the end of the nesting period, we carefully by hand collect down from each nest and replace it with a generous amount of dry hay. The eider ducks are familiar with these visits and do not feel disturbed. They remain incredibly calm as we walk around in the colony. And when the young leave the nest, the remaining down is left behind for us as a final gift. If we would not collect it, it would be damaged by the rain of blown away by the wind.
Eiderdown collection is an ethical, sustainable and respectful practice, but also time consuming and labor intensive. Between 2000 and 3000 eiders nest in our sanctuary every year, where each nest usually contains between 10 and 20 grams of eiderdown, which we collect by hand over multiple weeks. All of us here at Hraun á Skaga work together in protecting the eiders and processing the down. Our partnership with this wild bird is a story that began more than a century ago, and one we hope will continue far into the future.
Keep it natural
How we clean Eiderdown
After having collected the eiderdown from the sanctuary, we start the cleaning process, which follows our traditional family protocol for obtaining clean high-quality eiderdown. We use no chemicals in the process.
To eliminate germs, the down is heated for 4 days at temperatures between 120 and 130°C in a big oven we built ourselves. Next, a custom tumbling machine filters out the dirt, while a second machine removes nearly all feathers. Both machines are built in Iceland. We then clean the eiderdown by hand, removing all remaining feathers and impurities, leaving only the soft eiderdown. It can take up to 10 hours to hand-clean enough eiderdown to fill one duvet. Finally, the eiderdown is gently washed by hand with luke-warm water and a small amount of high-quality down soap, to remove dust. Our cleaned eiderdown meets hypo-allergenic standards, based on tests performed by the International Down and Feather Laboratory.
In the end
The Skaga Eiderdown Duvet
The Skaga Eiderdown Duvet is a handmade local product. It is important to us that all parts of our duvet are as local as possible. This obsession could be rooted in the old Icelandic mindset “we can do it ourselves”, as described by the Nobel laureate Halldór Laxness in his book “Independent People”. But we’ve also found that local production ensures the highest quality, proper working conditions for our collaborators, and is the most environmentally friendly.
What makes our duvet unique is that the casing is made from the finest down-proof GOTS certified Organic Cotton Batiste (purchased from a weaving mill in Austria that buys organic cotton from India, since cotton unfortunately does not grow in Iceland), and that the casings are handmade in a small sewing workshop in our nearby village Skagaströnd. Fjóla and Sólveig at the workshop have years of experience making high-quality garments to a loyal group of customers, artisans and a craft that has stood the test of time.
When the casing is ready we fill it with pure quality-controlled eiderdown from Hraun á Skaga. Each duvet is signed and sealed by the Icelandic National Eiderdown Quality Control Agency, which certifies that the eiderdown is of good quality and confirms the exact weight of the pure eiderdown that the duvet contains.
Finally the duvet is placed in our simple recycled cardboard packaging, ready to ship. Packaging and labelling are also made in Iceland, in keeping with our values.
Our local production ensures that we can fully tailor the duvet to your wishes. This includes dimensions, number of channels, amount of down, and so forth. This may sound overwhelming, we know, but we have years of experience with customizing duvets, so do not hesitate getting in touch for advice! We would love to hear your ideas, wishes and suggestions.
Visit our Shop
You can take a look at our duvets by pressing the button below!
If you have any questions, we’d be more than happy to talk to you.
Email us on [email protected] or call (+354) 835 9600.
