About Mrs House
How we test, and why you can trust us
Mrs House exists because most household reviews are written by people who have never opened the box. We buy what we test, we live with it for weeks, and we publish the things that went wrong alongside the things that went right.
The safe-home standard
What we will not recommend
Every product is checked against the same list before it is scored. If it fails on any of the four, it does not appear on this site, however well it performs.
✗
No formaldehyde-releasing preservatives
Quaternium-15, DMDM hydantoin and their relatives release formaldehyde slowly into the air of a closed room. There are better preservatives available and we expect brands to use them.
✗
No undisclosed fragrance allergens
“Parfum” on its own tells you nothing. We want the twenty-six EU-listed allergens declared, even where the law does not yet require it.
✗
No unnecessary flame-retardant treatments
Required on upholstered furniture, rarely justified on bedding and textiles. Where a treatment is optional, we treat its presence as a mark against the product.
✗
No PVC or phthalate plasticisers
Common in cheap shower curtains, mattress protectors and storage. Cheap for the manufacturer, not for the room it sits in.
✓
Certification beats a claim on the box
GOTS, OEKO-TEX Standard 100, EU Ecolabel and Allergy UK carry weight here. “Natural”, “eco” and “non-toxic” carry none.
Our method
Three rules, applied to everything
01
We buy at retail
No PR samples, no gifted product, no early access in exchange for a kind word. Everything on this site was bought at the price you would pay, from a shop you could use.
02
We live with it
A minimum of three weeks in a real house, used the way it is meant to be used. Bedding gets washed. Cleaners get used on real spills. Nothing is judged from the packaging.
03
We score it blind
Scores are recorded against fixed criteria before anyone looks at the price or the brand. The final number is agreed by two testers, not one.
The scoring key
What the numbers actually mean
4.5 to 5.0
Mrs House Approved
Exceptional. We would buy it again with our own money and have recommended it to family.
4.0 to 4.4
Recommended
Very good, with a caveat or two that we spell out in the review rather than bury.
3.0 to 3.9
Fine with reservations
It works. Something better exists at the price, and we will tell you what it is.
Below 3.0
Not recommended
We tested it so you do not have to. These reviews stay published, because the failures are the useful part.
MRS
HOUSE
On money, plainly
How we make our money
Some links on this site are affiliate links. If you buy through one, the retailer pays us a small commission at no extra cost to you. That is how the testing gets paid for.
What that commission does not buy is a score. We do not accept payment for reviews, we do not let brands see a review before it is published, and we do not remove a bad score because a relationship depends on it. Where we have a commercial relationship with a brand, including Zleepy, we say so on the page, every time.
If you ever think a review here reads like an advert, tell us. That is the only quality control that matters.