Since 1920, the Ideal Home editors have been on the hunt for devices to make life easier for homeowners. In our January 1921 issue, all the housemaid wanted was a lever-operated wooden wash bucket, because ‘nothing is more dreaded than washing day, with its wear and tear and incessant backache’ – these days, we have washing machines so smart they talk virtually to us!
100 years on, we’ve built our Certified Expert programme to take the Ideal Home editors’ product expertise to the next level in the 2020s, with the introduction of a rigorous internal accreditation process that matches the demands of choosing products in an evermore complex market. The accreditation creates a clear pathway for our passionate editors to become true and genuine experts in a specific product category, with documented and measured real-life experience of everything from factory visits to see the products being made, right through to hours spent testing the market-leaders at home.
The Ideal Home Certified Expert programme is a long-term commitment to achieving the best product expertise you can find, so that you can be 100% sure our editors know their stuff (and then some!) when giving you advice on choosing, buying and maintaining key purchases for your home.
We’ve kicked off this programme with some of our most popular categories: Small Appliances, Sleep, Vacuums, Furniture and Cookware. With a dedicated editor assigned to each category, these chosen editors are following a clear and carefully designed path to become an Ideal Home Certified Expert in their area. They’ve been putting in the hours to reach expert level, building up an unrivalled knowledge of their product category so that they know exactly what to look out for when making a purchase.
- Hands-on testing Ideal Home’s Certified Experts have hands-on experience testing the bestselling and highest-rated products on the market, developing a stringent set of criteria specific to each product category. This then becomes the benchmark against which all products are reviewed and judged.
- In-depth product knowledge Our experts immerse themselves in their product category, learning everything there is to know about the product, from how it's made, to its biggest pros and cons. They are non-biased and able to formulate an honest judgement about the USPs offered by different products on the market.
- Insider experience For unrivalled insights into their product categories, our Certified Experts are constantly speaking to industry experts such as product developers and retailers, so they know the market leaders and the growing trends within the industry. They strengthen this knowledge by getting out in the industry, on factory visits, showroom tours and at industry trade shows.
- Consumer intel The Certified Experts don't rely on their own knowledge, they also seek input from consumers to gain a full understanding of their buying needs, to ensure our testing criteria hit the mark.
Right now, two of our most experienced editors are fully qualified, having completed all the steps required to achieve Certified Expert status, and we have three more – we call them our Certified Experts in Training! – who are well on their way to meeting the exacting demands set in the programme.
Ideal Home’s fully-qualified Certified Experts
Ideal Home's Certified Expert for Sleep: Amy Lockwood
Amy Lockwood is Ideal Home’s Certified Expert for Sleep, having spent over 1,000 hours testing mattresses, as well as duvets and pillows. Amy is quite literally paid to sleep! She’s laid down her head on well over 100 mattresses, and at home she’s currently sleeping on the Simba Hybrid original – her top pick in her round up of the best mattresses on the market.
Amy’s regularly out and about visiting showrooms to see the latest products in person, and In October this year she spent the day at the National Bed Federation Bed Show, where she got to try mattresses and speak to industry experts from leading brands such as Silentnight, Sleepeezee, Sealy, Simba, Nectar, Hypnos and Harrison Spinks.
Amy's certified expert stats to date
- Over 1,000 hours testing mattresses and bedding (equivalent to flying from London to Sydney and back 22 times!)
- First-hand experience of close to 200 products
- Sleep testing of our top mattress Simba Hybrid Original, plus 3 leading competitors
- Interviews with key industry contacts from leading brands
Ideal Home's Certified Expert for Appliances: Molly Cleary
Molly Cleary has been testing small appliances for over three years, racking up an impressive total of over 250 hours of testing. Our resident air fryer guru, Molly has spent hours testing 18 air fryers herself, and has had her hands on way more than that. Molly first got to test the Ninja Foodi Flexdrawer back in 2023 at the test centre. It’s the top buy in our best air fryers guide and Molly knows this product inside and out.
Constantly on the lookout for innovation, Molly is a regular at IFA in Berlin – the world's largest consumer and electronics show – and has visited SharkNinja’s testing and development spaces in Frankfurt and London to understand more about the technology behind the design.
The ‘chip test’ is part of the rigorous testing process Molly has developed for air fryers. Crispy chips are the holy grail of air-fried food, and over the course of her testing she has cooked over 6kg of chunky oven chips – the weight of a pack of six 1L bottles of water.
And that’s just air fryers. Molly’s skills and experience go further with time spent researching and testing all sorts of small kitchen appliances, from stand mixers to blenders, slow cookers to ice cream makers.
Molly's certified expert stats to date
- 250 hours testing kitchen appliances
- 6kg of chunky oven chips cooked in an air fryer
- 10 days spent at professional test centres and industry shows
- Interviews with key industry contacts from leading brands
Ideal Home’s Certified Experts in Training
These editors are busy working through the Certified Expert programme steps, totting up their testing hours and building their product and industry knowledge to reach full certification status.
Ideal Home's Certified Expert for Vacuums: Jullia Joson
Jullia Joson is working diligently to complete all the steps to become Ideal Home’s Certified Expert for vacuums. We call her an ‘expert in training’ while she builds up the hours she needs under her belt to reach the level we require of our experts.
Jullia has spent over 60 hours so far testing products for our vacuum buying guides, trying out products from leading brands including Dyson, Shark, Henry, Gtech and Bosch. Jullia is currently working on developing a rigorous set of testing criteria for the best vacuums for pet hair, to help shape our reviews and our other vacuum guides.
Jullia's certified expert stats to date
- 60 hours testing vacuums
- 5 vacuums fully tested
- 2,520 sq m covered whilst vacuuming (equivalent of two Olympic-sized swimming pools)
Ideal Home's Certified Expert for Furniture: Sara Hesikova
Our furniture certified expert in training Sara Hesikova gets to do what most of us dream of – she's paid to lounge on sofas! On a mission to research the best sofas from the UK’s leading brands, Sara is regularly out and about visiting showrooms to undertake ‘sit testing’, and her current total of sofas she’s sat on as part of her training is 80 (60 of these in search of the best modular sofas), with a grand total of 25 hours spent testing to date – the same time it would take to watch all the Star Wars films back to back.
Sara's regular roster of showrooms she visits includes Sofa.com, Sofology, King Living, Heal's, IKEA, ScS, John Lewis, DUSK, Habitat, Barker & Stonehouse, Loaf, Aram, Darlings of Chelsea, Next, Made.com and Dunelm. She definitely gets her steps in on testing days!
Sara's certified expert stats to date
- 25 hours sit-testing sofas
- Hands-on experience of over 80 sofas at 16 showrooms
- Interviews with key industry contacts from leading brands, including Darlings of Chelsea and King Living
Ideal Home's Certified Expert for Cookware: Molly Cleary
With 12 cookware sets tested in person by Molly, she's fast on-track to become our certified expert for cookware. Molly tests products from cast iron cookware to non-stick pans and saucepan sets both in her small kitchen at home, and in Ideal Home's test kitchen to put the cookware through its paces. She's tested the number one product in our best saucepan guide – the Stellar 3-Piece Eclipse Saucepan Set – and the number one in our round up of best non-stick frying pans, and has also got hands-on with other leading brands including Hexclad, Le Creuset, Our Place, Tefal and ProCook.
Molly's certified expert stats to date
- Real-life testing of 12 cookware sets
- Kitchen time with experts from Le Creuset and Ninja
- 77 hours spent testing pans
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