Ideal Home's Certified Experts have spent over 15,500 hours testing products so you can trust their in-depth knowledge and advice
Our fully qualified experts have put in the hours so they can help you buy the very best products for your home
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, with the introduction of a rigorous internal accreditation process that matches the demands of choosing products in an evermore complex market. We designed this accreditation with the purpose of giving our editors a clear pathway to develop in-depth knowledge of their specific product categories so that they are recognised as true and genuine experts in their areas.
- 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.
All of our experienced editors are fully qualified, having completed all the steps required to achieve Certified Expert status.
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 nearly 15,000 hours over the past five years testing mattresses, as well as duvets and pillows, and much more. Amy is quite literally paid to sleep! She’s laid down her head on well over 150 mattresses, and at home she’s currently sleeping on the Simba Hybrid mattress – 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, from sofa beds at John Lewis and IKEA, to the latest bedding at Dunelm, M&S, and more. She’s seen behind the scenes at mattress and textile makers in the UK, toured IKEA’s mattress testing facilities in Sweden, and is a regular at trade events, such as the National Bed Federation Bed Show, where she catches up with industry experts from leading brands such as Silentnight, Sleepeezee, Sealy, Simba, Nectar, Hypnos, and Harrison Spinks to find out first about the latest sleep innovations.
She also stays on top of the latest sleep trends and wellbeing advice, liaising with psychologists, osteopaths, chiropractors, and sleep experts to keep up-to-date with expert advice on how to achieve a good night’s sleep, and talking to interior designers and trend forecasters about the next big things in bedroom decor.
Amy's certified expert stats to date
- Over 15,000 hours testing mattresses and bedding (equivalent to flying around the world 300 times!)
- First-hand experience of over 200 products
- Sleep testing of our top mattress Simba Hybrid Original, plus 3 leading competitors
- Regular attendance at trade events, such as the National Bed Federation Bed Show
- Behind-the-scenes visits to IKEA's mattress testing centre in Sweden and UK mattress and textile makers
- Interviews with key industry contacts from leading brands including Silentnight, Sleepeezee, Sealy, Simba, Nectar, Hypnos, and Harrison Spinks
Ideal Home's Certified Expert for Appliances: Molly Cleary
Our Kitchen Appliances Editor Molly Cleary has worked in the world of product testing for five years now, racking up thousands of hours of testing in the process.
As our resident air fryer guru, she’s spent over 200 hours at Ideal Home’s dedicated test facility to evaluate and compare the bestselling models on the market, as well as countless hours at home seeing how those products fare in a real-world environment over time.
She’s had hands-on experience with dozens of air fryers, as well as overseen the rigorous review process of over 60 reviews by her expert team of freelancers. After first testing it back in 2023, she crowned the Ninja Foodi FlexDrawer as the best air fryer money can buy and retested it in 2025 to ensure that she knows the 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 12kg of chunky oven chips in a test setting.
Molly's certified expert stats to date
- 300 hours testing kitchen appliances
- 12kg of chunky oven chips cooked in an air fryer
- 20 days spent at professional test centres and industry shows
- Interviews with key industry contacts from leading brands
Ideal Home's Certified Expert for Vacuums: Lauren Bradbury
Lauren Bradbury is Ideal Home’s Certified Expert for Vacuums having completed all the steps to becoming a fully-fledged expert for this handy household appliance.
So far, Lauren has spent over 350 hours testing the best vacuums (including the best cordless vacuums) from leading brands such as Dyson, Shark, Gtech, Miele, and Halo - and that doesn’t include the time she spends actually cleaning her house with these appliances! She has also built our new guides for the best robot vacuum cleaners and the best vacuum mops from scratch, bulk testing countless new models and creating strict testing guidelines for our freelance reviewers to follow, too.
As she shares her home with a dog that sheds, she is particularly interested in the best vacuums for pet hair and all the tools and attachments that come with them. But more than anything, she just wants to help readers find the best floorcare appliance for their needs – without wasting their money in the process.
Lauren's certified expert stats to date
- Over 350 hours testing vacuums (the equivalent of watching all 10 seasons of Friends back-to-back nearly four times over!)
- 25 vacuums fully tested
- Over 1,000 vacuum tools and attachments tested
- Behind-the-scenes visits to both Shark and Dyson’s HQ
- Interview time with vacuum experts and engineers from iconic brands including Dyson and Gtech
- Vacuumed approximately 240,000 square feet in total – about the same as four football pitches!
Ideal Home's Certified Expert for Furniture: Sara Hesikova
Sara's certified expert stats to date
- 50+ hours sit-testing sofas
- Hands-on experience of nearly 300 sofas at over 16 showrooms
- Interviews with key industry contacts from leading brands, including Darlings of Chelsea and King Living
Our Furniture Certified Expert is Sara Hesikova, who 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 nearing the 300 mark (98 of these in search of the best modular sofas), with a grand total of nearly 50 hours spent testing to date.
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!
Ideal Home's Certified Expert for Cookware: Molly Cleary
With 15 cookware sets tested in person by Molly, she's fast on-track to qualify as our Certified Expert for Cookware. She has the lucky job of trying out new pan sets regularly in her kitchen, which she uses twice a day most days of the week for in her thorough, real-life review process. That’s around 10 hours a week of ongoing testing.
Molly tests a huge range of cookware, from cast iron cookware to non-stick pans and saucepan sets, and oversees the review process of dozens more by her team of expert freelance writers.
In the last year alone she's tested Ideal Home’s top-rated non-stick pan, the Our Place’s Titanium pan, as well as the brand’s Essentials range, as well as commissioned reviews of Le Creuset, M&S, John Lewis, IKEA and Tefal sets, to name just a few.
And it’s not just pans she’s invested in as part of this process – she’s also tested out knife sets, baking trays, mixing bowls, chopping boards and utensils as part of her quest to find the cookware actually worth buying.
Molly's certified expert stats to date
- Real-life testing of 15 cookware sets
- Kitchen time with experts from Le Creuset and Ninja
- 500 hours spent testing cookware
