SHAENA: I just want to not think about my pillow when I wake up in the morning. If I’m not thinking about it …ROSIE: If you’re not in some sort of discomfort.SHAENA: Meaning, I’m not in pain.ROSIE: Yeah, exactly.SHAENA: I was just like, okay, I’m awake and nothing hurts.CAIRA: I’m Caira Blackwell.ROSIE: I’m Rosie Guerin, and you’re listening to The Wirecutter Show.ROSIE: Caira, can I ask you an intimate question?CAIRA: Of course.ROSIE: How do you sleep? Do you sleep well?CAIRA: I actually sleep like a baby, yes. After all this time, as a sleep writer, I have to say yes, don’t I?ROSIE: That’s a flex. Do you like your pillow?CAIRA: Okay, I don’t.ROSIE: We’re talking about pillows today.CAIRA: We are talking about pillows, and this is so funny because as the ex-mattress writer, people still come to me asking for mattress recommendations and pillow recommendations, and I have to always tell them that that actually was never my area, and I have no idea what the deal is with pillows.ROSIE: So when you bought your pillow, did you have an idea of what you were looking for?CAIRA: I had no idea. I just got the first one that looked comfortable and I spent a pretty penny on it, so I figured it was probably fine, but I think I’m due for another one.ROSIE: It’s tough because they can represent the difference between a good night’s sleep versus a sleep where you wake up with a crick or just some discomfort in the morning.CAIRA: And that’s why we’re going to bring on Wirecutter’s sleep writer, Shaena Montanari, and she’s really going to help us figure out what kind of pillow is right for you and your body.ROSIE: We’re going to talk to Shaena about what makes a good pillow and how to choose one based on the way you sleep and your body type. Before we jump into the episode with Shaena, really quickly, I want to let folks know about this special offer where if you’re not already a subscriber to the New York Times, you can explore the Times for free now without paywalls. During your first month, you got to download the New York Times app and you can find all your favorite shows like Modern Love and Cannonball and the back catalog for this show, The Wirecutter Show. Check out some old episodes. Okay, we’ll be right back after the break with Shaena.CAIRA: Welcome back. With us now is Shaena Montanari, a writer here at Wirecutter who covers pillows and sleep products. A fun fact about her, before she was a journalist, she was actually a paleontologist.ROSIE: Not only was she a paleontologist, but she has like 15 degrees.CAIRA: I know, and two kids and a lovely, lovely life out in Connecticut.ROSIE: It’s …SHAENA: You’re so nice.CAIRA: Welcome to the show.ROSIE: Welcome. Welcome, welcome, welcome.SHAENA: Thank you for hyping me up.ROSIE: So let’s talk about sleep. We spend however many hours sleeping. How much does your pillow actually matter to your sleep? What is the connection there?SHAENA: I think it matters a lot. We wake up in the middle of the night feeling uncomfortable, and if you wake up, it’s hard to get back to sleep sometimes. And so I think the comfort of the pillow can really change that, being able to fall back to sleep or feeling cool or feeling supported and not waking up feeling crumpled.ROSIE: Crumpled.CAIRA: So how would somebody know that it’s time for a new pillow?SHAENA: First things first, you really should get a new pillow. I mean, three-ish years is probably the max you should push it.CAIRA: No way.SHAENA: Yeah. Especially, well, I mean, it really does depend on the material. If it’s a synthetic material, like a memory foam or a down alternative, which is a polyester fill, those really compress and aren’t going to come back to life. So after they compress and break down, it’s going to be maybe two to three years you’re going to start to notice I’m not feeling as supportive.With a down pillow, that can be washed and fluffed more easily. So if you already have a pretty soft down pillow, it could last longer than that. Some people do keep them really nice. You have to wash them though so they don’t get gross and filled with dust. So that can last a little longer and latex can be a little more resilient and last longer, but you’re going to probably notice after a little while that it just starts to feel different and more compressed.So yeah, then you’re going to want to pick up something new. And I think the morning is the key. It’s neck pain related to your pillow, you feel it in the morning when you wake up. It won’t be like your 2:00 PM neck pain, that might be something else, but your morning neck pain, I would look to your pillow and be like, “Maybe it’s time to replace it.”ROSIE: This is a slight digression. How do you dispose of pillows? How do you get rid of pillows?SHAENA: I get this question a lot and it is a good question because as I have had at least 50 pillows in my house, I think over the last year in testing, and it’s hard because a lot of thrift stores and donation places don’t take pillows because they’re right next to your head and they’re used. You can try to find textile recycling is what I tell people. At my local dump, there is a textile recycling company that you can put clothes and pillows is included on that list.Unfortunately though, memory foam and foam pillows are not really recyclable. At these textile places, they typically don’t want the foams. So unfortunately, that probably has to head to the landfill. So it’s something to consider when you’re purchasing. Sometimes people want to think of the end of life of their product too. And so I also, there’s pillows I recommend that are wool for example, which those actually last a pretty long time. I’d say it can be kind of fluffed up like down, but also biodegradable naturally.CAIRA: Yeah. We’re going to get into all the different kinds of pillows that you’ve tested because there’s so much to learn there. But first I want to talk about how you actually tested these pillows, Shaena, because like you said, you’ve got, I’m sure, piles of them in your house and it’s hard because it’s so personal of a product to recommend for other people. So how are you going about doing that?SHAENA: Certainly is. Yeah, this is a tough one. Everyone’s preferences are so different. To start, I look at the pillows first. So I’ve seen the most pillows out of anyone at Wirecutter. So when I look at them, I just give it an assessment of some quality assessments just to see out of the box, is it really smelly? If it’s memory foam, how long does it take that smell to go away? There’s this off-gassing that you get with memory foams that isn’t necessarily harmful, but it can be unpleasant to people and they don’t want to smell it at all.CAIRA: People are very sensitive to it.SHAENA: Very sensitive. I want to make sure that that smell goes away because a lot of times memory foam comes compressed in plastic. So I want to check for smells, the quality of the case, and just the way it’s shipped, does it seem like all these boxes are checked before I then have other testers at Wirecutter who test pillows for me. So I sleep on every pillow and if I think it could be a contender, I ask my testers, and I’m constantly recruiting testers too, but I have some people who I know have certain sleep positions and preferences. I know what they want already.And so I think, “Oh, this type of person might like this type of pillow.” So I send them a pillow, their own new one to sleep on for … I try to say at least three nights. And I want to do different sleep positions too. Most people sleep on their side. That’s the most common. There was one research study done about this a while ago. And so side sleeping seems to be the most common, side and back. And then stomach sleeping is the rarest. Typically, when I talk to, and I hate to say this, but when I talk to specialists, they say that’s not the best way to sleep.ROSIE: It isn’t. I don’t particularly feel refreshed when I wake up.SHAENA: Do you twist your neck?ROSIE: Yeah.SHAENA: Yes.ROSIE: There could be many contributing factors. My son is also a stomach sleeper, but face down. So I think he makes a little triangle pocket where he gets a little oxygen, but otherwise straight flat.CAIRA: He’s just snorkeling every night in a mattress?ROSIE: It’s kind of alarming, but he sleeps well.SHAENA: Yeah. Some people are like that. And so try to think of different sleeping positions when we’re doing testing and just different preferences. I mean, I think there are some general axioms as I’ve recommended on Wirecutter. People probably need a firmer pillow than they think they might need just because first pillows break in, they squish over the night. Your head, fun fact, weighs about 10 pounds. You have to think that that’s going to press your pillow down over the night and you move around. So having a firmer pillow is generally better, but then again, within that people have different preferences for height and your body size could contribute to what size of pillow you’d want. So yeah, I just try to get as many people as I can to test and then I put their opinions together with mine. Hopefully I can make some recommendations that people will like.ROSIE: And price points, I imagine too, because I guess there’s probably a fairly large range of what you’re going to spend on a pillow or am I wrong about that?SHAENA: No, I mean you’re right. The issue is I do try a lot of cheap-ish pillows. I guess that would be under $40 each and they’re just not very comfortable. So it ends up that a lot of the pillows I recommend, especially if you’re buying multiple, people would say, “Oh, it’s kind of on the pricier side,” unfortunately, but there is a very notable difference in quality. I try to provide a lot of options. There’s not just one best pillow, but the price is tough because as you start to go up, you can get $200, $300, I even looked at a $400 pillow yesterday.CAIRA: And you have to be replacing that one every three years?SHAENA: You do. I mean, you can maybe push it a little farther, but you’re not going to get … Likely get 10 years of use out of it and have it be consistently supportive.ROSIE: So choosing a pillow, as we’ve discussed, is dependent on how you sleep. What is the connection between the pillow type and the type of sleeper you are?SHAENA: A lot of side sleepers want this height that’s going to fill in this gap in between your shoulder and your head, your neck area. And so memory foam can be good for that because it can kind of cradle you when you need a lot of support there. Back sleepers, you could also use memory foam and be happy with that. The full weight of your head’s lying on it, so you’re going to get a lot of compression there. Stomach sleepers, I wouldn’t … Necessarily like memory foam is probably not the best fill for a lot of stomach sleepers because they’re going to want something lower profile. Some of the memory foam pillows that we recommend though have shredded memory foam that you can take out, which is adjustable.So that’s a big plus when recommending pillows is that you can add and subtract fill. So then if you get it, you say it’s too thick, take some out. And these companies also offer extra if for some reason you get it … I mean they come really filled, but if for some reason you’re like, “No, I need more,” you can get more. So for a variety of sleep positions, these adjustable memory foam pillows are actually really nice.CAIRA: So the goal when you’re using your pillow, no matter what position you’re sleeping in is that you have a relaxed, comfortable, almost standing posture, but when you’re lying down, right?SHAENA: Yes.CAIRA: I remember that when I was working on mattresses, you just want your spine to be aligned from head to toe essentially.SHAENA: Yeah, exactly. Like you’re standing up, but you’re lying down.CAIRA: Right. And if you’re feeling like maybe you’re waking up in the middle of the night and you think it might be your mattress, it’s probably a good idea to go for your pillow first actually, right?SHAENA: Yeah. I mean, that’s an easier fix. This is why people want to try a lot of different options. And I try to find pillows that you can return or have a warranty.CAIRA: How do you figure out if the pillow that you’ve bought is working? I think I read in your guide that you said that a lot of people tend to buy pillows that are too soft from jump and then when they continue sleeping on it gets softer and softer and softer. So maybe you buy this really firm pillow at first, but how do you figure out if that’s actually what you need? How long do you give it this time to break in and tell if it’s the right pillow for you?SHAENA: Yeah, because it can take a few days. And then I talked to memory foam manufacturers and it can take, they say even weeks sometimes to break in, especially memory foam because it’s synthetically created foam and it’s made of these little air pockets, these little cells and those sort of start to break down as you sleep on it. So that will continue to break down. And so it might be even a couple of weeks after you first start sleeping on it that it’s going to be more of its final feel. But I just want to not think about my pillow when I wake up in the morning. If I’m not thinking about it, then I’m like, that was good.ROSIE: If you’re not in some sort of discomfort.SHAENA: Meaning, I’m not in pain.ROSIE: Yeah, exactly.SHAENA: I was just like, “Okay, I’m awake and nothing hurts.” So as much as possible. Even sometimes though on pillows I do like, you could just naturally, you move your neck in the wrong way and you’re like … I kind of did that.CAIRA: User error?SHAENA: Yeah, user error. Maybe I put my neck on it crooked or scrunched up in the night, but I just want to not really be thinking about it in the morning.ROSIE: Well, can I offer some advice, which is that you end up on your stomach looking like a chalk outline, not on a pillow at all.SHAENA: A lot of stomach sleepers say they don’t want a pillow and I’ve never slept on my stomach.ROSIE: I haven’t chosen this life, this life chose me.SHAENA: Yeah, but it’s just your life. Right. But you want a pillow, Rosie.ROSIE: I have pillows. I always start on a pillow.SHAENA: Does it hurt to not be on a pillow?ROSIE: Yeah.SHAENA: Okay. So you’re not happy not being-ROSIE: No, no, no, no. No. Oh no, no, no.SHAENA: You want to be on a pillow.ROSIE: So you mentioned returning. I didn’t really know that you could return a pillow. What’s the deal there?SHAENA: Some companies are happy to take a return. There’s a warranty. One of our picks has a hundred-day warranty, so you can sleep on it for a few months. And then after two months, if you say, “This just isn’t working,” you can return it. Some don’t because obviously it’s a used product.CAIRA: Do all of your picks have return policies?SHAENA: Well, they do. A couple of them do say no returns. I have gotten messages from readers that they have been able to return them, even though I said there’s officially no returns. Sometimes if you ask nicely, you really don’t like something. But yeah, the reason some of the top picks get chosen is because I think that they give you a little bit of time to try it out, which yeah, it’s just hard after one night even. And if you’re in a store to try a pillow, I’ve talked to experts who are like, “Oh, try to lie on it for 30 minutes.” Well, you’re not probably going to do that in a store, so you’re going to need to take it home and then you’re going to need to return it. It’s kind of like a pair of shoes. I bought a pair of shoes yesterday and they said you can return them if you don’t wear them outside. I’m like, okay. Well, I was going to do that.ROSIE: I plan to wear them inside and outside.SHAENA: So some of the pillows are like, you can return it if you haven’t opened it or slept on it. It’s like, “Okay, that’s nice. Thank you.”CAIRA: You should really know what your sleep style is before you go out and try to buy yourself a pillow. Figure out if you sleep on your stomach, on your back or on your sides, you will have different requirements for what you need from a pillow and you just want your spine to be aligned the entire night. You should expect to see a wide variety of price ranges depending on what kind of pillow you get. And if you are really unsure, you’ve read Shaena’s guide and you don’t know exactly what you want, maybe check for a return policy so you can send that pillow back and get one that you actually like.ROSIE: We’re going to take a quick break. When we’re back, Caira and I are going to talk with Shaena a little bit more about the pillow options that are out there; memory foam, down alternative, down, and some of those pros and cons, as well as tips on cleaning. You got to clean your pillows, people, and longevity. We’ll be right back.CAIRA: Welcome back. Our guest today is Shaena Montanari. She’s Wirecutter’s pillow expert. So Shaena, there are three main types of pillows that you recommend in your guide; memory foam, down, and down alternative. So we want to break each of those down and we want to start with memory foam pillows. These seem to be a little bit confusing because they break down into their own two categories, the shredded foam options and then the single piece options. What’s the difference between the two?SHAENA: When they make memory foam, it’s a big chemical reaction and it just comes in one big piece. When it’s done, the reaction’s done. So you can take big pieces of that. And I think memory foam pillows of yore, as I remember my parents using when it was kind of a newer thing to use, they were one big piece. And sometimes they’re contoured, they’re made in different thicknesses and cut in different thicknesses. So that’s what I call a one piece of foam. A little more recently, there’s manufacturers that said, “Oh, let’s shred this foam and we can stuff it in a pillow.” And it’s typically mixed with a little bit of a down alternative, like a polyester fill to give it some softness and it’s not so lumpy like cubes. And so that’s adjustable typically.So those are two different options. I mean, I think the adjustables are generally better for different sleep positions. With the one piece, if you buy a four and a half inch thick piece and it’s not big enough for you, it’s just not really going to work out. So it’s a little more locked in to who that’s going to work for. So it’s maybe a little more risky. And if you can try one of those types of pillow in a store, you might get a better feel for what loft, as we say, would work for you because some of these brands have multiple lofts you can choose from.ROSIE: Is that foam thickness?SHAENA: Yeah. And it’s basically the thickness of the foam. So it’d be a low or a high. So it’s like one might be five inches and one might be six inches, which doesn’t seem like a lot, but you want to make sure you pick the right one for you or else it’s probably not going to work out. And some companies will give you these matrices of your size and your height and ask you about other pillows you’ve liked and it can give you recommendation of like, “Oh, I think you’re going to like this height.” But again, that’s a little bit trickier.CAIRA: Can you talk a little bit about what memory foam actually feels like? The difference also between the one piece and the shredded? I kind of imagine the shredded to be almost lumpy, but I’m sure that’s not the case.SHAENA: Well, some can feel lumpy. And so the picks that we have settled on have really got nicely cut foam and small enough pieces that you don’t feel the lumps and it’s got the nice polyester fill in there a little bit to make it feel soft and silky. And then with the one piece, it’s like, yeah, you’re laying on a piece of squishy foam.CAIRA: It’s sinky.SHAENA: Yeah, it’s sinky.CAIRA: Yeah.SHAENA: And there’s different types of foam. Different companies have different blends for their memory foam. So some that I’ve tested just feel super compressible and probably not very supportive, while others are way too hard. And I’m like, whose head … Your head would have to weigh 20 pounds for this to compress enough for it to be comfortable. So you can have a five-inch piece of foam, but if it’s really soft, then it might not be supportive too. So you just have to see if the type of foam jives with you.CAIRA: And are both one piece and shredded memory foam pillows better for side sleepers?SHAENA: Yeah, I’m a side sleeper and I really like one piece memory foam pillows, but I need it pretty tall. You could also use your shredded as a side sleeper too. I mean, I’ve had a lot of success with those also. If you like the sort of smooth blocky look, some people don’t like it just because the way it looks in a pillowcase too. It’s like that’s part of it.CAIRA: It doesn’t fill out the pillowcase.SHAENA: No.CAIRA: I have one of those contoured ones and my pillowcase looks weird.SHAENA: Yeah. I feel like there’s so many things that go into choosing a pillow. I mean, first and foremost is the comfort, but then you want things to look a certain way. And it’s like if it’s blocky, that might not just be what you want for your bed. But alternatively, the shredded pillows, they look like any fluffy pillow on your bed.ROSIE: How about down? Can we talk about down for a minute? Is that they pluck the feathers and put it in the pillow or what is the construction there?SHAENA: Yes. So buckle up. So I’ll tell you about feathers.ROSIE: Is this going to be grim?SHAENA: Yeah. Yeah, kind of. When I was saying there’s a variety of reasons people choose pillows, one category is just there’s ethical considerations to what you choose. If you don’t like synthetics, memory foam might be out, down alternative might out, so you look to down, but then there’s also the issue of then there’s animals involved. Typically, what happens is that there’s geese and ducks, where these feathers come from, and they’re raised for food. So when they’re slaughtered for food, the feathers and down are plucked after that. So that’s what’s being used in a pillow. If that’s out of the question for you, it’s like-CAIRA: Rosie looks horrified. Where do you think it was coming from?SHAENA: Right. A vegan or a vegetarian, you’re not going to like that. And that’s totally fine. I mean, with a lot of these things, there’s fabric standards and there’s also down standards. So there are these third party certifications that will give you a stamp to make sure the farm where these are coming from are doing certain things. And I talked to the textile exchange and they manage the responsible down standards, like RDS is the tag, and no live plucking is one thing that that standard ensures, which happens when animals are being grown for food, but they’re plucked alive so that more feathers can grow so you could get multiple rounds of plucking.So if you have something that’s stamped with a standard, it’s meant to ensure that that’s not happening. And so in my guides, I made sure that the down pillows that I even looked at, I didn’t even look at any pillows that weren’t certified with some down standard, but there are some options for down, not typically ones that I would be recommending due to price, collected by hand because there’s nests of ducks and geese that are living elsewhere that are collected by hand so that they leave behind in their nest.CAIRA: Wait, so they just go steal their discarded feathers is what you’re saying?SHAENA: Yes.CAIRA: And those cost more because it takes a lot more time?SHAENA: It’s a lot more effort. It’s hand collected.ROSIE: Who are down pillows for? What kind of sleeper?SHAENA: Down pillows are hard because I don’t think, in my experience, they’re great for side sleepers, but there are some side sleepers who do like them. And it might be that they’re mattress jives with it, maybe they have a softer mattress. They can sometimes stack pillows. Some people who use down pillows like to have two kind of stacked together. When we say down pillows, it’s a mix of down and feathers.CAIRA: What’s the difference?SHAENA: Yeah. Down is a type of feather. So it’s all feathers. Down’s the softest feather. It’s so light, so fluffy, but feathers that more on the outside of the bird are harder in a way. They’re more firm. So most down pillows are going to be a mix of feathers and down. And sometimes the feathers are encased sort of in a chamber you don’t see in the middle of the pillow and the down is around it. When you put your head down, you feel the softness, but it’s a little more supportive because there’s feathers inside that are creating that structure. And these really nice, really high cost, high end down pillows that we recommend, it’s a pretty high percentage of down in the pillows. It’s at least 80%. So that soft feather is the vast majority of the pillow.And so those are a little bit softer just overall, just by nature. Even if they’re labeled as firm, down is just soft. And so it’s going to be more easily compressible. So I think some stomach sleepers and back sleepers like them. Some side sleepers like them. Again, if they are so moldable because they’re soft, they can sort of squish them up and keep them under their neck. I know that we’ve had the Garnet Hill pick forever that people have liked and some side sleepers like it because they can kind of mold it under their head. But if you are really looking for a lot of support, a down pillow isn’t going to be your firmest option.CAIRA: Sounds like it’s probably best for stomach sleepers then because stomach sleepers don’t need that much lift.That’s what gets us into our final category because if you maybe want that feeling but you feel weird about the bird part of it all, there is down alternative, right? So how well does down alternative mimic down?SHAENA: And this is where you’re going to see the cheapest pillows when people say, I want a pillow that’s like $10 or $20. That’s going to be down alternative. And typically a down alternative is polyester fill. Now there’s just huge differences in polyester fill quality. I think everybody maybe has sort of experienced this. Some of the cheaper ones ball up, bunch up, it’s lumpy, doesn’t feel soft. It can get quite high on PrimaLoft, which is a name brand that’s typically used in clothing, but one of the picks, the Boll & Branch pick uses PrimaLoft as their down alternative. So it’s very soft and it’s resilient and it looks like a down pillow. When you have it on your bed and you touch it, sometimes it’s actually hard to tell the difference because you’re like, oh, this kind of feels soft like down. But I would say it’s generally a little more supportive and resilient. And there’s a variety of reasons polyester fills are different qualities. The denier, the thickness of the fiber, sometimes they’re coated with different things to make them feel smoother.CAIRA: If you’re looking for a down alternative and it seems like you can cheap out if you want to, but let’s say you’re willing to pay more for a really good down alternative, what would they say on the website that tells you that this will be probably a good option? What are the keywords that you’re looking for?SHAENA: If it says PrimaLoft or has a name of the fiber is nice. Otherwise, you’re going to start to look at the price point because I’ve just noticed that if it’s too good to be true, it is. These really high quality polyester down alternatives are like $80 and up. If it’s advertised as being high quality and it’s $20, I would be a little suspicious. And if anyone out there finds a super high quality down alternative pillow for $20, I do want to hear about it because I would love to recommend something like that. I just noticed a really distinct cutoff in the quality of the fill at certain price points. And they’re on sale a lot. Pillows are on sale a lot. I always want to say that, that you can find a good sale, hopefully.ROSIE: Can you give us the final word on why hotel pillows are mostly bad?SHAENA: This is a very divisive issue that I’ve been recently investigating, so thanks for asking. Hotels in my research are generally … Well, it depends what caliber of hotel we’re talking, but a general mid-range hotel is using a down pillow because they’re easy to wash and they’re just really soft. Some people just find them way too soft and way too squishable, which is I think why people don’t like them. And some hotels try to provide a variety of firmnesses of pillow, so maybe you can find one you like, but I think a lot of times they’re just too soft for folks.CAIRA: So you can wash down and down alternative pillows in the washing machine?SHAENA: Yeah. I mean, I always say look at the label. If we’re going to go, the easiest to wash is down because it’s a natural material. You’re able to get it wet and you can dry it in the dryer and fluff it back up. You got to make sure it gets dry, especially with down. I think we all know it gets kind of smelly if you don’t let it dry nicely.Down alternative often it will say is washable, but if it’s a really densely packed polyester filled pillow, you really have to make sure you’re drying it out, but then you don’t want to dry it on too high of a heat because polyester is plastic, so you could kind of damage it that way. So you’d have to make sure you’re drying things on appropriate heat that doesn’t ruin the integrity of the fiber inside.CAIRA: And memory foam, you probably can’t wash.SHAENA: The one piece Tempur-Pedic, the foam pillow that we recommend, can’t wash that. It’s just too dense. You can wash the cover, but the foam inside is just too dense.CAIRA: It’ll never dry, right?SHAENA: It’ll never dry. And before it starts to dry, you could get mildew and be gross. And it just would be really hard to dry. The shredded foam pillows, I think one of them says you shouldn’t wash it and one of them says you can. I mean, they’re the same sort of thing. So I mean, you can use your judgment. The foam would have to be in a bag and similar to down, you just have to make sure you dry it. And again, wouldn’t go too high. Alternatively down, you could put on a higher heat, which again is probably why hotels like it. It won’t ruin the feather.ROSIE: How often are you recommending people wash their pillows?SHAENA: Our recommendations are typically every year if you can do it.ROSIE: That’s doable.SHAENA: If you can do it once, I think once a year would be good.ROSIE: Quick lightning round before we go. We’re going to tell you a scenario. You tell us what pillow you recommend.SHAENA: Okay. I like doing this.ROSIE: All right. Stomach sleeper who likes a soft squishable pillow that can mold around themselves a little bit.SHAENA: A down pillow would be great. We have a Garnet Hill down pillow pick that is frequently on sale, which is very nice and will last a long time. Yeah, it’s definitely very moldable, I’d say. I tested everything in the firm variety, but a lot of these companies all have variety of firmnesses too. So if you get the firm and it’s not quite good, there’s a more plush and medium you can choose from too.ROSIE: And how much is that one?SHAENA: It’s typically $200, I think it’s $199, but it’s often on sale.CAIRA: What if we have somebody who’s a side sleeper that needs a lot of support and they want their pillow to stay pretty substantial underneath their head all night?SHAENA: Yeah, I love the Tempur-Pedic Adapt Pro High is the version that I recommend. It also comes in the Pro Low variety if the high’s too high for you. That’s a very substantial pillow for side sleepers that I enjoy.CAIRA: How much is that one?SHAENA: $175 for one. I know. I know I’m bringing the heat. These are the expensive ones, but they’re really nice. Again, I’m still always on the hunt for something cheaper. That one’s typically not on sale. But if you like the one piece foam feel, there’s a pillow that we’ve recommended for years called The Weekender and it’s a memory foam pillow, like one piece memory foam pillow. So it’s a bit blocky looking, but it’s only like $30 and people love it and it gives the feel of definitely a more expensive pillow than $30. I’ve tried some that were more expensive from bigger brands that were not even close to as good as this one. So that was one of these rare instances where I was surprised by a low price point pillow.ROSIE: And is that a single piece of foam?SHAENA: Yes, that’s a single piece of foam.ROSIE: Okay. So someone who likes the feel of down, but would ideally like something firmer and more supportive.SHAENA: Yeah, I think there you could go down alternative or memory foam, shredded memory foam. For down alternative, the Boll & Branch pillow that we recommend is great. Definitely firm. Yeah, has a feel of down, but firmer for sure. And if you want something that’s adjustable, the Coop HomeGoods pillow is the top pick for memory foam. And I think that’s a super popular pillow.CAIRA: That one’s more affordable, right?SHAENA: And that’s a good price. So sometimes I see it as low on sales. It’s like $71 sometimes you can get it.CAIRA: Pretty good.SHAENA: And that’s just a universally loved pillow almost. So people really like that pillow. So I recommend that one kind of first to everybody.ROSIE: And is that shredded memory foam?SHAENA: It’s shredded memory foam.ROSIE: And adjustable?SHAENA: Yeah. So you can adjust that one however much you want.ROSIE: Nice. How much is the Boll & Branch?SHAENA: It’s like $100.CAIRA:What if somebody wants the soft luxurious feel of down, but they don’t want the pillow filled with animal products?SHAENA: Right. So a good pillow that’s from Macy’s of all places actually that I thought would be a little bit too divisive because it’s really big, but people just love it and they say they sleep like a rock was a quote from one of the testers on this Macy’s hotel collection, down alternative pillow. I mean, it’s a hotel collection. It looks and feels like a hotel, but better, I think. It’s big, it’s pretty firm, but it feels plush at the same time. Yeah, it’s really nice. And that one is often on sale for like 90 bucks. Macy’s does good sales.ROSIE: How about a side sleeper who wants something pretty luxurious and maybe more of the memory foam feeling?SHAENA: Well, luxurious, I think that Brooklyn Bedding has a nice shredded memory foam pillow that I liked a lot that’s really good for side sleepers. Side sleepers loved it. I like it. These are the ones that I still use all these too. I try to rotate through and make sure I still like them. And so yeah, Brooklyn Bedding shredded foam pillow is really nice.CAIRA: Okay. Well, before we wrap, we always ask our guests one final question. What’s the last thing you bought that you really loved?SHAENA: Guys, I buy so much stuff working at Wirecutter. You know what I love? I bought a Baggu bag. I was at the shop.CAIRA: We love Baggu here at Wirecutter.SHAENA: And I got a shopping bag that looks like the Zabar’s bag. It’s the Upper West Side grocery store, one of my favorite stores.ROSIE: Oh, so good.SHAENA: But it says Baggu, and I just though that was cute.ROSIE: Shaena, thanks so much for joining us.SHAENA: Thanks. This was great.ROSIE: Caira, I think Shaena’s so cool.CAIRA: Oh my God. She’s lived such a cool life.ROSIE: And that was a really, really interesting conversation packed with a lot of things I did not admittedly know about pillows.CAIRA: Yeah, me too.ROSIE: What did you learn?CAIRA: I think I need to ditch my one piece memory foam pillow and switch to a shredded memory foam. I think that’ll work better with my side sleeper sleep position.ROSIE: I didn’t even know that that existed actually, the shredded.CAIRA: Yeah. Super cool and you can adjust it. And I just like that idea that it’s not just one set thing that you have to live with.ROSIE: Yeah. My big takeaway was around the longevity piece that actually you probably should be replacing your pillows every three-ish years.CAIRA: Shocking.ROSIE: The other thing for me is that you should be washing your pillows.CAIRA: I haven’t been doing that either.ROSIE: Shaena says once a year. Obviously you’re not washing memory foam because it will never, ever, ever, ever, ever dry. But down and down alternative, wash them and fluff them.CAIRA: I love it.ROSIE: And that’s it for us. If you want to learn more about Shaena’s reporting on pillows, you should check out her guide on the Wirecutter website. Lot of great information there and hopefully you can match a pillow with your lifestyle. Thank you so much for listening. We’ll talk to you soon.CAIRA: The Wirecutter Show is executive produced by Rosie Guerin and produced by Abigail Kiel. Engineering support from Maddy Masiello and Nick Pittman. Today’s episode was mixed by Catherine Anderson. Original music by Dan Powell, Marian Lozano, Elisheba Ittoop, Catherine Anderson, Rowan Niemisto, and Diane Wong. Cliff Levy is Wirecutter’s deputy publisher and general manager. Ben Freeman is Wirecutter’s editor-in-chief. I’m Caira Blackwell.ROSIE: And I’m Rosie Guerin.CAIRA: Thanks for listening.SHAENA: There’s companies in Iceland that do this of eider ducks.CAIRA: Foraging for discarded feathers?ROSIE: They should be our side hustle.SHAENA: I know. I want to go to Iceland and visit eiderdown facilities.
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