Pillow Protectors: Why you need to use protection

by David Smith

Our first episode of Pillow Talk is all about pillow protectors. Most people think a pillow case is all you need, but pillows need an extra layer of protection. A pillow protector has a zipper; whereas, a pillow case does not. 

A pillow protector helps protect your pillow shell from yellowing. 

Will any pillow protector work?

No. In fact, there are many times when the wrong pillow protector will mess up your pillow.  If the pillow protector is not the right size. If their dimensions aren't accurate to whatever our finished good, that'll screw the pillow up. If it's too small, for example, the pillow will seem firmer than it's supposed to be.

And then of course how well the cotton or the textile that we used for the protector breathes. Specifically, during the compression cycle, when you put your head on the pillow, that the protector doesn't create a puffiness to the pillow, so that there's no air getting trapped in there.

When the protector works properly, it allows the pillow to breathe, because believe it or not, pillows actually breathe, and they breathe, just much slower than you or I do. But every time you put your head on the pillow and then lift your head up, that's almost like a breath because it's taking in the air as it expands again into its normally pillowy shape.

How is a pillow protector going to help my pillow?

One of the things that destroys pillows is compression, which obviously you can't do anything about. That's when you put your head on the pillow and you use it, so that one's kind of off the table.

But as it relates to the other things that destroy pillows, the other two big ones are the oils from your skin and moisture.

The oil we're talking about can be technically from your skin. Everybody has a slightly different chemical pH, chemical balance; some people get more sleep in their eyes in the mornings where they have stuff inside their tear ducts, and some people have just more oily skin than others, that's just, everyone's a little bit different.

In addition, we have night bathers who have a tendency to add lotions and creams to their skin so they smell good and moisturize before they go to bed, which is great. However, you have to understand that there is an impact potentially on your pillow. So big factor that affects your pillow are the oils from lotions and from your skin.

And then the worst one of all is actually just water. The night bathers wash their hair think their hair is dry, but it's actually only dry relative to your touch. It may not be fully and completely dry. So then you end up with wet hair on a pillow. Adding to moisture is saliva from drooling, moisture as you breathe, humidity, and sweat.

Unfortunately people don't realize that they sweat like a liter of water a night, so for anybody who's ever weighed themselves in the morning, and then notice that that's the lightest they've been all day, it's not an accident, because you actually lost water weight over night. So you wake up in the morning, and you're just lighter, but the water went somewhere, right? The water is collected by the kidneys and leaves in the form of urine when you wake up. It also goes to perspiration, your hair, or breath.

So what destroys pillows? We are the ones, the culprits that break down a pillow that requires the need to protect it.

If you're seeing yellow on a pillow or on the mattress cover, it's not anything. It's almost a normal thing that's actually going to happen.

How can you control it, and push it off for as long as possible?

That's why we refurbish pillows, but that's also why we recommend and say that using a pillow protector is quite possibly one of the most important things that you can do, because it adds the longevity to the pillow.

The challenge has been to manufacture and store and cut and sew the pillow protectors in a way that doesn't change the way the pillow behaves. Otherwise, we'd have taken all that we spent and time and effort designing the fill weights and the fill powers, and the cottons and the textures and the air permeability studies for cotton.

We have 2 pillow protectors.

We have the Snuggle Soft pillow protector. This is a traditional pearl white shell. It complements all of our Snuggle Soft pillows as well as any rectangular sleep pillow, like the Original Feather Pillow. It's a white pillow protector, which a lot of people like.

Whereas, our other pillow protector is the certified organic Natural Nights protector, and this one's ivory colored. It complements the Natural Nights collection, and the pillows that go with that, because that's a certified organic, all-natural product. 

How is the pillow protector constructed?

Something we do with all our finished goods is include a double row stitch around the perimeter. It just makes them look a little bit more elegant, and it adds a lot of longevity to the product. Of course we also add the satin-corded edge.  Satin-corded edges bind around the perimeter and help connect the two pieces of fabric that make the protector itself. We have our little Down & Feather sash, of course the zipper. We use a high-quality, expensive zipper because it can't break down.

You're supposed to wash your bed linens every weekend: Your pillow cases, your protectors, your fitted sheets, your flat sheets s and your duvets.It's one of the ways that you make your textiles last longer and prevent them from yellowing, strangely enough.

With that in mind, knowing full well that people are going to be zipping and unzipping this pillow protector every weekend to get their pillow in and out of it, we didn't skimp there either. Consequently, we use this high-end pillow protector and zipper.

These pillow protectors protect your investment and provide your pillow an extra layer of protection.