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Buying guide for pillows

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A coworker, Elizabeth, posted once about how difficult it was to buy herself a Nice Thing that wasn’t food or alcohol, and that didn’t require a substantial outlay of effort to maintain or support the Nice Thing. She finally found something, though – an indulgence that truly worked out for herself that she didn’t regret later or think, Why did I bring this thing into my life?

Her purchase? A pillow. A pillow that she loved so much, it inspired an entire blog post.

I am jealous of her pillow. She adored this pillow. Though she didn’t go into details about the things I’m about to write, I have filled them in based on my imagined perfection of this pillow. It was just the right firmness, had just the right fluff. It gave enough for her comfort, so it wasn’t like laying her head on a stack of newspapers, and it wasn’t so soft that her head sank all the way through the down to her bed, with pillow closing in on either side of her face.

I have not found a pillow that I love so well. Our pillows are like the bears’ beds in Goldilocks. One is too hard, one is too soft — only there’s not an option that’s just right.

I want to find the one that’s just right.

When we shop for pillows, I never know how to buy, how to test, what to look for in a pillow. I’m probably looking in the wrong place. Maybe Target isn’t the best venue to search for the perfect pillow. I remember buying a pillow once from JC Penney, and rather than displaying pillows with a bed nearby to test them on, the pillows were packed in plastic bags and stacked on shelves or tossed in a wire cage like beach balls at the grocery store in summer. I picked them up and listened to plastic rustle as I squished the pillows between my hands.

But what does squishing a plastic covered pillow between my hands tell me about how the pillow is going to feel against my ear? How the down is going to poof under my head? Whether my neck is going to hurt in the morning.

I need to lay my head on the pillows, and lay my body on a bed. I need to test the pillow. How do I choose? How do I know what kind of pillow will work for me? I need a buying guide for pillows.

Thanks to LRose for the “buying guide for pillows” writing prompt.

 

11 thoughts on “Buying guide for pillows”

  1. My solution is to have LOTS of pillows. I have squishy ones, firm, feather and foam. I poof them all up when I read and then choose just the right one to settle my ear into for the night.

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  2. When I read your post requesting prompts for your 10-min write self-challenge, I was watching TV. I thought back on my day and scanned the room for ideas and typed them in. I was about to press “send” when this over-excited ad announcer insisted all of us viewers immediately drop whatever we were doing and run down to the mattress store for the BIGBIGBIG weekend sale. The graphics were spinning and pictures of beds were flashing by (which I thought an odd choice for a ad promoting sleep) and then up pops this flashing graphic, “Buying Guide for Pillows.” The announcer said it was a limited-time offer as part of the swell deal on mattresses, but only if we acted now.

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  4. I like how you prefaced that you would fill in the details about the pillow based on your imagined perfection of the pillow and not what she said. Though unrelated to pillows, I feel like I do that with a lot of things people tell me or that I experience. I am going to start prefacing 🙂 Good luck with the pillow buying! My husband I have Serta’s. Well worth the extra money!

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  5. As much as I love to criticize it, I recommend buying pillows from Ikea. They have lots of different materials and firmness or support indications in store. And they always have one of every model on display, so you can touch and feel what it’s like. I love my medium thickness natural foam pillow!

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  7. I once purchased a foam curve pillow for over $150… used it for a week and got a terrible neck cramp that only went away once I switched back to my fluffy Sears dime-a-dozen pillow. 🙂 The cat seems to like having a $150-dollar bed to nap in now! LOL.

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  8. I purchased two soft and fluffy ones and two foam pillows. My husband loves copious pillows at night so he has three and I have one haha. I found I actually hated the foam one (too firm for my tiny neck) and only ever use the practically non existent fluffy pillow. I think a certain amount of trial and error is necessary when shopping for pillows. It’s more of a guess and check because even if you try them in the store and like tjem, it might not feel good for an entire night of sleep. I hope you find the perfect pillow. It’s an ongoing search for me! Thanks for sharing this!

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  9. I probably shouldn’t admit this, but my honeymoon period with the pillow was brief. It was the best thing EVER for about a week, and now it’s just another pillow. Such is life, I suppose. 😉

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