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Whether firm or soft, cooling or super thick, our experts have tried and tested the best pillows to suit your sleep
Side sleepers should plump for a thicker pillow while a lower is better for back sleepers
Hybrid mattresses have been around for a while, but now Panda London have brought the concept to the pillow. We found this pillow an absolute delight with fantastic staying power night after night. Inside is charcoal-infused memory foam, while charcoal and bamboo work together to draw heat away from your head and keep it sweat free all night long. It should also stop you getting that grim sleepyhead smell too.
This pillow comes in soft or medium/firm. We opted for medium/firm, and it certainly provided plenty of support, especially for a goose-down pillow. It sat proudly in our bed – it was so filled it was actually quite hard to get in the pillow case. And it provided reassuringly firm support. After a night of snoozing on it, it was deflated where our head had been, but it quickly plumps up again after a quick shake. Side sleepers will love that it keeps spines aligned well, and it tucks in well at the neck.
We love a firm pillow, and you will struggle to find a more comfortable firm pillow than the Simba one. The folks at Simba are always innovating, and the design of this pillow is no different.
As neck-pain sufferers, we were keen to try out the Aeyla dual pillow, as it claims to specifically ease this type of ache. And now, we are total converts. Initially we pondered if the pillow was too soft – we’ve found very soft, low-loft pillows exacerbate our neck pain – but that’s not the case here. The dual pillow is mid loft to be fair, but it provided solid support while not feeling like we were sleeping on a brick. Whatever we threw at it overnight, it regained its composure in the morning and plumped up again.
These pillows are a great all rounder, well suited to a guest bed where you need something versatile. They’re also an absolute bargain, which helps. We found they’re also supportive and comfortable whether you sleep on your side or back. The Kally Sleep hotel pillows are bang in the middle in terms of firmness and loft, making them suitable for pretty much anyone.
Most memory foam pillows are not going to work for back sleepers. They’re hard and the loft is too high. But Emma has created its original pillow so that it can be adjusted and be relatively low loft to allow back sleepers to wake without a crick in their necks. You can also adjust the firmness of the pillow by zipping back the cover and removing the foam layers. We found that all the layers combined created the best loft and firmness for us, but your mileage may vary and that’s the beauty of this pillow.
We recruited a highly fussy tester who is liable to overheating at night to test these pillows out. They’re Marks and Spencer’s body sensor pillows, with technology to help regulate your temperature. This means our tester should be warm and cosy during the cold nights, and cool during the hotter ones. They reported that these pillows were very good; comfortable and they didn’t overheat once while using them.
You can select from soft, medium or firm with these Next pillows. We opted for medium, but we would say they’re slightly on the softer side. The breakdown of the filling is 90 per cent feather and 10 per cent down, inside a thick cover that meant no feathers poked us in the face when we were using them. The loft is pretty decent on these, although they do squash down and require a replump every morning – we don’t judge them for that, we are similarly disposed ourselves. And let’s not forget that the price on these pillows is incredible for a set of two in natural fibres – particularly the prized down. Overall, these are a great, purse-friendly feather option.
Piglet in Bed has somewhat of a cult following for its trendy, Insta-friendly bedsheets. And they also do pillows, it seems. But not just any pillow – a merino-wool pillow. Merino wool is a fantastic natural-fibre, as it is amazing at insulating you. Keeping you warm and toasty in winter, cool and fresh in summer. The fibres are also incredibly fine and soft, so they won’t feel itchy.
Silentnight, the big dons in the sleep world, have created this Airmax pillows for those who are, well, sweaty sleepers. The medium to soft firmness is apparently ideal for side sleepers, and it did test well. It is, however, quite quick to sink and it has the undeniable feel of a synthetic pillow. We liked that the mesh sides encouraged cool air to circulate around our head, and found that we were kept temperate all night long. There are bonus points too because it’s hypoallergenic, and you can chuck it into the wash at 40C and kill off any germs.
If you want a very deep loft indeed, then this Dorma pillow should go straight to the top of your list. We were hugely impressed with how darn right sturdy this pillow is. It’s incredibly firm – you wouldn’t want it any more firm – and, well, big. It’s ideal if you like to sit up in bed and watch TV, sip tea, ponder life. But sleeping on it was a bit of a mission. Inside there are two layers of polyester, while the casing is 100 per cent cotton. Despite all the man-made fibres, we didn’t find it too sweaty. And it’s machine washable, which is a bonus.
This tube pillow is designed for pregnant people, but is equally useful for those with aches and pains when sleeping, and for postpartum snoozin’ too. The pillow is filled with beans, which provide structured yet fluid support. The inner bag slides inside a tube of fabric, which is then fastened with plastic ties at either end. This means you can adjust your tension, height and length to suit you – absolutely ingenious. We found this wildly comfortable, and wondered how we’d ever weathered a pregnancy without one. It comes in a range of designs and colourways, so you can find one to suit your décor preferences.
This memory-foam pillow bends and flexes as you move in your sleep, which meant we got a very comfortable night’s sleep on it. Despite the relatively low loft, we found the support it provided was excellent, and it had the power to support us all night long and then sprang back up in the morning. The cool gel inside is part of the pillow’s temperature-regulating features. The pillow aims to help you stay cool all night long, while the outer fabric wicks away sweat. We certainly didn’t feel hot at all sleeping atop it, and should you ever get a bit sweaty you can wash the outer cover.
As fans of pillows that don’t lose their oomph as soon as you so much as look at them, the Marlowe impressed us. We went for medium, but you can plump for firm if you prefer. The medium is sturdy enough and held its position through a full night of sleep. Inside the pillow, three chambers are filled with goose down, which is what helps it stop slumping come 3am. All the down in the pillow passes the strictest welfare standards too, so you can rest easy there. The outer casing is silky-to-touch, 100 per cent down-proof Egyptian cotton. It stands proud on the bed thanks to the high profile of the pillow, and will suit back and side sleepers very well indeed.
For many of us, the search for the most comfortable pillow can be likened to finding a needle in a haystack – especially when the term “comfortable” is highly subjective. However, as always, the IndyBest team are on hand to help you with your decision-making process.
First up, let’s look at fillings. There are typically two types of filling: natural and synthetic. The former are often organic, sometimes totally chemical free and are naturally good at regulating temperature as well as comfortable. But they can also be spenny, aren’t always good for allergy suffers and are often not vegan friendly – meaning that they can include down (aka bird feathers), wool, bamboo and cotton.
On the other hand, synthetic fibres are often hypoallergenic and can usually be cleaned in the washing machine (though, this doesn’t extend to memory foam). Usually they spring back well and hold their shape and, more importantly, tend to be a bit more wallet-friendly.
Now, if what’s inside your pillow wasn’t complicated enough, you also need to take things like the loft (the thickness/height) and firmness into consideration when purchasing a new pillow. While some people prefer a thick cushion – which will allow your head to sink into it – others prefer a lower one as they tend to have a harder, flatter surface. Whichever you opt for, it is important to keep your spine aligned so you don’t wake with any aches or pains.
Thinking about your preferred sleeping position is essential when choosing a pillow. Back sleepers should go for a lower loft pillow. This will help keep their spine aligned and prevent a cricked neck at 7am. Side sleepers, however, should go for a thicker pillow that fills the space between the tip of their shoulder and the base of their neck.
We spent many a night pondering the pros and cons of each pillow we were testing and points were dished out to pillows that we deemed comfortable. We defined comfort as to whether the pillow had a gentle sink to it, and whether it offered support all night long – many crumbled under the pressure. Another thing that added to comfort was what we called the “cozy factor”. Did it keep us snug without us waking up at 3am as we overheated?
We also considered care instructions. Pillows that can be washed were handy but we also wanted pillows that looked good on our bed – we were aiming for that five-star hotel bed look. These are the best pillows we rated…
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Hybrid mattresses have been around for a while, but now Panda London have brought the concept to the pillow. We found this pillow an absolute delight with fantastic staying power night after night. Inside is charcoal-infused memory foam, while charcoal and bamboo work together to draw heat away from your head and keep it sweat free all night long. It should also stop you getting that grim sleepyhead smell too.
We found this pillow absolutely brilliant for those that like a fairly firm pillow. You won’t sink into it, but nor does it feel like sleeping on a brick. Even Goldilocks would be happy with this pillow.
This pillow comes in soft or medium/firm. We opted for medium/firm, and it certainly provided plenty of support, especially for a goose-down pillow. It sat proudly in our bed – it was so filled it was actually quite hard to get in the pillow case. And it provided reassuringly firm support. After a night of snoozing on it, it was deflated where our head had been, but it quickly plumps up again after a quick shake. Side sleepers will love that it keeps spines aligned well, and it tucks in well at the neck.
We love a firm pillow, and you will struggle to find a more comfortable firm pillow than the Simba one. The folks at Simba are always innovating, and the design of this pillow is no different.
Within the zip-up outer case are a series of fibre layers, and an aerocoil layer. You can remove or add in more fibre layers to find the right loft and softness for you. There are instructions for how to do this, and you can tailor it depending on if you’re a back or a side sleeper. With all the layers in, it’s fair too deep for even us, but we were able to quickly adjust it to make it just right.
If that’s not enough, one side of the pillow is covered in cooling fabric, which draws heat away from your head. We found this very effective, and we didn’t wake up in a sweat once.
As neck-pain sufferers, we were keen to try out the Aeyla dual pillow, as it claims to specifically ease this type of ache. And now, we are total converts. Initially we pondered if the pillow was too soft – we’ve found very soft, low-loft pillows exacerbate our neck pain – but that’s not the case here. The dual pillow is mid loft to be fair, but it provided solid support while not feeling like we were sleeping on a brick. Whatever we threw at it overnight, it regained its composure in the morning and plumped up again.
It’s hypoallergenic and vegan-friendly too, as it’s filled with microfibres – and it’s free from toxins and chemicals. The design of the dual pillow is based on an inner pillow encapsulated in a padded cover which helps it maintain its shape. We found it adapted to our movement really well, and we had some of the best night’s sleep we had during testing on this pillow.
These pillows are a great all rounder, well suited to a guest bed where you need something versatile. They’re also an absolute bargain, which helps. We found they’re also supportive and comfortable whether you sleep on your side or back. The Kally Sleep hotel pillows are bang in the middle in terms of firmness and loft, making them suitable for pretty much anyone.
They also passed the test on overheating, perhaps thanks to the 100 per cent cotton cover. The filling is polyester hollowfibre, and is hypoallergenic. A big tick for these pillows is that you can always whack them in your washing machine at 40C to kill off germs.
Most memory foam pillows are not going to work for back sleepers. They’re hard and the loft is too high. But Emma has created its original pillow so that it can be adjusted and be relatively low loft to allow back sleepers to wake without a crick in their necks. You can also adjust the firmness of the pillow by zipping back the cover and removing the foam layers. We found that all the layers combined created the best loft and firmness for us, but your mileage may vary and that’s the beauty of this pillow.
We recruited a highly fussy tester who is liable to overheating at night to test these pillows out. They’re Marks and Spencer’s body sensor pillows, with technology to help regulate your temperature. This means our tester should be warm and cosy during the cold nights, and cool during the hotter ones. They reported that these pillows were very good; comfortable and they didn’t overheat once while using them.
Our tester said they’d be happy to use them as their regular pillow in future, which is firm praise indeed. These pillows are made from 100 per cent polyester inside and out, which means you can lob them in the washing machine and even tumble dry them on low.
You can select from soft, medium or firm with these Next pillows. We opted for medium, but we would say they’re slightly on the softer side. The breakdown of the filling is 90 per cent feather and 10 per cent down, inside a thick cover that meant no feathers poked us in the face when we were using them. The loft is pretty decent on these, although they do squash down and require a replump every morning – we don’t judge them for that, we are similarly disposed ourselves. And let’s not forget that the price on these pillows is incredible for a set of two in natural fibres – particularly the prized down. Overall, these are a great, purse-friendly feather option.
Piglet in Bed has somewhat of a cult following for its trendy, Insta-friendly bedsheets. And they also do pillows, it seems. But not just any pillow – a merino-wool pillow. Merino wool is a fantastic natural-fibre, as it is amazing at insulating you. Keeping you warm and toasty in winter, cool and fresh in summer. The fibres are also incredibly fine and soft, so they won’t feel itchy.
Piglet in Bed offers both standard and super king sizes of this pillow, and options of soft, medium or firm of which we tried the latter. The filling is 100 per cent merino wool, and the casing is 100 per cent organic cotton. We found this pillow incredibly comfortable as it has a good loft to it, yet offered a really lovely “sink” when we settled down for sleep. We found you could mould and knead it into the perfect shape and still it provides a deep level of support and springs back in the morning like nothing’s happened.
Silentnight, the big dons in the sleep world, have created this Airmax pillows for those who are, well, sweaty sleepers. The medium to soft firmness is apparently ideal for side sleepers, and it did test well. It is, however, quite quick to sink and it has the undeniable feel of a synthetic pillow. We liked that the mesh sides encouraged cool air to circulate around our head, and found that we were kept temperate all night long. There are bonus points too because it’s hypoallergenic, and you can chuck it into the wash at 40C and kill off any germs.
If you want a very deep loft indeed, then this Dorma pillow should go straight to the top of your list. We were hugely impressed with how darn right sturdy this pillow is. It’s incredibly firm – you wouldn’t want it any more firm – and, well, big. It’s ideal if you like to sit up in bed and watch TV, sip tea, ponder life. But sleeping on it was a bit of a mission. Inside there are two layers of polyester, while the casing is 100 per cent cotton. Despite all the man-made fibres, we didn’t find it too sweaty. And it’s machine washable, which is a bonus.
This tube pillow is designed for pregnant people, but is equally useful for those with aches and pains when sleeping, and for postpartum snoozin’ too. The pillow is filled with beans, which provide structured yet fluid support. The inner bag slides inside a tube of fabric, which is then fastened with plastic ties at either end. This means you can adjust your tension, height and length to suit you – absolutely ingenious. We found this wildly comfortable, and wondered how we’d ever weathered a pregnancy without one. It comes in a range of designs and colourways, so you can find one to suit your décor preferences.
This memory-foam pillow bends and flexes as you move in your sleep, which meant we got a very comfortable night’s sleep on it. Despite the relatively low loft, we found the support it provided was excellent, and it had the power to support us all night long and then sprang back up in the morning. The cool gel inside is part of the pillow’s temperature-regulating features. The pillow aims to help you stay cool all night long, while the outer fabric wicks away sweat. We certainly didn’t feel hot at all sleeping atop it, and should you ever get a bit sweaty you can wash the outer cover.
As fans of pillows that don’t lose their oomph as soon as you so much as look at them, the Marlowe impressed us. We went for medium, but you can plump for firm if you prefer. The medium is sturdy enough and held its position through a full night of sleep. Inside the pillow, three chambers are filled with goose down, which is what helps it stop slumping come 3am. All the down in the pillow passes the strictest welfare standards too, so you can rest easy there. The outer casing is silky-to-touch, 100 per cent down-proof Egyptian cotton. It stands proud on the bed thanks to the high profile of the pillow, and will suit back and side sleepers very well indeed.
Microfibre – These pillows tend to be among some of the most affordable and are manmade from synthetic materials such as polyester. They come in a range of different firmness levels, which makes them suitable for most sleeping styles, particular front sleepers as they tend to be flatter. However, they aren’t the most breathable option as they can retain moisture and heat.
Feather and down – To be called a down pillow, a product must be made up of at least 70 per cent down feathers, with the rest being regular feathers. Down feathers are typically far softer and better at retaining heat. It’s worth noting that they're more expensive than most other pillows and not always suitable for those with allergies, however you can find anti-allergy options. As down pillows flatten over time, they’re not the best option for side sleepers who require more height, but others will usually find it a comfortable choice.
Memory foam – These pillows are ideal for anyone who struggles with neck pain as they offer sturdy support by moulding to the shape of your body. While they are durable, memory foam pillows can feel quite rigid and have limited airflow, which means they can get hot. Back and side sleepers will benefit most from this type of pillow.
Wool – If it’s an eco-friendly and naturally hypoallergenic pillow you’re after, wool could be the option for you. Wool pillows help to regulate your temperature, keeping you warm in winter and cool in summer, and are best-suited to front sleepers.
Latex – An alternative to memory foam, latex pillows share similar properties as they are firm and supportive. While they are much more breathable than memory foam, latex styles are on the pricey side and can have a distinct smell.
Pillow | Firmness | Dimensions | Filling | Cover |
Panda London hybrid memory foam pillow | Firm | 50cm x 75cm | Charcoal-infused memory foam | Bamboo |
Soak & Sleep supreme Canadian goose down pillow | Medium/firm | 50cm x 75cm | Goose down | 320 thread count cambric cotton |
BBHugme pregnancy pillow | Adjustable | 150cm x 20cm | Microbeads | 95 per cent cotton and 5 per cent spandex jersey fabric |
Brook and Wilde the marlowe goose down pillow | Medium | 50cm x75cm | Goose down | 100 per cent down-proof Egyptian cotton |
Aeyla dual pillow | Medium/soft | 50cm x 70cm | Microfibres | 100 per cent cotton |
Brook & Wilde pennington pillow | Medium | 50cm x 75cm | Siberan goose down | 100 per cent cotton |
Simba firm hybrid pillow | Firm | 45cm x 70cm | Fibre layers and an aerocoil springs | 100 per cent cotton with cooling fabric on one side |
Kally Sleep five-star hotel pillows, twin pack | Medium | 74cm x 48cm | Polyester hollowfibre | 100 per cent cotton |
Emma original pillow | Firm but adjustable | 40cm x 70cm | Memory foam | 98 per cent polyester and 2 per cent elastane |
Next duck feather and down | Medium (firm and soft available) | 50cm x 75cm | 90 per cent feather and 10 per cent down | 230 thread count cotton |
Piglet in Bed merino wool pillow | Firm (soft and medium available) | 75cm x 50cm/ 90cm x 50cm | Merino wool | 100 per cent organic cotton |
Marks and Spencer body-temperature control pillows | Medium | 100 per cent polyester | 100 per cent polyester | |
Silentnight airmax pillow | Medium to soft | 69cm x 46cm | Polyester | Hypoallergenic polyester |
Dorma extra firm and deep deluxe Oxford border pillow top | Firm | 74cm x 48cm | Polyester | 230 thread count 100 per cent cotton |
Rem-Fit 500 cool gel pillow | Firm | 64cm x 40cm x 12 cm | Cool gel memory foam | Moisture wicking fabric |
We absolutely loved the Panda London hybrid pillow. It was super supportive and suited both side and back sleepers well. The mid to low loft helped keep spines aligned, and it remained supportive all night long. It also didn’t have us waking up in a sweat thanks to those temperature-regulating technologies used in it.
If you’re more of a natural-fibre person, then the Brook and Wilde pennington was amazingly plush and you’d be hard pressed to find a better high-end pillow. If £300 is a bit toppy for you, the Piglet in Bed pillow ticked a lot of our boxes too.
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