Hi eeks,
I’m not sure what type of pillow you have but pillows also need to be replaced from time to time if they have softened or lost their loft.
You can’t feel how soft or firm a material or a mattress will feel to you when you lie it based on pressing samples with your hands because you are only pressing a small surface area and your weight distribution is completely different when you lie on a mattress.
There are also no “standard” definitions or consensus of opinions for firmness ratings and different manufacturers can rate their mattresses very differently than others so a mattress that one manufacturer rates as being a specific firmness could be rated very differently by another manufacturer. Different people can also have very different perceptions of firmness and softness compared to others as well and a mattress that feels firm for one person can feel like “medium” for someone else or even “soft” for someone else (or vice versa) depending on their body type, sleeping style, physiology, their frame of reference based on what they are used to, and their individual sensitivity and perceptions. There are also different types of firmness and softness that different people may be sensitive to that can affect how they “rate” a mattress as well (see post #15 here) so different people can also have very different opinions on how two mattresses compare in terms of firmness and some people may rate one mattress as being firmer than another and someone else may rate them the other way around. This is all relative and very subjective and is as much an art as a science.
The only way to know for certain how soft or firm a mattress feels to you (regardless of how soft or firm the same mattress may feel to anyone else) or whether it’s a good “match” for you in terms of comfort, firmness, and PPP is based on your own personal experience when you lie on it.
Yes they do.
The better online sources for memory foam and other types of mattress toppers and components are listed in post #4 here.
A pillowtop mattress is a method of construction and not a specific firmness rating or “feel”. It describes a mattress that includes a separate layer or “topper” in its own fabric compartment which is attached to the main body of the mattress with a recessed edge so that the “pillowtop” layer can act and compress a little bit more independently and would feel a little softer than if the same layer was inside the main body of a mattress. While “most” pillowtops are in a softer range … they come in a very wide range of firmness options and some of them that use firmer materials in the pillow top attachment that would be in a firmer range as well. There are also some “non pillowtop” mattresses that would be softer than some pillowtop mattresses if they use softer materials in the upper layers of the mattress.
It’s unlikely that you would find an actual pillowtop cover because it’s a more specialized design but outside of buying an actual pillowtop mattress … the closest you would come to a pillowtop mattress would be adding a topper to a mattress that doesn’t have a pillowtop. There are also covers available in the topper and component posts I linked that are quilted with various materials such as wool or other types of fiber or foam but these aren’t pillowtops because they only have a single main compartment and don’t have a separate pillowtop attachment.
Phoenix