Hi budgy,
Thanks for your comments; that was an interesting point about the difference between down and feather pillows for allergen-sensitive people. Do you think you could expand a little as to why you think down fill pillows are the best to sleep with? I’m curious, having never tried a down pillow.
I am a personal fan of wool fill pillows. Wool bolas pillows have little puffs of wool instead of wool batting, and are pretty flexible and soft.
I have more allergies than anyone could shake a stick at (including sunlight!), but my down pillows are some of my favorite possessions and have never caused a problem. I’ll admit I’m a pillow snob - I think to be called a “down” pillow, pillows have to contain no less than 75% down (with the remainder being feathers) - and I’ve had good luck with down pillows from Downlite, among other sellers. I always buy white goose down, as opposed to grey goose down or duck down, and am always on a perpetual search for the closest thing to a perfect pillow that I can find.
I sleep on either Tencel or bamboo sheets, and have found that Tencel pillowcases seem to keep me from sweating at night. They always feel cool, too, which keeps me from doing the repeated pillow-flip during the night.
When I got a Dunlop mattress last month, I got four latex pillows for half price at the same time - they’re great for propping up in bed to read, or when my back hurts sitting on the couch, but not so great for sleeping to me. I hated the feel of the shredded latex pillows that the same store was selling. Pillows are such an individual preference - my husband has always said he could sleep with any pillow, but his face lit up when he tried the latex pillow and he loves his. He says they feel like foam pillows felt when he was a child (we’re in our 60s), so after all these years he once again has pillows he loves. The pillows I love are my down pillows. Like I said, though - everyone is different.
Hello Dahlia,
I like Clawdia am definitely a pillow snob, in my case I call myself a ‘man-princess’ haha. Pretty much every pillow other than almost pure down hurts the bones in my ears, I also need to have my arm underneath my pillow to truly feel comfortable which automatically makes almost any pillow far too supportive and harsh to sleep with. High quality down fills have more ‘loft’ than any other material out there and are far more delicate on the body, they also work in the widest range of sleep positions due to their flexibility.
And yes in Canada legally the pillow must contain more than 75% down to be labelled a down pillow, but there are a lot of places that stretch the truth and blatantly lie about their down fills. The one thing about down that most people will not like is the cost, doing it right is definitely not cheap.
http://downmark.com/consumer_information/fraud.htm
Check out this website for some really great info on down products and the industry.
http://downmark.com/consumer_information/down_feather_quality.htm
That being said I know that down is not for everyone.
Good mention about the puff-wool pillows as well, I also sell these pillows and if someone buys wool that is what I recommend, particularly pillows that can be unzipped so you can add/remove fill if need be to adjust the pillow to your own specific needs.
I’m in no way connected to this company or anything, fyi, but a friend told me about these and swears by them. When I upgrade beds (why I’m here looking around) I may get a pair.
https://www.amazon.com/Buckwheat-Pillow-Organic-Premium-Queen/dp/B007MI2L1Y/ref=pd_sim_hg_4
Lots of good info here, thanks!
I did take a look at those buckwheat pillows before making this thread but was turned off when people said they were as heavy as a bag of sand and “loud” (which, honestly, I was actively searching for thinking they might be with all those hulls in there). As is, I sleep with ear plugs to keep the noise out so a pillow that is “loud” would be a no-go. The noise would conduct through the jaw to the ears when you have that kind of direct contact. I feel like I’m being picky turning down a pillow for being “loud.”
I’ll take a look into down. My interest in shredded latex, however, was because it was was anti-microbial but should feel similar to a feather/down pillow.
How does down do on the accretion of bacteria and dust/dust mites? I know dust is a decently heavy allergy of mine and run an air purifier in the room I sleep in.
Hi carpetdenim,
You can read a few comments about buckwheat pillows in the pillow thread in post #11 and #13 here and in in post #23 here. They are quite unusual compared to most other pillows 
Phoenix
Down if cleaned properly retains most of the natural oils which are very efficient at repelling moisture, and really high fill power downs are the most breathable fills you can get, your body vapour passes right through the pillow and very little of it actually gets absorbed. You can also get dust mite proof cotton pillow protectors that you can routinely wash with your pillowcases to keep them as hygienic as possible. Realistically if they are done correctly they likely won’t be a problem. Definitely look for the ‘downmark’ label at a minimum.
Hi Budgy,
What are some high quality down pillow manufacturers to look at? You state “downmark” at a minimum, but what should be higher criteria to look at as well? Thanks.
I’ve been through two cervical surgeries and also had quite a bit of experience with different pillows. Regarding the “latex down” pillows - they do behave much like a regular down pillow. They’re very scrunchable. However, unlike true down pillows, they provide a more buoyant and supportive feel and do allow you to relax a bit easier in the lower cervical / upper thoracic region. This is due to the rubber in latex having a more supportive characteristic than a down/feather combination, even something with a high fill power. I used to have a normal latex pillow with a down pillow stacked on top when I slept on my side. Now I use a thicker “latex down” pillow alone, and can manipulate the thickness for my side or back. Your personal sleeping pattern and somatotype/anatomy will dictate pillow thickness, as well as the type of mattress upon which you sleep - match the pillow with both you and your mattress.
Here’s what I use - not an endorsement as I’m sure you can find many nice ones out there.
Jeff Scheuer
Mattress To Go
Certain companies also just simply construct the pillows much better than others. I have sold a lot of different brands, I am really biased towards St. Geneve (based in Richmond BC). They have the best pillow design with all internal seams so you can machine wash and dry the whole pillows without any down leaking out. They have a big range in price but a few hundred bucks for a good pillow is sort of typical with them.
Northern Feather is another good one, so is Dania Down.
I could write a small book about down products but the fill power and the fabric type used is the most important thing for a pillow. For duvets it gets much more complicated.
I definitely agree with Jeff about latex being more supportive, but yeah its to each their own. Most pillows for me actually give too much support. But the shredded latex fills are one of the only other kinds of pillows that I actually enjoy sleeping with
Buckwheat pillows I actually brought one in to test it out and no one liked it. They are incredibly firm on top of being very heavy and noisy. If I was in a pillow fight I am pretty sure I could kill someone with one of those lol.
I actually found and mildly researched St. Geneve earlier today. Also saw pillows (Eiderdown) of theirs ranging up to $1000 for a pillow! (think it was King, but still!) I’ll take a look at the other two.
Had my first experience with fill power today as well. Medium firmness would be 800 loft or loft just affects the durability? It appears you can buy one good down pillow and have it last several lifetimes, though, which is the kind of quality I tend to shop for (buy quality once, never have regrets).
I was hoping shredded latex would give me the feel I was hoping for at a lower cost than down, but I doubt the longevity is the same if quality down lasts for generations. I’ve never slept on a true down and didn’t realize the difference from feathers until your posts.
Well, at least you’d build upper body strength in the process!
Jeff, what about heat retention in the shredded latex; do they breathe as well? How about longevity of the latex? Lastly, would they be a good support for a side sleeper? As is now, I feel I have to put my arm under my pillow to get the support I need when on my side.
If you saw a St Geneve Eiderdown pillow, king size, for $1000, that’s a steal. I’ve seen it closer to the $3-5k price 
Fill power has little to do with firmness… They just add more or less down to achieve firmness. Fill is a measure of quality/durability.
800+ fill is premium. I once read eiderdown is 1200 fill, but don’t know the accuracy of that.
I have a st Geneve Lajord, queen firm myself (I paid about $400 at tmasc). I have it in the st. Dormier pillow protector.
In addition to the st Geneve website, I’ve found the down & feather company to have good info, one link being:
And the tmasc.ca website also helpful (although closely related to st. Geneve)
Either I was mistaken at what I was looking at or the website was a false one. I’ll have to check my history at work. EDIT: It looks like the James Bay goose down pillows were running these prices. Also, it appears James Bay goose down is legally not allowed to be shipped outside of Canada according to Tmasc?! Well, now I want one!
How long can you expect an 800-900 fill pillow to last? According to some of the stuff Budgy linked that I read, you can expect the [strike]eiderdown[/strike] James Bay pillows from St. Geneve to last generations if cared for.
[quote]
I have a st Geneve Lajord, queen firm myself (I paid about $400 at tmasc). I have it in the st. Dormier pillow protector.
In addition to the st Geneve website, I’ve found the down & feather company to have good info, one link being:
And the tmasc.ca website also helpful (although closely related to st. Geneve)
http://www.tmasc.ca/st-geneve-duvet-pillow-fillings.html[/quote]
Are you a side sleeper? It looks like the St. Geneve Lajord (much more affordable, but still pricey for a pillow) is mature goose down. From the links I read earlier, this appears to be good down to use also.
Maybe a longshot, but do you know quality retailers for down pillows for your U.S. neighbors?
[quote=“GrandMasterJ” post=25561][quote=“dn” post=25556]
If you saw a St Geneve Eiderdown pillow, king size, for $1000, that’s a steal. I’ve seen it closer to the $3-5k price
[/quote]
Either I was mistaken at what I was looking at or the website was a false one. I’ll have to check my history at work.
[/quote]
This is the link I know and the basis for my info:
http://www.tmasc.ca/goose-down-pillows/st-geneve-eiderdown-cotton-pillow.html
No idea myself… I’m new into down, only a bit further than you it seems. The extent of my down knowledge comes from tmasc.ca, st Geneve, the down and feather company, and some miscellaneous googling about eiderdown and down.
[quote]
Yes, I’m a side sleeper. I have the firm specifically to get enough loft for side sleeping. I find it very comfortable, and it doesn’t bunch up like wool. I disliked shaved latex…having tried a sleeptek and I believe a zedbed one.
I did find the down one too poofy, so the st dormier keeps it a bit less so. I find a slight odor with the down, but having worked with tmasc and st Geneve they think it’s normal and I should see it dissipate. I found the odor most noticeable as it gets slightly warm and humid from sleeping on it (not damp or moist, but less dry… I don’t sweat abnormally at night). It seems to be going away slowly, or I’m just ignoring it / not noticing now.
I’m not 100% sold on down being especially that clean from allergens, but it might be… I really don’t know… It does have a couple advantages. First, it’s super soft and pillowy, which is amazing. Especially the high loft stuff. Second, the ticking the pillow is made from is apparently dust mite proof from st Geneve. Third, down (unlike most other materials) is machine washable in a way that would destroy many allergens (I.e. High temperatures) and is supposed to rejuvenate the down somewhat, allowing it to ‘last for generations’ as you wrote, and to remove allergens and keep clean. You need to do some basic things to wash properly, so follow the manufacturer recommendations there.
That said, the st Geneve website has a few interesting distinctions I don’t understand. Some pillows are ‘guaranteed hypoallergenic’ (laroche) and others are ‘guaranteed hypoallergenic for 5 years’ (Lajord). So, at best, the manufacturer who I’ve come to trust as being high quality and useful reference is only standing behind the hypoallergenic statement for 5 years on the pillow I have. In other readings, down may have been among the poorest for collecting allergens, though as has been noted a high quality down pillow will be hugely different than a low quality pillow, as will dust mite proof ticking/ pillow protector.
All said, I don’t really have allergies that bad so that’s a non issue for me… I bought it because it was amazingly comfortable (and continues to be so).
[quote]
Maybe a longshot, but do you know quality retailers for down pillows for your U.S. neighbors?[/quote]
Not really… I mostly have come to trust tmasc myself. The down and feather company had info that I found consistent with other reputable sources. One company I came across, which is maybe the one Clawdia recommended, would even take your pillow back for down reconditioning… That stood out to me as a company prepared to back the statement that their high quality down should last a long time by taking care of their customers’ down products which they made.
One note about down… If you get it wet, it goes bad really fast. Mould and mildew. I don’t know if it’s repairable, even by washing, if that happens. I haven’t read anything that says it isn’t repairable, though I haven’t read anything that says it is repairable either.
As a follow up to myself, DeWoolfson Down has a pretty good FAQ. Clawdia posted the company, and they seem to know down and that’s the main product they sell.
They seem to say, basically,
Anyhow, as I said, I bought down because it felt amazingly comfortable. the above FAQ is an example of misc reading I’ve come across, from seemingly reputable sellers who specialize in this.
If I were trying to focus on a ‘clean’ and natural pillow, I’d probably go with a natural cotton, silk, down, latex, wool, other-natural-fiber pillow in a quality dust mite proof protector, and select a ‘standard model’ and price point that allowed semi regular replacement. I’d personally be happy with 5 years from this down pillow.
In my opinion, If down, or especially eiderdown, were legitimately a ‘last generations’ material…and given the price for eiderdown, there’d be a market for used / reclaimed eiderdown. I’ve not seen that. So while it may last for generations (and I’m sure it could), I don’t necessarily know that’d be the best idea and certainly not one that appeals to me.
Note: half the time I sleep on a memory foam pillow, the other half my down pillow. Basically, sometimes one or the other seems more comfortable at the time.
That’s a lot of information to digest. The more you know…
What type of bed do you sleep on that matches well with a down pillow? I’m not sold on down because of the price unless it truly can last a long time. Seems like a good quality shredded latex might still be an option here with replacement every 2-3 years. I did note that all the other pillows on St. Geneve say they’ll last “years” and are backed by a 5 year warranty while only James Bay pillows state they’ll last generations.
Oh, and I completely understand how one pillow might feel comfortable one night and a different one feels better another. It probably has to do with the physical stress we put our bodies and necks through that day, but that’s conjecture.
I’m on a natural latex mattress. 9" of Dunlop with organic wool and cotton mattress cover. It happens to be Green Sleep, though I don’t imagine that is especial significant as it relates to pillows.
The memory foam pillow is the zedbed breeze. I also have 2 sleeptek organic wool pillows, where the wool isn’t carded/combed … It’s basically raw (cleaned) wool. I enjoy those wool pillows when they feel nice, but I found it was a huge hassle to keep them lofty and feeling even (clumps form and they compress easily and unevenly, I was waking up several times a night to shake, roll, and otherwise re-poof and break up clumps with those the pillows).
As a summary:
Generally, my max budget for a pillow is $200.
Hi GrandmasterJ,
Good quality shredded latex will last a lot longer than 2 or 3 years. Latex is a very durable material and will maintain its resiliency for a very long time.
FWIW … while I also change from time to time … a shredded latex pillow is what I’m currently sleeping on. It’s a little less “bouncy” than a solid latex pillow and is “scrunchable”.
Phoenix
Making our first post as a business on the forum just because our website got linked to a lot for this thread, hopefully I can clear up some of the remaining questions in comparing down.
Fill power like dn has noted is not technically a measure of firmness. It is really just a measure of loft which means a specific weight of down fills up more and more volume as the fill power increases. Higher fills equate to much more durable down filaments, typically better breathability, insulation and ultimately higher resistance to permanent compression abuses. When it comes to pillows the fill power is probably the most important thing. Which is why at TMASC we usually sell the Lajord pillows which have a very high loft but not the crazy price of something like an Eiderdown.
Larger birds produce larger down clusters, the bigger the bird the bigger the down clusters tend to be. This is why Goose down actually has a higher peak loft rating than what Eiderdown can test at. Typically 800~850 is as high as the loft goes for Goose down for the largest farm raised birds, higher can be achieved by hand sorting the fills and only selecting the largest and most mature clusters although this process is very time consuming so its rare to see this. Some cheaper pillows can also have loft ratings this high, it is typically artificially inflated by chemical treatments that blow up the down clusters beyond what normal conditions allow and the enhanced loft is quickly diminished with compression.
Eiderdown may only hit around 700 loft at the absolute maximum which is why in a pillow fill it is not actually as good as a high end down, typically the only pillows that I think St. Geneve sells that are better than Lajord as a pillow fill is the Salzburg pillow and the new Stromberg pillow which is not currently on our website. Eiderdown however is unbelievably soft so if someone wants the softest possible pillow I suppose it still has its place for those that wish to drop that kind of money on a pillow.
Where Eiderdown truly shines is it’s insulation qualities, it is much better used in a duvet than in a pillow. Eiderdown insulates at a level much higher than it’s fill power suggests because of the phenomenal density and cling of the down. It literally ‘sticks’ to itself so well that it does not shift hardly at all inside the individual baffles of a duvet. Anyway I know I am going off topic because this is a pillow thread, just thought it might deserve mentioning why we truly carry this unique product.
Regarding the guarantees from St. Geneve the fills are all guaranteed hypoallergenic because of St. Geneve’s cleaning system and are all guaranteed for the same time. The 5 year guarantee on their pillows is strictly the workmanship (the integrity of the pillow fabric shell itself). The hypoallergenic guarantee I believe is a pretty brief window of about 30 days or so. This is because they cannot control the environment in which the pillows are used in. Although if it is a legitimate down allergy you would know on the first night or 2. We have in our history been called to honour this guarantee one time and we had St. Geneve take some down products back, although this was also in a home that I knew was going through renovations it honestly may not have been a legitimate issue but we rarely like to argue lol. If someone was really worried about allergies I always recommend just buying one pillow to test at first as a courtesy to us so we don’t buy back multiple pillows and a duvet all at once
Sorry for the small novel, I hope it can help to make sense of the descriptions you see on our website. Our verbiage may not be 100% consistent on our site so I will look to try and make some adjustments.
Hi Daniel,
Thanks for sharing some great information. You are one of the most knowledgeable people I know when it comes to fabrics and bedding materials and I appreciate the information you have the chance to share on the forum.
For those that read this as well TMASC will also be listed later today as an official member of the site so let me be the first to say … Welcome to The Mattress Underground
Phoenix