July 11th, 2004

Filed under:
Mixed Bag
19 Comments »

How Often Do You Replace Your Pillows?

The ones you sleep on, that is. My parents failed to equip me with this information growing up, and I’ve changed cities or countries often enough for it not to have been an issue up to now. I don’t know about you, but my pillows get kind of yellow after a while. Plus, they lose a lot of their pillowy softness.

Additionally, there’s the multi-pillow factor to consider. If you, as I sometimes do, sleep with two pillows (neither of which is a body pillow, thank you) presumably that doubles the life of each pillow. Assuming you don’t distinguish between them. If you have a “top” pillow and “bottom” pillow in the stack (keep your gay slang jokes to yourself, thank you), then probably their longevity is affected unevenly. Someone needs to do a PhD on this.

Comments: 19 Responses so far

Devon
July 12th, 2004
12:12 am

How often? Not often enough, probably. As far as cleanliness goes, though, I wash my pillows often (read: obessively often) due to a dust mite allergy. And I have them all encased in dust mite proof coverings.

I actually prefer pillows that aren’t new and all soft and squishy. I like them hard and lumpy, as strange as it sounds. Which is a good thing, because the washing machine tends to lumpify a pillow very quickly.

I can’t believe I wrote all of that about something as inane as pillow replacement. :)

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Jody Cairns
July 12th, 2004
3:49 am

How does one wash a pillow? I wash their cases every couple of weeks, but the pillow itself? I’ve never washed a pillow.

I replace them when they get uncomfortable. I probably have 10 year old pillows that are still usable. Whether that’s healthy or not…

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Olaf
July 12th, 2004
6:50 am

This is one of those things I appreciate being married for. It’s my wife I look to for advice such as this (incl. matching clothes, hair advice, et al).

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heather
July 12th, 2004
8:10 am

i only replace them when i can’t sleep on them anymore. i finally had to replace a Very Old Pillow last year. it was quite traumatic actually. i’d had that pillow for as long as i could remember. i, like devon, actually like lumpy pillows and that pillow was perfectly lumpy, but i got concerned by its age and decided to retire it.

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Rob
July 12th, 2004
8:22 am

Wow. I *just* had this discussion with my girlfriend. It turns out my pillow replacement schedule is not up to what many people consider “normal”. I love my old squishy pillows, and haven’t replaced them as often as is apparently required.

This is truly a strange world.

Other than the pillow stuff Darren, your folks did a fine job. I was going to tell Gord that at your birthday but then I said to myself “nahh”.

;)

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cam
July 12th, 2004
8:40 am

So strange. My girlfriend forced me to replace my pillows yesterday. Apparently 5 years is too long to keep a pillow. Who knew ?

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donna
July 12th, 2004
10:03 am

I desperately want a body pillow. I’m just sayin’.

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Sue
July 12th, 2004
10:53 am

Since I used to be all about the poly-fill pillows, I had to replace them probably about once every five years because they’d get all flat and wouldn’t plump up like I like them to. Now I’ve discovered the joys of a multi-zone down/feather fill pillow, which has more technology than an early-days Game Boy, it seems. I am hoping this pillow will last for ten or more years. Then again, who knows when the next pillow technology will come along and make the multi-zone pillow obsolete. It happens with every other consumer product out there - why not pillows?

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Andrea
July 12th, 2004
10:56 am

This site (http://www.ehso.com/ehshome/dustmites.php) says that 10% of a 2-year-old pillow is made up of dust mites and their droppings. For that reason, I replace my pillows about every 4-5 years.

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Aaron
July 12th, 2004
2:05 pm

Not often enough. I think a good pillow will last over 10 years. My last old pillow may have been close to 20.

There are ways to clean them, but I’m no expert. Actually, I had to replace my last pillow because it exploded when I tried cleaning it. Here was my plan: fill the bath tub about half way with warm water, and very little soap. Then, put the pillow in, and kind of mash it around until it got all soggy. By this time the water was a nice yellow-brown (maybe those dust mite bodies? maybe re-hydrated sweat?)… anyway, after about 3 cycles of this, the water started to clear up. I was then trying to ring it out by squishing the water out… unfortunately, I don’t think the pillow case was up to it. The pillow exploded and filled my bath tub with soggy feathers.

I probably could have salvaged the whole mess, but I was pretty tired of it by then. We trashed the old pillow, and bought two new ones. They’re way too fluffy, but I’m working hard to flatten mine into a nice dense lump.

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Devon
July 12th, 2004
5:30 pm

I do nothing quite so elaborate with my pillows. I shove ‘em in the washing machine, on hot, and then into the dryer.

I would not recommend that with a feather pillow, though. :)

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col
July 12th, 2004
5:40 pm

wow, all this pillow talk (you knew that was coming).

i think pillow replacement is one of those things you just don’t think about…

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Rob
July 12th, 2004
8:37 pm

I also unceremoniously toss my pillows into the washing machine.

Mine are all coming up to the three year mark, I suppose. I might replace them soon. They’re getting too hard for my liking.

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jenny
September 3rd, 2006
6:53 am

how do you plump up a pillow?

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dana
September 22nd, 2006
7:00 pm

What do you do with all of the old pillows you don’t want anymore. Not sure sure what the most environmentaly correct thing to do is…?

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Kevin
February 12th, 2007
10:47 am

Well… My current pillow… Is like 30 years old.. My ex’s didn’t like it cause it was old… But oddly enough they’d spend more time with thier heads on my pillow than thier’s when sleeping. I wash it every 6 months… Twice in a row on gentle(with woolite) then air dry..

Its that really old sit on huge style.. Like a 3×3 size. It has a furry synthetic outside.. With small stressball style balls in it. I think they stopped making them because of fire rules or something. But seriously its the most comftorable pillow I’ve ever owned… All the new ones seem to die in about 6-8 months. I’ve bought new pillows many times only to have them die in 6 months… None gives me the same comfort as my old pillow. The new sitdown pillows are too hard.

Seriously when will they make them like they used to???

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Jasmine
February 15th, 2007
6:48 pm

I have a wicked allergy to dust mites and recently was told by an allergist to replace my pillow every three months. I also bought on of those zippered allergy free covers for my pillow.

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Astrila
May 20th, 2008
4:29 pm

I’ve been told that you’re supposed to replace them every 4 years, but that was without dust mite covers on them…I can’t seem to find info that says how often you’re supposed to replace them if you’ve had covers on them the whole time…

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Down Pillow
July 12th, 2008
11:42 am

OK - I’m probably biased here (Footnote I work for a pillow company) - but even I have really old pillows I refuse to let go of :-) We do tell folks to replace them every other year. As for washing a down pillow - that is totally doable - just make sure you dry it at least twice - and possible three times (make sure to karate chop the fill around enough). If you do want a new pillow (I recommend our primaloft kensington pillows) - come to my site and use coupon code secret08 for an extra 10% off.

Cheers!

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