We lay our heads on a pillow for 6-8 hours every night, children even longer. That’s up to a third of our lives! The vast majority of pillows are either made from chemicals or have chemicals applied to them. If even the smallest, often unnoticeable, amount of chemical fumes escapes from the pillow, we inhale it directly into our lungs and from there into the blood to be dispersed throughout our whole body. Chemicals can also be absorbed through the skin. Over the hours, weeks and months this adds up to a significant toxic load. So what your pillow is made of is crucial to your health.
How does this happen? Chemicals become trapped in products during manufacture and they slowly release as harmful gases. This is known as ‘Off-gassing’. More specifically it’s gases and particulate matter (microscopic solids and liquid droplets that can be inhaled and cause serious health problems). Together these are known as VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds).
Exposure to VOCs can cause a variety of health issues including, but not limited to, nausea, headaches, fatigue, skin and eye irritation, respiratory difficulties and more serious problems such as damage to the nervous system, liver, kidneys and even some cancers. They should be avoided at all costs.
If you’re even the slightest bit health conscious man-made, synthetic pillows should be disregarded. Not only are they made from chemicals, usually petroleum based substances, but they need additional chemical treatments to make them more bug resistant and less flammable. They are cheap to produce and the driving force behind them is aimed at the buoyancy of the company’s wallet leaving consideration for the customer’s health firmly in the back seat.
Memory foam
These pillows are made with the greatest amount of chemicals. The main ingredient is the highly flammable and toxic polyurethane. Adding to an already disturbing list of offending chemicals are flame retardants, VOCs and industrial level deodorisers used to overpower the pillows’ chemical smell.
Polyester
This material is also laced with toxic chemicals such as formaldehyde, benzene, toluene and the worst of the bunch ethyl glycol.
The chemicals used in both of these products are not only bad for you but for the factory workers and the environment too.
Latex
There are two types of Latex. Natural and Synthetic. Make sure you know the difference. You certainly don’t want the latter.
Natural Latex starts life as a milky sap that is bled from rubber trees that are farmed on large plantations. To turn the sap into the spongy solid that we know takes chemistry and industrial processing. So don’t be blinded by an ‘Organic’ label. That just relates to the fact that the tree was grown under organic conditions. As soon as the milky sap has been bled from the tree it needs a chemical adding to it, usually either ammonia or formaldehyde, to prevent it from coagulating. Later treatment at the processing facility includes the addition of an acid to solidify the liquid into the spongy material that we’re familiar with.
The finished product is not exactly organic even though it may have an ‘organic’ label swinging from the packaging.
Apart from processing and the use of chemicals there are 4 additional drawbacks. Firstly the loft (the height of the pillow) and the firmness are not adjustable once you’ve made a purchase. Secondly, even though they are made from an open-cell material which allows more airflow than some other products they are no match for the breathability of the Kapok fibre. Additionally, the Latex is often blended with other materials to improve its comfort and cooling performance. Finally, some people suffer from an unpleasant allergy to the protein in Latex.
Buckwheat
Buckwheat hulls are a fairly healthy option but they are certainly not ideal. For starters they are a farmed crop so they require land and resources.
Mechanisation is needed to harvest the crop and also to remove the husk from the seed.
Then, of course, you need to find an organic supplier and trust that the farmer has been true to the label he’ll put on the product. Don’t forget that the acceptable rules for organic certification vary from place to place and can be more relaxed in some areas.
At around 5 kilograms the pillows are heavy and somewhat noisy (crunchy) when you move around on them. They are not known for their softness, (think bag of rice) but once you’ve mastered them they’re meant to be very supportive. There’s also a question mark around whether or not they attract bugs. They are certainly an acquired taste.
Down and feathers
Down and feathers are extracted directly from an animal’s body so they have to be sterilized, usually with formaldehyde. They are usually bleached and have other chemicals applied to them to blunt the natural ‘gamey’ odor and to reduce the possibility of allergic reactions. So they fall into the same basket as all the other options that are doused in chemicals. There’s also a major ethical issue here as most birds have to endure the highly traumatic process of being live plucked multiple times. To read more about cruelty in pillow materials click HERE.
Wool
Wool isn’t much better as the sheep are dipped in a chemical mix of powerful insecticides and fungicides. As a pillow filler it is hot and has a farm-like smell to it and it’s not particularly malleable.
Perhaps most importantly the farming of wool has a heavy environmental footprint. Vast amounts of land are cleared for grazing which leads to a loss of biodiversity and soil salinity. The chemicals used pollute the air, soil and groundwater and then there’s the consideration of the production of harmful greenhouses gases. It’s also resource hungry.
Just about every pillow filling is either man-made using chemicals or begins its journey as a farmed crop. Either way there’s usually a broad range of chemicals and machinery required to produce the end product.
The exception to the rule is Kapok. It grows naturally in the wild, untainted by man’s hand. The luxurious fibre is found in the large seedpods of the majestic Kapok tree which flourishes in tropical rainforests. Locals find these scattered trees, gather the seedpods, remove the fibre and remove the seeds from the fibre. That’s the finished product and it’s all done by hand. No machines, no chemicals. It’s as simple as that.
Kapok is truly the healthiest choice. It’s 100% natural, anti-bacterial, bug resistant, moisture repellent, hypoallergenic, non toxic and mold resistant. Collecting the seedpods doesn’t harm the tree so year after year it provides an income for local communities. It’s sustainable and incredibly eco-friendly. It’s durable and can last for decades but when the time comes to say goodbye its biodegradable nature means it can be home composted. It doesn’t need to join other types of pillows in the landfill.
It deserves our ‘Number One’ health ranking and wears it with pride.
The heavenly fluffiness of Kapok in an organic cotton shell.
Super luxurious Kapok in an organic bamboo shell.
In case you need to add some more volume to your pillow in the future.
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