The best pillows for your bed

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A good pillow means a good night’s sleep. We reviewed dozens of pillows to narrow down the choices to the ones you’ll love best.

In ancient times, a carved stone was considered a very comfortable and supportive pillow, but in today’s world, you’re probably looking for something a bit softer. Luckily, you’ve got a lot more to choose from than the people of ancient times.

There’s a nearly dizzying array of pillows on display in any bed-and-bath shop, or on the virtual shelves of your favorite online home store. That can make it a bit difficult to choose the best pillow for your needs. Is memory foam best? How about down? Or maybe you’re confused about all the different shapes: standard, contour, bolster. Well, have no fear, because we’ve done the research for you.

While ultimately, there is no “best for everyone” pillow — personal preference plays a huge part in determining the pillow you’ll like the most — we checked out all the top recommendations from consumer buying websites, listened to what pillow buyers had to say, and even tried out some of the pillows ourselves to bring you the pillows most likely to send you off to the land of Nod comfortably.

Here are the best pillows you can buy:

Best budget pillow: Le’vista Hotel Collection Pillow
Best down pillow: Royal Hotel Goose Down Pillow
Best buckwheat hull pillow: Zen Chi Buckwheat Hull Pillow
Best memory foam pillow: Sleep Innovations Cool Contour Memory Foam Pillow
Best bolster pillow: Half-Moon Bolster Pillow
Best gel pillow: Beckham Hotel Collection Gel Pillow
Best body pillow: Snuggle-Pedic Ultra-Luxury Full Body Pillow

Updated on 10/16/2019 by Les Shu: Updated prices, links, and formatting.

The best pillow overall
Coop Home Goods

The Premium Adjustable Shredded Memory Foam Pillow from Coop Home Goods will have you sleeping like a baby with its perfect support and variable firmness.

“Ahhh.” That’s the sigh of contentment you’ll utter as your weary head meets the Coop Home Goods Premium Adjustable Memory Foam Pillow. It’s the third best-selling pillow on Amazon, and it’s filled with shredded memory foam. You’ll get the support and comfortable “sinking in” sensation of a traditional memory foam pillow, but none of the excessive heat or firmness that can be a problem with solid foam.

What makes the Coop Home Goods pillow particularly wonderful is that it’s adjustable. You can unzip the inner pillow cover to add or remove foam until the pillow is just the way you like it. It’s also hypoallergenic and dust-mite resistant, so you won’t wake up sniffly or congested. When it’s time to clean the pillow, no problem — Just toss it in your washing machine and dryer. We recommend that you add another pillow or a blanket to balance the load, along with a couple of clean tennis balls to help fluff up the foam.

Coop Home Goods’ proprietary shredded memory foam is CertiPUR-US certified, meaning it’s guaranteed to be free of chemicals and toxins you really don’t want to sleep with, such as formaldehyde, lead, mercury, ozone depleters, PBDEs, phthalates, and TCEP flame retardants. Manufactured in California, the pillow has a 30-day guarantee, so if you don’t love it, you can return it with no questions asked.

As one of the highest-rated memory foam pillow on Amazon, 82% of the more than 16,000 customers who left feedback, gave it 4 or 5 stars. Customers call this the best pillow they’ve ever owned, praise its breathability and adjustability, and love the way it supports their neck and head. As one customer writes, “It’s like sleeping on an adjustable cloud.” The most common negative comments concern the pillow’s odor, which can be strong initially, but fades away within a day or two.

The Premium Adjustable Memory Foam Pillow has a polyester/bamboo cover that is cool and comfortable for sleep, and it’s easily removed for washing. Inside, there’s an interlock knit cover to contain the foam. Both covers have zippers so you can access the foam for easy adjustment.

Pros: Adjustable loft, very supportive and comfortable, not too hot

Cons: Some initial odor, you have to let it expand from vacuum-sealed packaging

The best budget pillow
Smart Home Bedding

If you want excellent support and comfort at an equally great price, the two-set Le’vista Hotel Collection Pillow is what you’ve been dreaming of.

Just because a pillow is inexpensive doesn’t mean it can’t also be comfortable. The Le’vista Hotel Collection Pillow (formerly Smart Home Bedding Super Plush Pillow) definitely qualifies on both counts. The fill is a down alternative, meaning it has a similar feel to goose down, but it is made of a 50/50 cotton and polyester blend. While nothing perfectly matches the cloudlike feel of genuine down, this pillow comes pretty close.

The pillows are densely filled, so the support is fairly firm, yet with the soft give that is a hallmark of down. You’ll also appreciate the fill’s resistance to dust mites and other allergens. Even better for allergy sufferers, you can toss this pillow into the washing machine and dryer without any ill effects or loss of loft.

This is one of the top-selling pillows on Amazon. Out of the nearly 2,500 customer reviews, 73% are 4 or 5 stars. Many buyers commented about the fluffiness of the pillows and loved the way they hold their shape. Others remarked on the hypoallergenic features of the pillow, saying they aren’t waking up with a stuffy nose since buying the pillow. Surprisingly for a synthetic fill pillow, many owners claim the pillow sleeps cool.

Nothing is perfect, however, not even the Le’vista Hotel Collection Pillow. A few customers complained the pillows flattened out sooner than they expected, and some people said they were too hard. The pillows are sold as a two-pack.

Pros: Inexpensive, good support, hypoallergenic

Cons: Flatten out, some feel they are too hard

The best hybrid pillow
Leesa

The Leesa Hybrid Pillow combines the best of both worlds with a firm gel pillow base and a soft quilted top layer.

The Leesa Hybrid pillow is the perfect pillow for anyone who wants the firm support of a memory foam pillow and the soft cushy feel of a down pillow at the same time. The combination seems impossible, but Leesa has done it.

The Hybrid Pillow has a down-like quilted pocket layer on one side, a firmer, ventilated gel comfort layer on the other side, and a removable pillow insert between these two layers. The multi-layered approach makes this a very customizable pillow.

You can take the quilted pillowtop part off and use the firmer pillow base, you can flip it over and sleep on the cool gel side, or you can take the firm center out and just use the fluffy quilted top as your pillow.

I’ve been sleeping on this pillow for months now and I love it. The gel pillow base is firm enough to make me feel like I’m still sleeping on my memory foam pillow, but the soft, quilted down alternative topper makes it more comfortable to rest my head on the pillow at night. I’m a side sleeper, so I need support, but sometimes my very firm memory foam pillow can hurt my ears if I stay on one side for too long (the human head is heavy!)

I’m not the only person who loves this pillow, either. Several other Insider Picks staffers tried it and loved it. Nonbiased Reviews also recommends it highly.

The only real downside here is that this pillow is on the expensive side. However, given how versatile it is and the fact that it will last you for years, it’s well worth the price. It’s also not a huge risk because you can use it for 100 nights and if you decide you hate it, you can return it — no questions asked.

If you still have qualms, Leesa’s philanthropy should assuage your concerns a bit. The pillow is part of Leesa’s One-Ten Program, in which one pillow is donated for every 10 sold.

Pros: Firm pillow base, soft pillow top, adjustable design, cooling gel layer, 100 night trial

Cons: Expensive

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