Two fills, one pillow
A buckwheat chamber on one side, organic wool on the other, an internal cotton divider keeping them apart. Flip it and you have a different pillow.
The Buckwool Hybrid is for people who want the locking hold of buckwheat but do not want the hard, rustling surface against their cheek every night. One side is pre-polished USA-grown hulls that hold your neck where you put it. The other is organic wool that stays soft and pulls moisture off your skin. An internal cotton divider keeps the two from mixing, so the side you choose is the side you get. Both chambers open, so you set the height on each one.
The hybrid is a buckwheat pillow and a wool pillow sharing a cover. If you already know which half you want to live on, the single-fill pillow may serve you better, so both are here.
Firm hulls one side, organic wool the other, an internal cotton divider between them. Most people settle on a favourite side within a fortnight and keep the other for the nights that call for it.
Best for anyone torn between firm hold and a soft surface
If you flip to the buckwheat side every night, the full hull pillow gives you more of it and weighs less than the hybrid.
Best for people who know they want firm all the way through
If the wool side is where you keep landing, the full wool pillow is certified organic as a finished product, the wool inside as well as the cover, and it runs a good deal lighter.
Best for people who want soft and dry over firm
Pre-polished USA-grown hulls in a bag, for when the buckwheat chamber settles lower than you set it.
Best for restoring the height on the firm side
The choice nobody should have to make
Pillow shopping tends to end in a trade. Firm pillows keep your neck in line and feel like a board under your cheek. Soft pillows feel wonderful for twenty minutes and then let your head sink out of line. The hybrid exists because that trade is a design problem, not a law.
1
Your neck feels better in the morning and your face spends the night pressed against something hard.
2
The first twenty minutes are lovely. Then your head settles, your shoulder takes the weight, and the neck bends.
3
Two pillows on the bed, one of them always in the way, and neither at the height you wanted.
4
The hulls hold your neck on the nights it aches. The wool takes over on the nights it does not.
The internal cotton divider is what makes it work. Without it the hulls migrate into the wool within a week and you are left with a lumpy pillow that does neither job.
Inside the pillow
Cut the hybrid open and you find carded organic wool on one side, pre-polished hulls on the other, and a sewn cotton divider running the length of the pillow between them. The divider is the part most hybrid pillows skip, and skipping it is why they turn lumpy.
Each chamber has its own opening, so you can take wool out of one side and hulls out of the other until both halves sit at the height you want. Most people end up with the two sides at slightly different heights, which is exactly the point.
The wool side
Wool takes up to 30 percent of its own weight in moisture before the surface ever feels damp, which is why you wake dry on a night that would have left you clammy. It gives off a little heat as it takes moisture in and draws heat as it releases it, so it evens out the swings instead of trapping them.
You never touch the wool itself. It sits inside a sateen-weave organic cotton cover, so what rests against your cheek is cotton, which is why this side stays soft where a wool blanket would prickle.
What to know first
Buckwheat hulls weigh what stone weighs, and half this pillow is hulls. The Buckwool Hybrid weighs about 8 pounds in a Standard. It stays where you put it, which most people like, and it is not a pillow you throw in a suitcase.
If you travel with your pillow, the wool or the kapok will serve you far better. If your pillow lives on one bed and you want it to stop sliding around, the weight is a feature.
Same pillow, same cover, two entirely different nights depending on which way up it lands.
| What matters | Buckwheat side | Wool side |
|---|---|---|
| Feel | Firm, and it stays firm | Medium soft with a gentle spring |
| How it holds you | Hulls flex, then lock to your shape | Fiber cushions and slowly recovers |
| Sound | A soft rustle like dry leaves | Silent |
| Temperature | Air moves between the hulls, runs coolest | Pulls moisture off your skin, wakes you dry |
| Best night for it | The morning your neck already aches | Warm rooms and night sweats |
| Certification | USA-grown hulls, organic cotton cover | Organic wool |
| Setting the height | Take hulls out through its own opening | Peel a whole sheet off the outside of the wool |
This is the pillow. Sleep on the wool side most nights and you barely hear the hulls at all, and the firm side is there when your neck wants it.
Buckwool Hybrid Pillow ›Flip it. Hulls on the nights that need holding, wool on the nights that do not, without a second pillow taking up the bed.
Buckwool Hybrid Pillow ›Save the weight and take the full hull pillow. You get more buckwheat and a lighter pillow.
Buckwheat Pillow ›Take the wool. The hybrid weighs about 8 pounds and it belongs on one bed.
Organic Wool Pillow ›It is our name for a hybrid pillow with two separate chambers, one filled with pre-polished USA-grown buckwheat hulls and one with organic wool, kept apart by an internal cotton divider. You flip it to change which fill your head rests on.
No. A sewn cotton divider runs the length of the pillow between the two chambers. That wall is the part cheaper hybrids leave out, and leaving it out is why they go lumpy in the first month.
Start on the wool side for a few nights, then try the buckwheat side for a few. Most people find one becomes their default within a fortnight. Necks that ache in the morning usually settle on the hulls, warm sleepers usually settle on the wool.
The wool inside it is organic wool and the cover is organic cotton. The pillow as a whole sits outside our finished-product certification scope, so we do not put that label on it. Our Organic Cotton and Organic Wool pillows are the two that carry the finished-product claim, and we are glad to send the certificate for either.
Heavier than any other pillow we make, because half of it is buckwheat hulls and hulls are dense. It stays put on the bed, which most people like. If you carry your pillow when you travel, take the wool or the kapok instead.
It is the same pre-polished USA-grown hulls as our full buckwheat pillow, which cuts movement noise by up to 68 percent against standard hulls. You hear a soft rustle like dry leaves, and it is quieter still through the wool side.
Each chamber opens on its own. On the buckwheat side, scoop hulls into a bowl until your head sits level. On the wool side, peel a whole sheet off the outside of the wool rather than tearing pieces from the middle. Set each side separately, sleep on a height three nights before changing it again.
Three to five years on the wool side. The buckwheat side does not really wear out, it settles, and a bag of fresh hulls through the zipper brings the height back.
Wash the cover, not the fills. Empty both chambers, machine wash the cover cool and hang it to dry, then refill. Wool wants airing in the sun rather than washing, and hulls must stay dry.
Both hold your neck the same way, because the hulls are identical. Take the plain buckwheat pillow if you want the firm surface every night and would rather have the lighter pillow. Take the hybrid if a hard surface against your cheek is what stopped you buying buckwheat before.
Set both chambers on the first night and flip whenever the night calls for it. Sixty nights to be sure, handmade in our New Jersey workshop.
See the Buckwool Hybrid201 verified reviews
If you've sent more pillows back than you've kept, you're our customer.
“I have owned more pillows than I have owned houses and I have owned 12 houses.” This is by far the only pillow to use if you don’t want to wake up with sore shoulders or neck. I have replaced all the pillows in my house with this pillow.
I have compressed discs in my neck, and I have spent hundreds of dollars over the past 6 months trying to find one that will help me sleep. Every pillow I bought caused me to wake up in even more pain than the night before!! The buckwheat pillow is life-changing!! I have slept through the night and wake up with no pain!!
I was leery to try another expensive pillow without some sort of trial period after being very let down by a different company's natural fiber pillow… I don't hear anything at all with the buckwheat! It does stay fresh and cool as well, but most importantly it actually holds my head/neck up and in place. Which allows me to actually get rest instead of always adjusting.
I've been a buckwheat pillow customer for the last 7 years and I can say that Circadian has the highest standards of quality paired with incredible customer service. Very very impressed and would not hesitate to send anyone their way.
I have spent years searching for a pillow that feels supportive and comfortable all night. I have finally found it. I absolutely love the Buckwool pillow. I removed a bit of the material to get it to exactly how I want it… I rarely wake up with neck pain now.
I find myself switching between the two and loving the feel of both. I haven't woken up with a sweaty head with either and that's an amazing feeling especially in the AZ summer. The buckwheat side is a lot quieter and more comfy/soft than others I've tried in the past.
I have tried at least 10 different pillows in the last 3 years. Nothing has worked out except for this wool pillow. I have chronic neck pain which has been greatly reduced. I am very happy with my new pillow.
I have pretty bad chemical sensitivity (housebound most of the time)… I try to only buy totally safe, non-toxic products. I found this pillow to be very safe and non-toxic, and the packaging was fragrance free which is always a huge plus.
I ordered this pillow to replace my very old (but beloved) down pillow and I'm so glad I did. It is heavenly!… I advise you to heed the recommendation given by the quiz. I ordered cotton initially despite the quiz giving me kapok as a result… the quiz was right.
The quality craftsmanship and materials is evident… when I asked if extra stuffing were available for the second one I'm using as a knee pillow, they not only pointed me to the right place on their site, but also created a new, smaller 1-lb. refill size based on my request.
The three-star ones are in there too. Read all of them
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