GOTS Certified Organic, Texas grown
Cotton is the densest fiber we put in a pillow. It compresses slowly and evenly under your head over months and years, instead of collapsing into a divot by the second season.
Organic cotton is the choice for a quiet, medium-firm pillow that keeps its shape and holds no smell of anything. It is the most tightly packed of the fibers we use, so your head presses it down slowly and evenly rather than punching a hole in it. It makes no sound at all, it needs no breaking in, and it is GOTS Certified Organic as a finished product, the cotton inside as well as the cover, under license GOTS-10229. It is also our best-selling pillow.
The pillow, the body pillow, the duvet, the cases and sheets that go over all of it, and a bag of cotton for bringing the height back.
Dense organic cotton in a certified organic cotton cover, GOTS Certified Organic as a finished product. Silent, medium firm, and it needs no getting used to.
Best for back and side sleepers who want a steady, quiet pillow that lasts
The same organic cotton down the length of your body, for the knee and hip support that stops a side sleeper rolling forward. Also available with wool, kapok or latex inside.
Best for side sleepers, pregnancy, and anyone who hugs a pillow
Hand-tufted GOTS Certified Organic cotton, with corner-loop tufts that keep it from bunching at one end of the cover.
Best for year-round bedding that is not too warm
The same GOTS Certified Organic cotton, loose in a bag. Open the side zipper and add until the height is where you had it.
Best for a cotton pillow that has slowly settled
300 thread count long-staple organic cotton sateen, cut and sewn by hand in New Jersey. Sold as a pair.
Best for keeping the pillow clean without a synthetic case over it
Organic cotton on both faces with a bio-based waterproof layer between them, and no crinkle when you turn over.
Best for making a cotton pillow last closer to four years than two
Why the last one flattened
A loose fiber pillow fails where your head sits. The fibers there get pushed aside night after night while the corners stay full, and one morning you are lying in a crater with a ridge of pillow around it.
1
It feels generous in the first week, because there is air in it as much as fiber.
2
Every night, in the same spot, in the same direction. The fiber has somewhere to go, so it goes.
3
The middle drops and the edges stay high. Now the pillow holds your head lower than the shoulder underneath it.
4
Two years, sometimes one, and the whole thing goes in a bin because the shape went.
Cotton is packed dense enough that there is nowhere for the fiber to be pushed. It gives way slowly and evenly across the whole pillow instead of failing in one place, which is why the shape is still there years later.
Inside the pillow
Cotton is the most tightly packed of the fiber fills we use, noticeably denser than wool or kapok. That density is what stops your head from carving a channel through it. The fibers have no room to migrate, so they compress together instead of moving apart.
The trade you make for that is weight and a firmer first impression. What you get back is a pillow whose shape at year two looks like its shape at week one, and a surface that never develops the ridge around a hollow.
The list most pillow makers hope you never read
The common trick in this category is to certify the outer fabric and describe the whole pillow as organic. Ours is GOTS Certified Organic as a finished product, the cotton inside as well as the cover, under license GOTS-10229 issued by Oregon Tilth. Ask us for the certificate and we will send it over.
The standard bans chlorine bleaching and allows only oxygen-based methods, and it requires wastewater treatment at every wet-processing facility along the way. Conventional cotton growing uses 42 million pounds of pesticides a year in the United States alone. What that adds up to for you is that the air closest to your face for eight hours a night is just fiber.
Make it yours
It arrives full, about a third more than most people keep, because it is easier to take some out than to wish you had more. Open the side zipper, pull out handfuls of cotton, and stop when your head sits level with your shoulders.
Side sleepers keep more, because there is more distance between ear and shoulder to fill. Back sleepers keep less. Because cotton is dense, the height you set is the height you keep for a long time, and when it does settle a refill through the same zipper puts it back.
All three are quiet and natural. They fail differently, feel different, and suit different sleepers.
| What matters | Organic Cotton | Wool and Kapok |
|---|---|---|
| Density | The densest fiber we use | Wool is springier, kapok is the lightest natural fiber there is |
| Feel | Medium and steady | Wool has a gentle spring, kapok feels close to down |
| How it fails | Slowly and evenly across the whole pillow | Wool settles, kapok clumps unless you fluff it |
| Upkeep | None beyond washing the cover | Wool wants sun a few times a year, kapok wants a fluff every few days |
| If you sleep hot | Fine, but wool moves moisture better | Wool is the one to take |
| Certification | Certified organic as a finished product, the cotton inside as well as the cover | Wool carries the same finished-product claim; the kapok is wild-harvested, in an organic cotton cover |
| Lifespan | 2 to 4 years, longer with a refill | Wool 3 to 5 years, kapok 2 to 4 |
The cotton pillow. Nothing to break in, nothing to fluff, no sound, and the shape holds for years.
Organic Cotton Pillow ›A body pillow between your knees stops the roll and takes the twist out of your lower back. Cotton keeps it firm down the whole length.
Body Pillow ›A bag of GOTS Certified Organic cotton through the side zipper puts the height back rather than putting the pillow in a bin.
Organic Cotton Refill ›Put a protector under the case. It keeps skin oil and moisture out of the cotton, and that is what ages a fiber pillow faster than anything else.
Pillow Protector ›Medium, and denser than it sounds. Cotton is the most tightly packed fiber we use, so it feels more substantial than a wool or kapok pillow at the same height. Take cotton out through the side zipper until your head sits level with your shoulders and it softens to wherever you want it.
They settle rather than collapse. Because the fiber is packed dense there is nowhere for it to be pushed aside, so it compresses slowly and evenly across the whole pillow instead of forming a crater where your head sits. Two to four years in, a refill through the side zipper brings it back.
Yes, as a finished product, which means the cotton inside as well as the cover, under license GOTS-10229 issued by Oregon Tilth. Most brands certify only the outer fabric and call the pillow organic. Ask us for the certificate and we will send it.
That is what cotton smells like. Unbleached, unscented cotton has a faint sweet, slightly dusty smell of the plant, and it fades within a week or two of use. Nothing was added to create it and nothing was added to cover it, which is why you can smell the material at all. Our organic certification is audited in person every year.
Wash the cover, not the whole pillow. Unzip the side, take the cotton out, machine wash the cover cool and hang it to dry, then put the cotton back. Washing loose cotton fill mats it into lumps, so keep it out of the machine.
Yes, as long as you keep enough height in it. Side sleepers need more pillow than back sleepers because the gap from ear to shoulder is wider, so leave more cotton in and check that your head sits level rather than tipped up or dropped down.
Cotton for a dense, silent pillow that holds its shape and asks nothing of you. Wool if you wake up warm or damp, because moving moisture off your skin is the thing wool does that nothing else does. Both are GOTS Certified Organic as finished products.
Two to four years, and longer once you start refilling it. A protector under the pillowcase pushes it toward the top of that range, because skin oil and moisture age a fiber pillow faster than use does.
Texas grown, and cut and sewn by hand in our New Jersey workshop, which has been making pillows since 1981.
It depends on whether you want to stop buying pillows. Conventional cotton growing uses 42 million pounds of pesticides a year in the United States alone, and the certification we hold covers the cotton inside the pillow as well as the cover cloth, which is a stronger claim than the usual one. On top of that the density means the shape is still there years later, and a refill extends it again rather than sending the pillow to a bin.
Set the height on the first night and it holds. Sixty nights to be sure, handmade in our New Jersey workshop.
See the cotton pillowsYour first pillow
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