The cheapest thing on your bed decides how long the rest of it lasts.
A pillow does not usually wear out. It gets dirty. This is the layer that stops that happening, and it is the reason a good pillow reaches year five looking like year one.
Waterproof usually means plastic against your face. Not here.
Most waterproof protectors are a sheet of vinyl or polyurethane with a thin fabric glued to it, which is why they crinkle, trap heat and feel like sleeping on a raincoat. This one is built the other way round.
Certified organic cotton on the side that matters.
The face against your cheek is GOTS Certified Organic cotton, so the surface you breathe against for eight hours is fabric rather than film. The barrier sits behind it, out of contact.
A bio-based barrier, and no crinkle.
Behind the cotton is a thin bio-based TPU membrane. It blocks liquid, dust mites and bed bugs while still letting water vapour through, which is why it does not trap heat the way a vinyl backing does. It also carries GreenGuard Gold, which tests for chemical emissions into the air of the room.
On the pillow, under the pillowcase.
It zips closed around the whole pillow so nothing gets in from the open end, which is where most protectors give up.
Zip it on first.
Fully enclose the pillow before the pillowcase goes on. A protector that only covers one face is not doing the job.
Leave it on.
This is not a laundry-day item. It lives on the pillow and comes off to be washed.
Buy a second one.
One on the pillow, one in the wash. It is the only way one stays on the pillow year round.
What it keeps out.
Sweat, oils, spills, dust mites and bed bugs. Roughly a third of a litre of moisture leaves your body most nights, and without a barrier all of it ends up in the fill.
The face fabric is certified organic, made in accordance with the Global Organic Textile Standard. OTCO, GOTS-10229. The protector also carries GreenGuard Gold for low chemical emissions. Handmade in our New Jersey workshop.
Warm wash, low heat. Heat is the one thing to watch.
Machine wash warm
On its own or with sheets. Skip the fabric softener, which clogs the membrane and stops it breathing, and skip the bleach.
Tumble low or hang it
High heat is the only thing that shortens the life of the waterproof layer. Low and slow, or line dry.
Wash it monthly
More often if someone in the bed runs hot or is unwell.
Washed warm and dried low, the barrier stays intact for years. It is the least expensive thing on the bed and it decides how long the most expensive thing lasts.
The ones we hear most.
No. There is no crinkle. The cotton face is what touches you and the membrane behind it is thin enough that it disappears under a pillowcase.
It is designed not to. The membrane passes water vapour, so heat and humidity move through instead of building up. A vinyl-backed protector does trap heat, which is what most people are remembering when they ask this.
Yes. The pillowcase is what you change weekly; the protector is what you change monthly. They do different jobs.
Yes. The barrier is a physical block, so mites cannot get into the fill and the allergens they leave behind cannot get out.
Sixty nights, and a person on the other end.
Jacob reads this inbox himself. Tell him at night three rather than night fifty and he will fix it. You can also just ask, about fills, about certifications, about anything on this page.
