Sleep is a blessing. Sleeping in your own bed, where you are comfortable and safe, may help you maintain your health, boosts your immune system, sharpen your mind, and prepare you for the challenges of the next day. Finding the right mattress is crucial, but it won’t matter much if you don’t have a comfortable pillow to put your head on.
Finding the right pillow — as well as sleeping on the wrong one — can be a real pain in the neck. Ironically, choosing your best bed pillow, force you to sacrifice precious sleep as you peruse the far reaches of the internet in the night in search of the right one (we’ve all been there).
The good news is that we have already done the hard work for you. After sifting through dozens of customer ratings and reviews, we settled on the Snuggledown Hungarian Goose Down White Pillow as the pillow of our dreams.
How We Chose the Best Bed Pillow
To find the best bed pillow on the market, we spent about 40 hours poring over every viable source we could think of. From third-party and customer reviews to sleep and health statistics, we covered all the bases.
The difficulty in any review like this one is that every person has a unique preference. For example, some individuals like to sleep on their sides, while others prefer to sleep on their backs; hence, there are several pillows available to accommodate these preferences.
Yes, we know that some of you are stomach sleepers. However, this is considered unhealthy for the spine and, frankly, only seems like an efficient way to drool on your nice, new pillow.
Every individual has their own unique preferences when it comes to the level of softness or hardness they need while they sleep. You may sleep with your head in the clouds if you prefer, or you can get some good neck and back support.
While comfort is an essential component of sleep, we wanted to find a pillow that combined the best of both worlds. Snuggledown Hungarian Goose Down (quite a mouthful), our pick for the best bed pillow, is technically two in one, offering both a comfortable cushion and firm support.
As with most things in life, we found that the most expensive option isn’t necessarily the best. You’d probably be healthier sleeping on the floor than dropping $500 on a pillow that likely won’t ever live up to your expectations, and will cause financial strain.
The best option is a pillow that fits your sleeping style and firmness preference at a price that doesn’t punish your purse. We’ll dive into what gave our top pick the edge in our full review below. First, here’s a look at some other pillows that stood out from the crowd.
The Best Inexpensive Pillow in UK: BedStory 2 Pack Sleeping Pillows
At about £33 for a pair of these comfortable down-alternative pillows, the BedStory sleeping pillows are easily the best bang for your buck. They are hypoallergenic and a medium firmness, the perfect affordable place to lay your head at night.
The BedStory 2 Pack Sleeping Pillows are a great option for those who suffer from neck or shoulder pain, or who have allergies. The pillows are made from down alternative materials, which are dust mite resistant and hypoallergenic. They are also machine washable, making them easy to care for. The pillows are a good size and provide good support for the head and neck. They are also very comfortable and have a soft, luxurious feel. Overall, these pillows are a great option for those who need a good night’s sleep.
The Best Memory Foam Pillow in UK: TEMPUR Original Pillow Medium Firmness
Tempur-Pedic is well known for its high standards in comfort. This pillow has a medium firm take on conforming memory foam paired with cooling gel to keep you cool through the night, making it the best memory foam pillow money can buy. The pillow is made from memory foam, which contours to your head and neck, providing support and comfort. The pillow is also hypoallergenic and dust mite resistant, making it a great option for people with allergies. However, its £99 price tag makes this pillow something of a luxury, and ultimately kept it from earning our top honors.
The Best Down Pillow in UK: SUFUEE Goose Feather and Down Pillows Pair
Goose-down pillows are undoubtedly the standard for friendly pillow fights and, as it turns out, a good night’s rest as well. The Luxury Soft Goose Down by Sufuee is a hypoallergenic pillow, showcasing a moderate 550 fill power for “comfort night after night.” At about £44 for a pair, these pillows are reasonably priced for the competition in down pillows.
The Best Pillow for Back Sleepers: Elviros Cervical Contour Memory Foam Pillow
Studies have shown that sleeping on your back is the healthiest way to sleep, so why not find a pillow that can help you get comfortable that way? The Elviros Cervical Contour Memory Foam Pillow, helps to facilitate an easy rest in either the back or side position and is the perfect choice for anyone willing and able to spend the extra cash on a luxuriously comfortable rest.
Best Bed Pillow in UK 2022: Snuggledown Hungarian Goose Down White Pillow
There aren’t many luxuries that top sinking your head into the perfect pillow at the end of a long day. It’s almost as if you can feel the stresses of the day melt away as soon as your head hits the pillowcase. No matter what type of sleep experience you’re looking for, Snuggledown Hungarian Goose Down soft pillow is simply the one to beat.
What separates this pillow from the crowd is its pillow-in-a-pillow design. While some of you undoubtedly will fall on one of the extremes of the firmness spectrum, the majority of sleepers are simply looking for a reliable place to lay their head. The Snuggledown Hungarian Goose Down splits the difference between squishy and firm by combining the best of the down and springy feather worlds.
The outer layer is a 550-fill-power down that allows you to gratifyingly sink into your pillow. While down pillows typically allow you to sink until there’s nowhere else to go, this pillow features a packed-in Resilia feather core that adds a level of support and firmness without sacrificing the squishy comfort of a down pillow.
Another benefit to having the feather core surrounded by down is that it prevents you from getting pricked by the quills, an eventual inevitability for most feather-only pillows. The Snuggledown Hungarian Goose Down boasts a modest 300 thread count and a 100-percent-cotton down- and feather-proof fabric.
One major benefit of this pillow is its ease of maintenance. With many pillows, washing options are limited to dry cleaning or no washing at all. This pillow is machine washable and dryer safe, making it a sanitary option in your home for years to come.
On top of the comfort and ease of maintenance, Snuggledown also has some impressive warranties and guarantees, promising to put its money where its mouth is. First, the company assures users that if they have allergies while using this pillow, it can be returned “hassle-free.”
Unless you’re shelling out big bucks for a pillow that has cooling gel built in, memory foam can trap heat and get a bit uncomfortable. They also tend to sleep much different than traditional pillows; that’s not to say it’s better or worse, just very different for those used to down or feather pillows. It comes down to preference, of course, but in this review we chose the pillow that would most likely satisfy the majority of common shoppers.
Choosing the Best Bed Pillow For You
Now that we’ve looked at the common sleeping positions and how they affect your choice of pillow, we want to help you choose the right pillow. While we are confident in our top pick, we’d be remiss if we didn’t leave you with all the information you need to be a smart shopper.
We’ve addressed something call “fill power” in this article. Simply put, fill power is the volume an ounce of down fills up. In other words, the higher the number, the higher the pillow’s quality. Here are the various types of pillows and which sleep style they fit the best.
Down: Down is the soft, fluffy undercoat of ducks and geese, and it simply makes for the most luxurious, cloud-like sleep money can buy. A typical down pillow will not have much firmness, but instead allow you to literally sink into your sleep.
A true down pillow is filled with at least 75 percent down and no more than 25 percent feathers. Because of its typical lack of firmness, down pillows aren’t good for back sleepers and are more often used by side and stomach snoozers.
Feather: Much like a down pillow, feather pillows are soft and (obviously) filled with feathers. Unlike down, feathers — especially packed into a small space — add a level of firmness unachievable by a down pillow. Depending on the specifics, a feather pillow can fit any type of sleeper.
Down/Feather: Combining the best of both worlds, down/feather pillows are the ideal combination of soft and firm. An excellent example is our top pick, the Pacific Coast Double DownAround Firm, which is well-suited for any sleeping style.
Memory foam: Memory-foam pillows are made of a soft material originally developed by NASA for impact absorption and cushioning. They are perfect for back and side sleepers looking to keep their spine in perfect alignment.
Down alternative: If you have allergies that are triggered by traditional down, synthetic down-alternative pillows can be a great option for comfortably spending a night without the sniffles.
Final Thoughts
Finding the right pillow can be overwhelming. The competition is thick, the terminology is complicated and pillow options are bountiful. However, since we spend roughly a third of our life sleeping, finding the perfect pillow to lay your head on night after night is an essential component to a healthy and happy life.
After dozens of hours of research, we found the Snuggledown Hungarian Goose Down soft pillow to be the hands-down best option for the average user. Combining a firm feather core with sinking down, the Double DownAround is simply the best of both worlds.
No two people’s preferences are identical; no pillow is right for everyone, and not everyone will love our top pick. Your sleep style and your firmness preferences are completely your own, and finding the pillow that best fits that is paramount.
Above all else, we encourage you to find the pillow that works best for you. Whether it’s the Snuggledown Hungarian Goose Down pillow or another pillow entirely, we hope you’re able to find the pillow that helps you rest easy and lead a healthy, re-energized life.