Joined in 2023 
82 
63 About this deal
If you have sensitive skin, this could be the pillow for you, as it is OEKO-TEX certified free from irritants and chemicals, and the soft, smooth bamboo cover is naturally antimicrobial. The pillow casing contains two pillows inside, one of which is slightly firmer, and one slightly softer, meaning you can flip the cushion based on your preference. Alternatively you can remove a pillow to adjust the firmness and height. In short, it’s completely adaptable to just about any sleeping type - other than perhaps those who really do favour a really firm pillow. I liked sleeping on this pillow far more than I thought I would based on first appearances alone, as it is flat and – to be frank – a bit odd looking. It is 60cm in length, so slightly shorter than the standard 70cm, which means it looks a little sad and small in my pillowcase. However, I rapidly changed my tune when I lay down on it. It is supremely supportive and comfortable once you lie down, and the hypoallergenic bamboo pillow cover is very soft to the touch. The core of the pillow is made from bamboo and charcoal-infused memory foam (dubbed “CharcoCell foam” by Panda), perforated to promote airflow and wrapped in a quilted bamboo rayon cover. It’s softer than Panda’s standard bamboo pillow, instead looking and feeling more like the Otty pillow featured below. The cover is also silky soft and cool to the touch – so much so, that it’s almost a shame to put a pillowcase over the top of it.
Just before we get into the detail of analysing the price of this product, we want to briefly highlight the importance of setting yourself a budget before you spend too much time shopping around for a suitable product. It’s all too often that we get carried away when shopping and find ourselves buying a fantastic product, but probably actually overdelivers on what we need and therefore costs a lot more than we should have spent. So spend a bit of time looking around at the sort of price you can expect to pay for products in the Pillows category and use that alongside your own financial situation to set yourself a budget. As you can imagine, pricing is one of the most important factors of any purchasing decision. We can find the perfect product for our needs, that fits the brief in every single way. But if it doesn’t fit our budgets, we simply can’t (or at least shouldn’t) buy it. Similar to the Woolroom pillow above, I actually found it too high on arrival. You can remove filling from the Hypnia too, but it’s not quite as easy to separate the whisps of hollowfibre as it is to remove the wool from the Woolroom or the nanocubes from the Simba Hybrid. If the brand you buy is important to you, our best advice is to spend some time writing up your own list of ideal brands. That way when you come to the point where you’re comparing product options you can filter to only show the products from brands in your list. As for the pillow we are reviewing, the Silentnight Just Like Down pillow is a hypoallergenic, hollowfibre alternative to traditional down pillows. Silentnight have aimed to produce a similar, super soft feel too down while not using animal products. Using hollowfibre as fill material is extremely common in pillows but using it to recreate a down feel is a little different. A bonus of using hollowfibre within pillows is that they can be machine washed, keeping them smelling and feeling better for longer.
The next step was to try and narrow down our search even more. So we’ve already looked the prices of products in the Pillows category. Then we’ve also looked at the prices of products from Silentnight. So this step combines the two and looks specifically at the price you’d expect to pay for Silentnight branded products in the Pillows category. Price is another really important factor for analysing the quality of Silentnight Soft Like Down Pillow vs other products in the Pillows category. It’s obvious, but you will need to set your expectations of quality based on your budget and the price of the product you’re looking at, against the price of alternatives. It’s a little bit firmer than the Otty Deluxe, but it’s not so firm that it feels clinical, instead landing somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. It comes with an inbuilt protector, plus a soft, breathable and hypoallergenic bamboo cover (which can be washed at 40°C), which helps you to keep things fresher than washing your pillowcase alone . For this test we worked our way through a constant rotation of new pillows, looking for those that helped us sleep better. The first thing we learned is that material is a key factor. Broadly speaking, there are five types that you need to know about: washable cotton, luxurious down, memory foam for support, modern microfibre and hybrids of two or more of those. See the FAQ at the bottom of this article for a full explanation of the pros and cons of each. Another appealing feature is the amount of choice you get when it comes to size and feel. It’s available in soft, soft/medium and medium/firm variants, as well as standard (50 x 75cm), superking (50 x 90cm) and square (65 x 65cm) sizes.
If – like me – you had always assumed that the plushest pillows had a natural down filling, the Simba Hybrid will prove you wrong. It feels as soft as the finest goose down but with the support of memory foam (although the Simba is clear that this isn’t a memory foam pillow per se). It never needs plumping, and I found it much better at keeping me cool than the natural-fill pillows I tried. Given that the filling is synthetic, it is also suitable for people with allergies or sensitive skin.The first is brand. Looking at the brand of the product is often a really good indicator for judging product quality. For example you’d expect a much higher quality product from a brand known for providing excellent quality than you would from an unknown or even a budget brand. The best pillows you can buy in 2023 1. Silentnight Just Like Down Microfibre Pillow: Best value pillow The only significant caveat is that to keep the pillow feeling its best, you’ll need to plump it up daily – something that’s not necessary with the foam pillows in this list.
It’s easy to assume this is irrelevant as you’ll have a pillowcase covering it. But it’s worth noting that natural cover fabrics such as cotton have much more breathability than polyester and other man-made fibres, which can make for a far more comfortable night’s sleep if you’re prone to getting hot at night. How we test pillows Bedding should ideally be washed on average every 2 weeks to keep it clean and refreshed. However, for those who suffer from night sweats or allergies, you should consider washing your bedding more frequently. How to wash bedding Cotton: The basic pillow. Cotton-filled pillows are cheap and readily available – but they’re prone to absorbing heat and over time they flatten out to nothingness. Fine for occasional use in the spare room; not good enough to be considered in our search for the best pillows out there. A lot of pillows describe themselves as cloud-like but this one justifies it better than most, being extremely light and really quite lofty – more of a cumulus than a stratus. If most pillows are too flat for you, this could be the one you’re looking for. It offers a lot of support, not through being solid but for the sheer amount of light, springy filling. We wouldn’t normally include the same brand twice, but Simba’s Stratos is sufficiently different from the Hybrid pillow at the top of this list to justify separate billing. It’s cheaper, for a start, but the main selling-point is the Stratos material used for the cover.
Given that we’ve finally cottoned on to the importance of a good night’s sleep for our health and wellbeing, it is staggering how many of us will put up with a pillow that is too flat, too tall, too soft or too hard. These days brands like Simba, Tempur and Panda all have different types of pillows for different sleeping positions. So there’s no excuse for hanging on to an uncomfortable pillow.
Of the 90 products, we discovered that 50 were more expensive and 30 were cheaper than Silentnight Soft Like Down Pillow. Prices from Silentnight The pillow’s two polyester microfibre layers are encased in a soft padded pillowcase. With both layers inserted, the pillow has a good amount of loft, which is a good thing for side sleepers who need to support their head and shoulder (though we also found the pillow to be comfortable and supportive with just the one insert). While most of the pillows on our roundup have a machine washable cover, you might also be pleased to hear that this pillow – inserts and all – can be popped in the washing machine at a temperature up to 60°C. The movement isolation that this pillow provides would be average at best. If you are frequently disturbed by your partner’s movement during the night then a memory foam pillow may be a better option as these do not transfer movement as much. This would mainly be a problem with the mattress instead of the pillow, however. Trial and Guarantee The next step for us was to look at all of the products that fall within the Pillows category, of which we found 90 products at Argos. So we pulled together all of the prices of these products to analyse the average prices as well as finding the cheapest and most expensive options. We have broken down the pillows cover and fillings to see what each adds to the pillow: Layers 1. Microfibre Cover LayerIts excellent temperature regulation is thanks to Simba’s Stratos technology, which is printed on one side of the pillow. It was inspired by Outlast, a material originally designed for space exploration (NASA uses it in space suits) to help regulate temperature by absorbing, storing and releasing heat. Along with the mesh strip around the edge of the pillow to promote airflow, Stratos helps keep you cool and comfortable throughout the night. Having tested this pillow in a heatwave, I can confirm it works. Combined feather and down pillows are good for comfort and support, eliminating pressure points and avoiding face squashing. But if you suffer from allergies, they’re a no-no. Another issue I encountered with testing other down pillows is a strong, musty smell that lingers long after first use. That didn’t apply to this one. I also noted that there is no sign of the feathers or down poking out through the tightly-woven cover. More information on quality can be found in this old but still very helpful article from Harvard Business Review. The brand of product you buy can vary in importance, from person to person. Some people will of course be much more particular about the brands they will use. Whilst others aren’t interested in the brand and are more interested in the overall quality or price of the product itself. Thankfully Silentnight is a brand that many customers have grown to love over the years and is very popular for items in the Pillows category.
Related:
Great Deal 
New Comment