When hot sleepers wake from head and neck heat the instinct is to replace the pillow. In most cases the pillowcase is the problem, not the fill. Here is why and what to do about it.
Why the Cover Matters More Than the Fill
Your face and neck are not in contact with the pillow fill. They are in contact with the pillowcase. The thermal properties of the pillowcase, how quickly it absorbs heat from your skin and whether it wicks moisture, determine how hot your sleeping surface feels at head level. A cooling pillowcase on a mediocre pillow will sleep significantly cooler than a standard cotton pillowcase on an expensive cooling pillow.
What Standard Cotton Pillowcases Do
Standard cotton pillowcases absorb heat from your face and neck and then hold it, gradually warming the surface you are sleeping on. After 1-2 hours of sleep the cotton surface has absorbed enough heat to feel warm to the touch. This is the familiar experience of flipping the pillow to find the cool side, which cools for another 30-60 minutes before it too warms up.
What a Cooling Pillowcase Does Differently
A pillowcase with thermally conductive fiber draws heat away from your skin continuously and dissipates it outward rather than holding it. The surface stays cooler because heat is being removed rather than accumulated. This is the same principle as a cooling blanket but applied to the pillow surface. There is no need to flip to the cool side because the cool side is always the side you are on.
The Stillwell Cool Night Pillowcase
The Stillwell Cool Night Pillowcase uses 3D cooling bead technology to draw heat away from your face and neck through the night. It pairs perfectly with The Cloud cooling blanket for a complete cool sleep system. See the Cool Night Pillowcase here.