Eco-friendly folks will certainly like Brentwood Home’s Helena Pillow, which is filled with a pretty cool combination of natural latex and kapok fibers. But is it actually comfortable? Read on for my full review:
Key Features
- 100% organic cotton cover
- 50/50 Kapok fiber (100% organic and pesticide-free) and latex fill
- Queen size pillow is 19″ x 29″
- Zipper allows you to add or remove fill or to adjust to the perfect size and firmness for your needs
- Eco-institute Certified free of synthetic materials
- Made in USA, 1 Year Warranty
- Care Instructions: Spot clean your pillow with a damp, white cloth, allowing it to air dry in a sunny, breezy spot. If you want to fluff your pillow, you can place it in a tumble dryer on cool. Just a reminder – they don’t recommend using bleach on any Brentwood Home pillows.
Who Makes It?
Brentwood Home LA has designed and manufactured bedding and sleep-related products for some time. They are focused on being good stewards of the environment and making ethical and green choices with regards to their products and manufacturing.
They offer a gel mattress (check out our review here) as well as an assortment of pillows and quilts. In addition to the Helena Pillow, they make other unique pillows like a gel memory foam pillows, wedge pillow, and a meditation pillow.
They also make one set of sheets – the Sonoma sheets. You can check out our review of them here.
Pros
- Ability to remove and/or adjust the filling to your desired level of firmness
- Environmentally friendly – 100% organic and natural materials
- Soft, organic cotton cover
- Offers good density and firmness without making your neck stiff
- Good for people who are side sleepers
Cons
- The filling has the potential to be messy if you remove pieces of it from the pillow
- Less bounciness or responsiveness than you would with shredded foam or memory foam
- Filling may separate, causing gaps in support after multiple nights of use. Would need to be re-fluffed
Pillow Construction
The Helena Pillow is pretty unique as it is filled with 50% kapok fibers and 50% latex ribbons. This mix makes for a dense and slightly lumpy/soft filling. The pillow actually provides more support than it may originally appear.
There is a zipper at the end of the pillow that allows you to rearrange or remove filling. Just be warned that the fibers stick to anything and everything and are prone to spilling out of the pillow.
Be prepared to make a mess if you want to take stuff out and be careful letting little ones play with this pillow, too!
The cover is 100% organic cotton and has a nice, durable feel to it. The name of the pillow is stitched on a tag to one side, as is the Brentwood Home logo.
It just looks like a very inviting and aesthetically pleasing pillow (although more likely than not you’ll be cover it up with a pillow case!)
My Experience
The Helena Pillow came rolled up in a tight cylindrical package. When I unrolled it, it felt flat and I was skeptical about how firm it could actually be.
I let the pillow fluff up and air out per the instructions on the packaging. No weird chemical smells from this pillow thanks to its all natural materials!
It started to fluff up and take its shape relatively quickly. I let it stay out overnight and was ready to give it a try the next night.
I am a side sleeper and someone who usually has a very firm pillow with a softer, thinner pillow on top of that.
With its density plus softness, the Helena Pillow came closer than any other pillow I’ve used to being able to replace both pillows. I just needed it to be a touch thicker, maybe two or three more handfuls of filling and this would be the perfect pillow for me.
The filling itself is unlike anything I’ve slept on (but not in a bad way!). It’s slightly lumpy because of the latex ribbons and the fibers – but not as bad as down filling – and it didn’t stop me from sleeping well.
The only potential issue I noticed was that the filling did separate on me about two or three nights into my review. I ended up with a gap in filling right down the middle of my pillow and needed to re-fluff it for a few minutes to get it back into a good shape.
Complaints
The perfect pillow is different for everyone, so many of the complaints from Helena Pillow customers are that it simply didn’t meet all their needs.
I personally liked the filling and found it to be denser than I anticipated, but just not dense enough to leave me thinking that I only need one pillow. I still felt like I wanted a thicker pillow underneath this one.
The filling is very cool but very messy. Pieces of fiber clung to my hands and clothes after dipping my hand into the pillow to test the filling. I
If it spilled out, ripped open or you wanted to take out some filling you should be prepared to vacuum up some loose filling.
Final Recommendation
Brentwood Home’s Helena Pillow is sold on Brentwood Home’s website as well as Amazon.It is a little bit less expensive on Amazon – a Queen size pillow will run you $60 but you’ll see it sold for $69 on BrentwoodHome.com.
I personally really liked this pillow for many reasons and would recommend it to others. I think it’s good for side sleepers, I like that it’s organic and that the filling is made from natural materials. I really like the thickness of the pillow.
If you’re in the market for organic cotton pillowcases to cover your Helena Pillow, check out my review of Brentwood Home’s Sonoma Sheets.
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