The minute my head first hit a memory foam pillow, I knew it had to have been some sort of magic dreamt up by the sleep gods. You sink in, you feel supported, you feel held. Suddenly, the possibility of sleepless nights feels like they’re a long way away.
The only catch that comes with memory foam pillows and their warm embrace is exactly that, their warm embrace. Hot sleepers like me know that no matter how cool you try to make your sleep set up perfect if you haven’t got a pillow that’s working with you, there’s no chance. Enter, Soak & Sleep’s Cooling Memory Foam Pillow.
Most of the best cooling pillows are made from gels and wool, not warm memory foam. And yet, Soak & Sleep promises to have devised a way to enjoy the memory foam feeling without waking up covered in sweat. It sounds great on paper, but what’s it like in the sheets? I took this pillow to bed to find out what it’s really made of. I think you’ll be interested to hear how it went.
First impressions
The Soak & Sleep Cooling Memory Foam Pillow comes in a special storage bag. It’s a premium touch that helps keep the packaging both robust and good for the environment. Keep hold of this bag, because you could use it to store your old pillow, spare bedding, or anything else that might need a robust case.
Once it’s unzipped from the sleeping bag case, the pillow looks smart. The soft, quilted case is tempting enough to sleep straight on. Couple that with the sink-in memory foam softness that even foam sceptics would dream about and you’ve got a heavenly promise for your sleep set-up.
Composition
Soak & Sleep makes it easy to know what’s going on inside your pillow. One option that you have is to simply unzip it. The ultra-fine zip whizzes back to reveal the perfect memory foam pillow inside, so you can see for yourself exactly what you’re sleeping on.
If you’re interested in the composition, Soak & Sleep sends all the details. Whilst the pillow is designed in Denmark, the outer casing is a combination of polyester and elastane, which is why it feels so classically soft and stretchy. There’s also a thin layer of cooling gel lining the case to help balance out the warmth of the memory foam. You can’t see it and it’s a Soak & Sleep special recipe, so you’ll just have to trust the process with this one.
Aside from that, Soak & Sleep promises that “this pillow has gone through some serious testing. It's made and tested to EN standards with a special focus on the fill quality and the foam is accredited by Certi-PUR.” Even if yours smells a little chemically, rest assured that the filling has been tested and approved by the experts.
Who would it suit?
Memory foam is a classic option for those suffering from neck, shoulder, back, and hip pain. The first people to create memory foam were scientists at NASA, looking to help relieve pressure up in space. Sleep experts took the concept to bed and now, the heat-reactive material softens when it touches your warm skin or your heavy head, cradling it in the exact place that you need comfort.
If you have to use a memory foam pillow, but you struggle with overheating or night sweats, this is one of the best options on the market. Soak & Sleep have devised a special gel and open structure that helps airflow. Whilst I wouldn't say the pillow is actively cooling, it's the best of a very hot bunch of memory foam pillows.
By virtue of the size and height of the pillow, this is best suited to back sleepers. Front sleepers might find all the sink-in softness a little too intense and I'd even be cautious about recommending this to all side sleepers, but you'll be the best judge of whether this can keep your spine, shoulders, and hips in good alignment.
What is it like to sleep on?
The good news is that this doesn’t smell. You often have to let memory foam “de-gas” because it can develop some chemical scents in manufacturing that need to be aired out before you sleep. I still stuck mine in some fresh air for a couple of hours to be on the safe side, but you’d be fine to wrap a pillowcase around the Soak & Sleep before heading straight to bed.
I’ve slept on a few memory foam pillows in my time and I have to say that this is one of my favourites. My head sunk deeply and slowly into the pillow, just like you see in adverts, and I felt the pillow adjust itself to all the places where my head needed pressure relief. I’d normally sleep on my front, but that’s a no-go with a pillow like this, so I forced myself to sleep on my back and side while I was testing this.
I found that I ended up sleeping mostly on my back, that’s just how it was comfiest for me, and I got some decent sleep. For me, the Soak & Sleep Pillow is a little too firm, but the fault is all mine. I’m a thin pillow sleeper over everything else, so by the end of the month, I was in a routine of reading with the Soak & Sleep pillow, drifting off to sleep on it, and then throwing it off the bed in the middle of the night. That’s actually the longest that I have been able to tolerate a memory foam pillow for. Normally, they’re too thick for me to even read on.
I passed the pillow to my mum to test; she needs much firmer pillows and she loved this. “I’ve not felt proper spinal alignment for a while and I often struggle with back pain,” she says, “but this is the comfiest night sleep I’ve had. If it’s possible, I felt like my posture was better when I woke up. I didn’t feel all creased, crinkled, and crumpled up.” You heard it here first folks, this pillow works like an iron.
Is it cooling?
I’m a naturally hot sleeper, so I was very apprehensive about sleeping on memory foam. However, the Soak & Sleep Cooling Memory Foam pillows is one of the best nights of sleep that I’ve had on a foam-based pillow. I was still hot in the night, but where I would be sweaty and very uncomfortable, I merely felt warm sleeping on the pillow.
Soak & Sleep’s website says that there are “air channels within the pillow for breathability and to increase airflow to your head and face, while a layer of cooling gel in the case provides extra freshness.” When it's written like that, the technology sounds amazing. There's definitely more airflow than your average memory foam pillow, but I wouldn't say that I feel a breeze around my face.
So, if you have to have a memory foam pillow for pressure relief, this is the coolest option you’ll have on offer. If you need a cooling pillow and you’re simply dancing with the idea of memory foam, go for something that starts off with a cooler baseline, you’ll have much better results.
What are the eco-credentials?
I added this section to our reviews so that I could shout out when brands did some extra special work to help the environment. With memory foam, it’s hard to make a good case for the eco-credentials. It’s synthetically made, but if you keep hold of yours and use it well, it’ll last a long time. Make sure you dispose of it sensibly and you’ll have done the best that you can.
How does it compare?
It’s not a bad idea to cover other products on the market after looking at the Soak & Sleep Cooling Memory Foam Pillow’s eco-credentials, because there is an alternative that looks a little better on the sustainability front. Panda London uses bamboo to make their own spin on a memory foam pillow. It’s designed to be cooling and, in my experience, falls into the same category as the Soak & Sleep. Whilst it isn’t actively cooling, it’s much cooler than memory foam, so it’s the best cooling option available to you if you need some pressure relief. Panda London’s pillow is cheaper and a lot firmer than the Soak & Sleep. You still sink into the pillow, but the block shape is too firm for me to use, even for reading. For my mum, who needs a firm pillow, the Panda London was her favourite shape.
If you’re in need of pressure relief, but all the talk of synthetics and chemicals has you wheezing, don’t worry. I tested the Soak & Sleep Memory Foam Pillow against Woolroom’s Natural Latex pillow too. this has the spongy soft-yet-firm feel of memory foam, except that it’s made from tree sap, so it’s 100% natural. It feels a little more springy and less responsive than memory foam, but I actually found this was better for keeping me cooler at night. The cover is also crafted from organic, unbleached cotton and Chatsworth wool, so it’s naturally cooling all over. As you might expect, it’s more expensive, but not enough that it knocks itself out of the running. The Woolroom is one of my favourite naturally cooling pillows on the market.
Should you buy it?
If you need a memory foam pillow, but you want the naturally insulating properties of foam to be balanced out, the Soak & Sleep Cooling Memory Foam Pillow is perfect. Your head will feel like it’s resting on the clouds, except that these clouds have a layer of cooling gel around them. That's the stuff of dreams.
How we test
At woman&home we take our work to bed with us. That’s not in a horrible bloodshot-eyes-scraggly-hair overworked and up at all hours kind of way, it’s a good thing. I sleep on all these pillows every night. They’re in a rotation, so that I can keep giving you updates on all the pillows that we review throughout all the month as well as all the seasons and weather.
There are lots of nuances to our pillow reviews that mean that they’re more than just a simple ‘it’s good’ or ‘it’s bad’, even if you think that’s what sleep looks like. We test pillows for specific problems, in this case night sweats and overheating, but we also think about sleep issues, positions, and any other factors that you might need to account for when you go to bed. I track my sleep to check on how much the pillow helps or hinders my sleep patterns and I also research details including composition, cleaning, and eco-credentials. You’ll be spending a third of your time snoozing on one of these, so it’s an important investment to make. There’s not a single wink of sleep that goes unnoted or recorded, so that when the time comes for you to hit the hay, you’ll know exactly what to expect. If you still have questions about the pillow that I’ve tested, please email me. I’m a sleep geek, so I’ll take any excuse to chat about my slumbers.
To find out more about how we test pillows, you can visit our dedicated page.
