These Silk Pillowcases Are an Affordable Bedtime Luxury. Just Don’t Expect Miracles.

These Silk Pillowcases Are an Affordable Bedtime Luxury. Just Don’t Expect Miracles.

Katie Okamoto is an editor on the discovery team. She’s covered the intersections of products, sustainability, and health for more than a decade.

In my ongoing quest to have East Coast hair in Los Angeles (dry land of hard water), I succumbed to the silk-pillowcase hype a few years ago and sprung for one with a luxury price tag.

The bill hurt, but the pillowcase! I was not prepared for how delicious it would feel against my cheek. I have always had sensitive skin, and laying my head down to sleep, I wished I had switched from crisp percale cotton (my previous favorite) sooner. My hair—the whole point of this experiment—looked shiny and felt healthy, too, though it’s hard to pin this on my pillow; I overhauled a lot for my hair around that time, including adding a filter to my showerhead.

Then I went through a divorce, moved to a much smaller apartment, and set about making my room my own. It is hard to overstate how important it was at the time to go somewhere to sleep that felt not like loss but abundance. I was also suffering from terrible insomnia (see divorce), so making my bed as plush and welcoming as possible was my top priority, as was managing my newly single-size budget.

My search led me to Quince, where I found a silk pillowcase that cost about $40. I ordered one and braced for disappointment. But when it arrived, it looked and felt every bit as smooth and soft against my cheek as the luxury-priced ones—a quick, affordable upgrade that made me feel pampered when and where I most needed it. Bedtime was looking up.

 

Quince’s silk pillowcases are made from Chinese mulberry silk, and they have a zipper closure, rather than an envelope or open end, so they won’t slide off your pillowcase (the material is slippery.) Compared with Slip’s silk pillowcases, Quince’s pillowcases perhaps feel marginally thinner, but barely. Both claim a quality 22-momme density—and they are equally buttery and smooth to the touch. Hung to dry, they hold up to laundering just as well, keeping their luster. But Quince’s pillowcases are roughly half the price.

 

The 22-momme mulberry silk feels substantial and smooth. Like any pillowcase, it does wrinkle. Katie Okamoto/NYT Wirecutter

Quince’s silk pillowcases come in standard, queen, and king sizes, and you can choose from a range of colors, from white and off-white to earthy neutrals and bubblegum pastels. The white ones I chose are thick enough that you can’t see the pillow beneath, but I haven’t tested the colors, so I can’t speak to how the color lasts. The standard pillowcase will set you back $40, and it goes up to about $50 for the king size. So you can stock up on a couple to keep in rotation without breaking the bank—especially if you replace only the pillowcase you usually sleep on (rather than those superfluous ones that end up on the floor).

I’ve had my two Quince pillowcases for about a year and a half, and I wash them every other week or so. And while they’re not as out-of-the-box-shiny as they were when I first got them, they still look and feel great. Care is easy if you’re already in the habit of air-drying some of your clothes. Quince recommends washing with cold water—either by hand or on a gentle cycle—and line-drying. (The company further suggests washing the pillowcase with similar colors, turning it inside out, and using a garment bag; I have done none of these things.) I use fragrance-free detergent and toss the pillowcases in a cold cycle with delicates, and afterward I hang them to air-dry and smooth them out while they’re damp.

Even with proper care, washed silk will lose its shine over time, seeming softer, more suede-like, and less satiny. I don’t need my pillowcases to look as burnished as new pennies, but you may find this irksome. More concerning, I’ve read a few reviews in which buyers report that their pillowcases’ zippers came apart from the seams after a year of use, even though they washed and dried the pillowcases as instructed. I haven’t experienced this, but I’ll update the article if I do. (A Quince representative told me that with proper care, the pillowcase should last “several years.”)

 

The pillowcase has a zipper closure that keeps the slippery silk securely on your pillow, no matter how often you plump it. Some online reviews complain that the zipper might come apart at the seam after a year of use. I haven’t noticed any quality issues. Katie Okamoto/NYT Wirecutter

As for silk pillowcases’ skin and hair benefits, the evidence is mostly anecdotal. “I think ultimately there just needs to be more data,” Nikhil Dhingra, a dermatologist based in New York City, explained via email. “There were a few studies looking at isolated ingredients from silks that can condition and hydrate hair, but whether that translates to pillowcases and fabric materials or not is difficult to say.”

There is limited evidence that patients with eczema, acne, and superficial burns may benefit from silk materials, since the smooth material is less abrasive to sensitive or broken skin than other fibrous materials, Dhingra said. And there may be something to the claim that silk is antibacterial, “so less harboring of germs” that can exacerbate some skin conditions, as he put it. But as Dhingra noted, without proper cleaning of silk pillowcases, “I’d be concerned about them harboring bacteria and pathogens.”

My skin and hair feel good since I switched to silk, but I can’t honestly attribute this to the pillowcases; I’ve made other changes, too. As for the supposed wrinkle prevention, I don’t care much about it. I’ve earned those. (For the curious, Dhingra said there is no study to support silk’s impact on wrinkles and aging.)

Even when they’re priced reasonably, mulberry silk pillowcases aren’t for everyone. First, they can be slippery, especially if your pillows are very stuffed. Second, these pillowcases are made from materials derived from animals. Mulberry silk is spun from the cocoon of a domesticated silk moth, Bombyx mori, which, as Katy Kelleher writes in The Ugly History of Beautiful Things, “began its relationship with humans some seven thousand years ago.” The ancient relationship is a grotesque one; the moth pupa is plumped up and then, in its cocoon, dissolved (killed) by boiling or baking. This preserves the roughly half-mile-long silk filament that enwraps it.

So silk is, obviously, not vegan, and depending on your vantage point, it may seem unethical; perhaps it’s even a bit sinister for such a light material. From a biodiversity standpoint, “Fortunately, the Bombyx mori is in no danger of dying off,” Kelleher writes. “We love its thread too much.” Every textile—from production, to wear, and beyond—has an environmental and social impact. Silk biodegrades, and in the case of Quince’s pillowcases, the silk meets the Oeko-Tex Standard 100, which means it has been tested for and deemed free from harmful chemicals and substances.

I will do my best to care for my pillowcases so they last as long as possible. But, personally, having a sumptuous silk pillowcase to rest my head on at bedtime feels pleasurable and gentle, for all of the complexities of its production. That’s not nothing, considering my intimacy with insomnia. When I inevitably roll over to face-plant in the early hours of the morning, it’s heaven to nestle into the pillowcase’s cool, smooth embrace, this gift I bought myself when my life felt strange and hard.

This article was edited by Megan Beauchamp and Hannah Rimm.