How to wash pillows

First, can it go in the machine?

Almost every ruined pillow comes from skipping this question. A washing machine works by agitating fabric in water, which is fine for loose fill that can move and dry out, and destructive for a moulded block of foam that cannot. So the first decision is binary, and it is made by the fill rather than by the brand or the price.

The rules fill by fill

The same pillow shape can hold completely different materials, so the label on the fill is what you are really shopping and washing. Here is what each one needs.

Not sure what is inside yours? The fill types, what each one feels like and what each is best for are set out in our guide to choosing a pillow.

The five-step machine wash

For a washable pillow, this is the whole routine. It is short, and every step exists because skipping it causes a specific problem.

1. Check the label, then check for damage. A small hole or a worn seam turns into a drum full of feathers. Repair it first, or skip the wash.
2. Wash two at a time. Two pillows on opposite sides keep the drum balanced, so the machine does not thump and lurch through the spin. This matters more in a top loader with a central agitator, where a single pillow gets wrapped and pulled.
3. Use a small amount of mild liquid detergent. Less than you would use for clothes. Excess detergent does not rinse out of a thick fill, and the residue left behind is what makes down and polyester clump. Skip fabric softener entirely.
4. Gentle cycle, warm or cool water, extra rinse. The extra rinse is the step people skip and the one that decides whether the pillow comes out soft or stiff. An extra spin afterwards pulls out water and shortens the drying time.
5. Dry longer than you think. Low heat, dryer balls, and pull the pillows out to break up clumps by hand once or twice along the way. See the next section, because this is where most pillows are actually ruined.

Drying, which is where pillows get ruined

A pillow can look and feel dry on the outside while the middle of the fill is still damp, and damp fill inside a closed case is how a freshly washed pillow ends up smelling worse than before it went in.

Give it far more time than seems reasonable, on low heat rather than high, and check the middle by squeezing the core rather than the surface. If in doubt, run another cycle.

Dryer balls, or clean tennis balls, are what keep the fill from setting into lumps. They bounce through the load and break up clumps as the pillow tumbles, which is why a pillow dried with them comes out lofted and one dried without them comes out flat and knotted.

Wool or plastic dryer balls are the safer choice: tennis balls work, but they can transfer colour or a rubbery smell, so put them inside clean socks if you use them.

One limit on that, because the tumble-with-tennis-balls trick gets repeated as though it were universal. It belongs to the fills in this section, the ones that can be washed in the first place.

Foam and latex pillows are spot clean only, as the section below sets out, and the same heat sensitivity that keeps them out of the machine keeps them out of the dryer.

That matters most for a shredded fill, which is the kind most likely to clump and therefore most in need of reviving, so its only route is by hand: our guide to fluffing a pillow gives the method fill by fill, with each step attributed to the company that published it.

Air drying works too and is gentler, it just takes a day or more. Lay the pillow flat rather than hanging it, turn it every few hours, and give it good airflow on both sides. A breezy spot or indirect sun is ideal. Strong direct sun for hours is not, especially on any pillow with foam or latex in it.

Foam and latex: spot cleaning, and nothing else

Solid memory foam and latex are moulded materials, not loose fill. Put them through a wash cycle and the agitation tears the structure while the water is absorbed deep into a core that takes days to dry, so what comes out is a heavier, misshapen pillow that may never return to its original loft. Tumble drying adds heat damage on top.

This is the same rule we apply to cleaning a mattress topper, and it is one reason our latex pillow picks say plainly in their own care notes that these pillows are spot clean only.

To spot clean: dab the mark with a cloth and a little mild detergent in water, blot it with a clean damp cloth to lift the residue, then press with a dry towel and let the pillow air dry completely, flat and away from direct heat or sun. Do not soak it, do not wring it.

For a shredded latex or shredded foam pillow, some have a removable inner case you can empty and wash, which is worth checking before you assume nothing can be cleaned.

The honest version: for foam and latex, the cover and a pillow protector are what actually get washed. That is not a workaround, it is how those pillows are designed to be kept clean, and it is why a protector is worth more on a foam pillow than on any other kind.

Why pillows turn yellow, and what you can do about it

Yellow patches are sweat and body oils, along with moisture from damp hair and humid air, soaking through the pillowcase over months and oxidising. That is a staining problem, not a sign the pillow has failed, and it explains why the marks sit where your head and neck rest.

Washing lifts some of it, and older, set-in yellowing generally does not come all the way out. The thing that actually prevents it is a protector under the pillowcase, because it stops moisture reaching the fill at all.

Three details follow from that cause and explain most of what people find confusing about it. The stain develops from the inside of the case outward, so a pillow can look clean through a fresh pillowcase and be heavily marked underneath.

It builds slowly and evenly rather than appearing overnight, which is why it is almost never traceable to one event. And it concentrates where the head and neck rest, so a pillow flipped and rotated regularly yellows more evenly and, to the eye, more slowly.

Can you get it out? Partly, and less than the internet promises. On a washable fill, a normal wash with a small amount of mild liquid detergent and an extra rinse lifts recent discolouration, and the same rules as the rest of this guide apply: no fabric softener, two pillows at a time, and dry it longer than seems reasonable.

Set-in yellowing that has been building for years generally does not come back to white, and a pillow that has been through many hot washes to chase it will usually have lost loft before it lost the stain.

We publish no whitening recipe, on purpose. The bleach, borax and powdered-detergent mixtures that circulate for this are not something we have verified against any source we would stand behind, and getting them wrong on a pillow you cannot rinse out properly is a real risk to the fill.

(On a sheet, which can be rinsed through and washed again, we do give a method: see getting blood out of sheets. Same discipline, different object.)

What we will say is what follows from the physics: heat sets protein stains, so very hot water works against you here; residue is what makes fills clump, so more detergent is not better; and foam, latex and buckwheat pillows cannot be treated this way at all, because they never go in a machine. Follow the care label over any method, including ours.

Prevention is the part that actually works. A protector under the pillowcase is the single effective measure, because it stops the moisture before it reaches the fill.

Washing the case and protector with your sheets keeps the barrier doing its job, and going to bed with hair that is dry rather than damp removes one of the two moisture sources. None of this is a hygiene or health claim: it is a staining problem, and we treat it as one.

How often to wash a pillow

On frequency, the usual advice is to wash a washable pillow two to four times a year, and the pillowcase and protector along with your sheets.

Treat that as a starting point rather than a rule: a pillow used by someone who sweats at night, or one on a bed shared with a pet, needs it more often than a guest-room pillow that is slept on twice a year.

There is also a point where washing is the wrong answer. If a pillow stays folded instead of springing back, has a permanent flat spot, or leaves you propped too high or dropped too low, it has lost the support you bought it for and a wash will not bring that back.

Our guide to choosing a pillow covers when to replace one and what loft to replace it with, and our pillow picks cover the options by sleep position and by material.

Common questions