(Image credit: Future)
Sleeping on a hot, stuffy pillow in summer is a nightmare when I want to fall asleep fast. In fact, research shows that your body naturally cools as you go to sleep, so a heat-trapping pillow means you don't get the temperature drop you need to drift off.The best pillows should avoid this problem, and we've found that luxury cooling pillows are top notch at regulating temperature. But is there a cheaper way to keep your head cool at night? Or is a fancy pillow packed with cooling tech the only way to keep you comfortable on a hot night?To find out, I grabbed my $93 Helix Cooling Memory Foam Pillow, the $20 Beckham Hotel Collection Bed Pillow, and a trusty thermal cam. Here's how much heat each pillow absorbed and shed when our testers slept on these headrests in our lab...Key takeaways: At a glanceHot temperatures make it difficult to sleep, as your body naturally cools before bed. Some pillow materials trap warm air rather than help it circulate. As a result, you get a hot head that can't cool down.Cooling pillows claim to use special materials that help wick away warmth, to keep you comfortable.However, our thermal cam tests showed for a neutral feel, a cotton cover might be enough.And flipping to the cool side won't always provide the relief you need — one of our pillows was actually warmer on the unused side.How we tested a cheap vs a luxury cooling pillowTemperature regulation testing is a key part of our rigorous mattress testing methodology. So when it came to analyzing our pillows, I turned to our tried and tested method.In a comfortable environment, we ask a tester to lie on the pillow for 15 minutes. This is ample time for heat to transfer and cooling properties to kick in. The tester then gets up and we continue to measure the temperature of the pillow for the next 15 minutes. This allows heat to disperse (... or not).For pillows, I also employed a flip test. After the above tests, I flipped the pillow to see how cool the other side was.Meet the pillows:I used two pillows for this test. One, a luxurious memory foam pillow packed with cooling tech. The other, an affordable pillow with 'down alternative' fill (that's probably fiber fill).Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips.Test 1: How quickly does the pillow get warm?For part one of the test, sleep writer Frances Daniels graciously agreed to lie on each pillow for 15 minutes. We used a side sleeping position as its the most common and a breathable but not cooling mattress (the DreamCloud Classic Mattress).Click through the gallery to see what happened:
