How to Wash Pillows (by Fill Type)

Pillows get washed less than almost anything else on the bed, and it shows — the sweat, body oil and dead skin from months of sleep don't disappear just because nobody checked the tag. The reason people skip it usually isn't laziness, it's uncertainty: down, down-alternative, memory foam, latex and buckwheat all behave completely differently once they're wet, and treating them the same way is the fastest way to ruin one. Match the method to what's actually inside, and the job is simple either way.

Before doing anything, check the tag. It sounds obvious, but manufacturer care labels sometimes override the general rules below — a small number of down and shredded-foam pillows are marked hand-wash or spot-clean only despite what you'd expect from the fill, and the tag is the one piece of information written by the people who actually built the thing. Treat what follows as the default when there's no tag left to check, not a reason to ignore one that contradicts it.

Down and Down-Alternative: Straight Into the Machine

These two are the easy ones, and they're washed almost identically — which makes sense, since down-alternative was built as a synthetic stand-in for down in the first place. If you're not sure which one you actually own, our guide to down vs. down-alternative covers how to tell, though it barely matters here since the wash method is nearly the same for both.

Use a warm or cool gentle cycle with a small amount of mild detergent — both fills clump when soap residue is left behind, so an extra rinse cycleafter the wash is the single easiest way to prevent that flat, lumpy feel that otherwise shows up a few washes later. Wash two pillows at a time rather than one, too; a single pillow tumbling alone throws the drum off balance and can bang around hard enough to strain the machine and the pillow's seams.

Drying matters as much as washing. Use the lowest heat setting the tag allows and throw in a few clean tennis balls or dryer balls — they knock the clumps of fill apart as the pillow tumbles, which is what keeps it fluffy instead of coming out in flat, dense pockets. This takes longer than a normal load; run it through more than one cycle if needed, and check by squeezing the pillow at its center, not just the outside. A pillow that's dry on the surface but still damp in the core isn't done — put it back in, because trapped moisture deep in the fill is exactly how mildew and a musty smell get started, and once that sets in there's no fixing it.

A couple of things make this go smoother. If a down pillow looks heavily saturated coming out of the wash, gently press — don't wring — some of the water out over the sink before it goes in the dryer; wringing twists the feathers and can push them through the seams. And use a detergent made for down or a genuinely mild one rather than whatever's strongest in the cupboard — a harsh detergent strips the natural oils in real down feathers, which is part of what keeps them springy, and over-drying at high heat does the same kind of damage from the other direction.

Memory Foam and Latex: Never in the Machine

Solid and shredded memory foam, and latex in either form, don't belong in a washing machine at all, and it doesn't matter how gentle the cycle is. Foam is a network of open cells holding air, and machine agitation plus a full soak breaks that structure down — it can crack, crumble, or compress permanently in ways that don't bounce back. Worse, a saturated foam core takes days to dry all the way through, and foam that's still damp on the inside while the outside feels fine is a mold problem waiting to happen.

The actual method is spot-cleaning: dab a barely damp cloth with a little mild detergent onto stains, blot from the outside of the mark inward, and never rub, which just spreads it into more of the foam. For general staleness or dust, vacuuming the surface with an upholstery attachment and airing the pillow out in a dry room does more good than any liquid would.

The part people miss is the cover. Most memory foam and latex pillows ship with a removable outer cover, and that cover — not the foam underneath — is what's actually touching your face, hair and skin oil most directly. Unzip it and wash it on its own per its own tag, on a normal cycle with the rest of your bedding; that alone handles most of what makes a foam pillow feel "dirty," without ever putting the foam itself anywhere near a washing machine. Let the foam air-dry fully, out of direct sun or heat, before the cover goes back on.

Shredded memory foam is the one gray area worth flagging, since some manufacturers rate their shredded-fill pillows as gently hand-washable specifically because the pieces are small enough to dry faster than a solid block. That's a manufacturer-specific exception, not a general rule for "memory foam" as a category — check the tag before you assume your shredded pillow is one of the ones that allows it, and even then, keep it out of the machine and the dryer.

Buckwheat: Wash the Shell, Leave the Hulls Alone

A buckwheat pillow is really two separate things — a fabric shell and a large volume of loose hulls inside it — and only one of them should ever get wet. The hulls are an organic material, and soaked hulls packed together inside a pillow have no way to dry out evenly; the ones in the middle stay damp long after the surface feels fine, and damp organic material packed in the dark is exactly the setup mold needs. Don't machine wash a buckwheat pillow with the hulls still inside, and don't spot-clean it heavily either.

Instead, empty the hulls into a large bag or bin, then wash the empty shell on its own, following whatever the tag says — most are machine washable on a gentle cycle, though some call for hand washing. Let the shell dry completely before anything goes back inside it. While it's drying, spread the hulls out somewhere dry and airy for a few hours; it airs out any odor and lets you check for and remove any that look broken down or dusty before you refill the shell.

While you've got the hulls out is also the natural time to judge how much life the fill has left. Buckwheat hulls don't clump or mildew the way synthetic fill does, but they do wear down and get dusty over years of use, and a pillow that's gone noticeably flatter or quieter than it used to be (fresh hulls have an audible rustle) is usually just short on volume rather than actually damaged. Most brands sell replacement hulls by the bag for exactly this, which is often cheaper and easier than replacing the whole pillow.

Wash It Twice a Year — Or Use a Protector and Wash It Less

Regardless of fill, a full wash a couple of times a year is a reasonable target for most pillows — more than that and you're wearing the fill out faster than it needs to be for a job the pillowcase should mostly be handling anyway. The bigger lever, and the one most people skip, is a pillow protector: a thin, washable cover that goes on the pillow underneath the pillowcase and catches the sweat, oil and drool before any of it reaches the fill. It's the same idea as a mattress protector, just sized for a pillow, and if you're outfitting the rest of the bed at the same time, our picks for the best mattress protectors and mattress pads cover that layer too. Wash the protector weekly with your sheets, and the pillow itself needs a fraction of the washing it otherwise would.

Washing also isn't a fix for a pillow that's actually worn out, and it's worth knowing the difference before you spend an afternoon on a pillow that's done. Fold it in half and let go: a pillow with life left in it pushes itself back open. One that stays folded, or unfolds slowly and stays flat, has fill that's broken down structurally — that's not dirt, and no amount of washing or fluffing brings it back. If yours fails that test, that's a replacement, not a laundry problem; our current picks for the best pillows and, if you sleep with one, the best body pillows are the place to start looking.