At last, the screed closest to Sleeper's heart.
These are all down pillows,* because no other filling has the feel or sink of goosedown. (By "sink," I mean the resistance you feel when you lay your head on the pillow.) They are all soft, rather than medium or hard, because all decent medium (hard is off the charts) pillows throw one's neck out of alignment: they're great for reading, but not sleeping. Soft is a relative term. The down clusters in these pillows have high loft. That means they're bouncy instead of being mushy. A soft pillow with a loft rating of 850 will bounce back faster and prop your head higher than a medium pillow with a lower loft rating. They're also all queensize (we've covered that, remember?).
Don't trouble yourself over whether pillows are designed for stomach, side, or back sleepers. Almost everyone moves around during the night. It so happens that soft pillows are often called stomach sleepers. Whatever.
1. Scandia Down Contessa Stomach Sleeper, Queen ($550). Do I own this product? Dear lord no. Would I? Yes. I discovered Scandia pillows while staying at a friend's house for the weekend several years ago. "My mother sent us pillows for Christmas," she had said, and I thought idly, how dull. I WAS SO WRONG. If you want to know what sticking your head into a cloud feels like, lay it on the Scandia Contessa. So. $550. Would you spend that much on a great down coat you'd wear two months out of the year? What about a transformative thing you could interact with intimately every night for 10 years? (I may yet talk myself into this.) If you're in New York City, visit the sweet people at Nancy Koltes at Home. They'll let you nap on the Contessa, or any Scandia pillow. Bring your own pillowcase for an accurate read, and make sure it's kingsize. Scandia will also add or remove down and clean the pillows for almost nothing.
2. DownRight Gusseted 850+ Platinum Goose Down, Queen (approx. $220). Nearly perfect: a soft pillow with great spring and a delicious, slow sink. You won't wake up at four a.m. with your head on the mattress. (Those early-morning re-fluffs are so sad.) If the cover were as excellent as Scandia's, this pillow would be my top pick. It's the one I sleep on every night. Available at Long's Bedding, which also stocks a well-edited selection of reasonably priced, high-quality pillows. If you're out to buy a serious sleep pillow, do yourself a favor and skip the madness at Bed Bath & Beyond for a trip to this family-owned shop.
3. Scandia Versailles Stomach Sleeper, Queen ($240). Just a bit softer than the DownRight, if your taste runs that way. The pillow my co-sleeper calls "solid gold." I hate to give Scandia overmuch play, but I've auditioned a lot of pillows, and I have to report that Scandia's have the loftiest, longest-lasting down and the best covers, both in silk and cotton batiste. You can feel the difference through any pillowcase, even if you're not a princess-and-the-pea type. You have to wonder why a company would name a pillow Ophelia, though. Do they not read Shakespeare in Wisconsin? Come to think of it, Versailles is not a promising name for a product that involves a head. But I have a weakness for Marie Antoinette, so I'll let that go.
4. Plumeria Bay Soft 750 fill, Queen ($190). A fine pillow with extremely silky down, made by a small company in Washington state. Just a hair softer than the Scandia Versailles. Remarkably, Plumeria also makes an eiderdown pillow for $1957.00 — on sale. The back story on the eider duck does not weaken my resolve, however compelling their description of what a handful of the rare fluffy stuff feels like. Their videos, featuring a nice Wisconsin wrist and a polite purple sweater, are perfect Sleeper porn, though.
5. Scandia Classic Stomach Sleeper, Queen ($135). An very good pillow indeed. If you're set on this, don't try the Contessa afterward. You'll hate yourself.
There. That should do until I work up the energy for the sidebars.
* If you are allergic to down, I'm not your guide. I of course hope to hear from discriminating sleepers who swear allegiance to pillows filled with other things.
I've got a new little sleeper in the family. If you do — or ever have — you know to keep things simple. So here's my advice if you need a new pillow: just get a Scandia. You won't regret it. I've tried many others, slept on and kept them for years. Hands down, Scandia are the best. They last the longest. The down is the loftiest, with the slowest "sink" and the most spring. The company will clean the pillows for cheap, and they'll add or remove down if you want your pillow a little firmer or softer. Recently I've gotten a lot of e-mail from people sleeping on sad rocklike formations, flat old foam pillows, and birthday-gift memory foam that just didn't pan out. (Another reason to ditch your memory foam: do you want to rest your head every night on a petroleum byproduct with a half-life of 1000 years?)
