I don’t know about you but recently I’ve been bamboozled with silk pillowcase ads on Insta. I actually nearly bought one because of the “amazing effects they have on your hair and skin”. They’re promoted at leaving your hair tangle-free after sleeping and skin super-soft because silk doesn’t soak up all your lotions and potions you put on your face before bed.
HOWEVER. I looked into it. Silk is NOT cruelty-free. Here is a quote from PETA, part of which I’ve blanked out because I don’t want to display upsetting info:
Silk is the fibre that silkworms weave to make their cocoons – outer casings that protect them during the pupal stage. But most of the insects used by the silk industry don’t live past this stage, because they [REMOVED] inside their cocoons, which causes the cocoons to begin unravelling so that workers can obtain the silk threads. Some 6,600 silkworms are killed to make just 1 kilogram of silk.
Quote from PETA – I have blanked some out of the text
What are the alternatives?
I did some research and found LOADS of alternatives. I ended up buying 2x white 100% polyester pillow cases from eBay for… £5.15. Yep, I was skeptical; here I was willing to buy a silk pillowcase at £20 and now settling for 2 at £5.15? I was willing to admit defeat if they were crap and handing over a fiver didn’t seem so bad.
Are 100% polyester pillowcases any good?
Yes! They’re absolutely brilliant. They’ve been washed multiple times now and no signs of coming apart/ threading or anything else.
My hair is always really tangly after sleeping so I decided to test it. I’m not sure if the tangles are made during sleep or the fact I don’t brush my hair in the day (apart from the morning, if its lucky).
I brushed my hair before bed (something I never do – who does?) and left it loose. In the morning, I brushed it again with my tangle tweezer and there were NO TANGLES – absolutely none! My hair was so soft and shiny. I’ve since tested it again and gone to bed with waves; I’ve woken up and they look the pretty similar as the night before – only a few minutes were needed to style instead of 15. It’s saving me time getting ready in a morning which I’m very thankful for.
I can’t comment on my skin yet; I’ve not had any acne since using these new pillowcases but I’d need to test them for at least a month before commenting (I’m just about to hit ‘acne’ stage of the month ughhh) Updates to follow!
Environmental issues with polyester
Although polyester is cruelty-free, it’s not without issues. It isn’t recyclable which in this day and age, we should all be making the effort to buy more sustainable clothing.
Hopefully these pillows will last a long time but when they’re ready to be upgraded, I’ll repurpose them and make something out of them:
- Dog bedding – my dogs live in luxury clearly!
- Use to keep documents in – they’re bigger than A4 so pretty handy for bulky bundles of documents
- Keep paintbrushes in
- Keep kitchen cloths in – stitch in a toggle which you can then hang
- Keep pegs in – stitch in a toggle which you can then hang
These are my ideas – a quick Google search and there’s so many more! See this helpful blog on 7 ways to reuse and recycle old pillows.
I found this interesting article if you want to read more about the specifics on polyester fibres. Most went over my head but I got the gist!
Thank you for reading my article. I wrote it in March 2021 and last updated it in March 2021. It's tagged with the category Skincare if you'd like to read more.
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