Pillow talk

One thing I learned about myself while living abroad is that I can be very, very finicky when it comes to pillows.

It took long for me to find a flat to eventually rent and move into (3 months), but it took longer to find a pillow that I was comfortable with (around 4 months.)

During the pillow searching process, I went everywhere from Ikea to Tempur to Dunlopillo. I tried pillows of different materials, from goose to foam to memory foam, even the different contour pillows. Almost all of them didn't work, though. In fact, by the end of the process, there were about 16 pillows scattered all over the house.

Eventually, I found the right pillow. And when I moved back to Manila, I brought that pillow with me to pair with my existing "Manila pillows."

Now, the "Manila pillows" - or the pillows I've always used at home - are more than a decade old. They're hard and heavy pillows made of very firm fiber. My head is used to it, that's why I haven't discarded them despite the fact that they're obviously very old. As the adage goes: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

But last week, one of my clients gave me a pair of pillows as gifts. They were Uratex fiber soft pillows.

Visually, they looked very appealing. They were pristinely white, and they were almost bursting. The texture was very smooth, and it was on the hard side.

The pillows sat in my room for a few days, mainly because I was already happy with the "Manila pillows" and wasn't actually looking for a new one. Eventually, I gave them a try, and boy, I'm glad that I did.

It had the right combination of softness and firmness. Soft enough that your head sinks once you rest it on the surface, but firm enough for it to stop at a certain point and support the weight of your neck. My head felt cocooned in the pillow, which made it very restful.

Of course, the torture test is whether it was comfortable enough for a full night's sleep without interruptions. And it passed it with flying colors. I slept soundly all through the night, which is a rarity when I'm using a new pillow.

Now, I can give my pair of old pillows a rest. Yes, they'll still be there on the bed since I like sleeping with a lot of pillows. But there's a new pillow in town, and I'm sure they'll get along fine with the old pillows.