Types of pillows — what they are for, and which ones we keep on the floor

A pillow has one job: keep your head in line with your spine while you sleep. Everything else — the fill, the curve, the cover — sits underneath that.

Most people in this city buy a pillow the way they buy a cushion. Soft looks expensive. Tall looks generous. Six months later the neck is stiff and the pillow is a pancake. The useful questions are simpler. How do you sleep? How hot is the room? How high does the gap between mattress and ear actually need to be?

This is the comparison we walk people through next to the mattresses in Banjara Hills.

The four fills you will actually meet

Fibre and cotton. The default Indian pillow. Cheap, familiar, washable. It flattens. You fold it, then fold it again, and you are sleeping on a wedge that pushes the neck up. Fine for a guest room. A poor long-term pillow if you already wake with a stiff neck.

Memory foam. Viscoelastic foam that softens with heat and holds the shape of your head. Good pressure relief. The same density that makes it contour also holds warmth. In an air-conditioned bedroom that is a non-issue. In a fan-only room in May it sleeps hotter than latex.

Natural latex. Rubber-tree sap, moulded. It gives and then returns. Air can move through the open cells — and, on a pincore pillow, through the pin holes. It stays cooler than a solid memory-foam block and keeps its height for years. Heavier. Dearer at the till.

Feather and down. Soft, mouldable, the hotel feel. Rare as a serious everyday pillow here, and a poor idea if dust is already a problem in the house. We do not lead with it.

Shape is a separate decision

Fill is what the pillow is made of. Shape is how it holds your neck.

Standard, or rectangular. A block. Height is even across the pillow. Works if the loft matches your sleep position.

Contour, or cervical. A dip for the head and a raised ridge for the neck, so the curve of the neck is filled rather than left hanging. Feels odd for a night or two if you have only ever used a stuffed rectangle.

Travel. For a seat, not a bed. Stops the head dropping on a long journey. Do not sleep on one at home.

Loft is the number that matters

Loft is the height of the pillow under your head, and it matters more than the word "orthopaedic" on the label. The ear should sit roughly level with the shoulder — not tipped up towards the ceiling, and not dropped into the mattress.

Two things the chart cannot know. Broad shoulders usually need more loft than a narrow frame, because the gap to fill is bigger. And a thick mattress under a thick pillow is how people end up staring at the ceiling — the two add up.

Lie down. Look at the line from ear to shoulder. Adjust from there, not from the packaging.

What latex does that fibre and memory foam do not

Hyderabad gives you eight hot months, and a pillow spends those months pressed against your neck. Fibre traps less heat than memory foam but collapses. Memory foam holds its shape and holds the heat with it. Latex holds its shape and lets air through — and on a pincore pillow the moulded holes are doing that job deliberately.

The rebound is the other difference. Memory foam lets your head sink and stay there. Latex gives and returns when you turn. For anyone who changes position in the night, that is the difference between a pillow you use and a pillow you fight.

What we are not going to tell you. You will read that latex pillows are hypoallergenic and resist dust mites. Every source we could find for that sells latex. The research puts mite allergen on humidity and on the material of the cover, not on what the pillow is stuffed with — so if allergy is the real reason you are shopping, an allergen-proof pillow encasement is the thing with actual evidence behind it, and it costs a fraction of a pillow.

Latex is rubber, and roughly one or two people in a hundred are allergic to natural rubber. If you already know that about yourself, say so before anybody unpacks one.

The MM Foam pillows, by height

MM Foam publish the dimensions of every pillow they make, which almost nobody in this trade does. Here is the whole range in one place, shortest to tallest, because loft is the decision and everything else follows it.

Reading that against how you sleep:

• Side sleepers want the top of the list inverted — Snuggle or Passion at 6.3 inches. MM Foam recommend Snuggle for side sleepers for exactly that reason. Life Companion at 4.6 inches if those feel too tall.
• Back sleepers want Neckare, which MM Foam describe as being for people who prefer a low pillow with the neck still supported.
• Front sleepers want the thin side of the Contour, at 2.9 inches, or nothing much at all.
• Anyone who cannot decide should look at the Contour first. It is the only one with two heights, so the decision can be made at home over a week rather than in the shop in ten minutes. Its footprint is smaller than the rest of the range, which is worth knowing before you take it out of the box.

Three things about that table worth saying plainly:

Life Companion comes as a pair. It is the only one that does, so the price on it covers two pillows, not one. Compare it accordingly.

Dexxa is sold first as a leg pillow. MM Foam's own listing calls it an under-leg pillow for back sleepers. It works under the head at 3.75 inches, but if your complaint is the lower back rather than the neck, that is what it was designed for.

Regalia and Softouch are not full latex. Regalia is polyfibre — plush and soft, the one for a guest room or somebody who likes to sink. Softouch is a fibre core inside a latex shell, lighter and cheaper than a solid latex block. Both are honest products; neither is the thing to buy if heat is your problem.

Six of the range carry a seven-year warranty. Softouch carries five. Regalia's own page does not state a term, so ask us rather than assume.

MM Foam also make a travel pillow. Use it in a car or on a flight. It is not a bed pillow.

Why MM Foam pillows, and why from here

We did not pick up the brand last season. The family shop started in 1963 as Nagpals Foam Palace, and MM Foam say they have been moulding latex in India since 1957. The pillows that left with their mattresses then were the ones customers still mentioned years later. That is why the full line sits next to the mattresses rather than as two leftovers in a basket.

MM Foam list us as their exclusive store in Hyderabad. In practice that means you can hold a Neckare against a Life Companion and a Contour in the same visit, then walk three steps onto the mattress those pillows are meant to sit on. We buy them from the manufacturer and sell them. We do not make them, and we will not say we do.

One note on the labels. Six of the eight carry "100% organic natural latex" in MM Foam's own product titles. That is their wording, and we will use it as theirs — but no pillow in the range carries GOLS certification, which is the standard that would certify the latex itself. Where MM Foam do claim GOLS it is on a mattress and a topper, not a pillow. If that matters to you, ask and we will put the question to them rather than guess.

A latex pillow is not automatically the right pillow. It is the construction we trust when heat and longevity are the brief. If a fibre pillow is the honest answer for a guest room, or for a child who will wreck it inside a year, that is the pillow.

How to try a pillow properly

Do not judge one sitting in a chair. Lie on the mattress you actually own, or the closest thing to it on the floor, in the position you sleep in. Stay there. A contour pillow feels wrong for the first two minutes to almost everybody, and that is not the test.

Bring the pillow you are replacing if you can. The difference is far easier to feel than to describe.

If two people share the bed they often need two different pillows, and that is normal rather than a problem.

A pillowcase is not optional in this climate — latex should not sit bare against a damp head night after night. Wash the cover. And do not put a latex pillow out in the sun to freshen it, for the same reason you should never do that to a latex mattress: ultraviolet breaks natural rubber down. Shade and a fan.

What we would not tell you

A pillow will not cure a cervical problem. It can stop a bad loft from making one worse. If you have been sent by a doctor, bring the instruction — we will match height to that rather than to a brochure.

MM Foam's own note about the Contour is that its two heights suit growing children. They give no age, and neither will we.

We carry other bedding alongside MM Foam. If a memory-foam contour is what your neck actually wants after ten minutes on the floor, that is the pillow.

Price is not a personality. A cheap fibre pillow that is a pancake by the spring is not cheaper than a latex one still holding its loft in year five.

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Come and lie on them. The showroom is House No 536, First Floor, Road No. 12, NBT Nagar, Banjara Hills, Monday to Saturday, 11am to 8.30pm. Mattresses and pillows are a different number from interiors: +91 95732 84811.

If the bed itself is the problem, read the mattress comparison first — a good pillow on a mattress that has sagged is still a bad night. And pillows are here if you want the short version.