The Savvy Rest Organic Kapok Pillow is luxuriously soft, squishable, and sustainable. It also has a sturdy brass zipper and organic cotton cover for full adjustability! Here’s our take on one of the best organic kapok pillows currently available.
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Savvy Rest Organic Kapok Pillow
Highlights: Pure organic kapok pillow with an organic cotton cover. As soft as down, but animal-friendly and fully adjustable.
- Very squishable
- Much lighter than latex or wool pillows
- Made in a GOTS factory
- Three size options
- Encased in organic cotton with brass zipper
- Easy to adjust fill
- Comes overstuffed
- Includes organic cotton pillowcase
- Waterproof pillow protector cover available
- Loses loft over time (though you can refill)
- No returns
- Kapok is highly flammable and oxygen-absorbing
- Best for back-sleepers or stomach-sleepers (not firm enough for side-sleepers)
Savvy Rest is offering LeafScore readers 20% off their purchase using coupon code LEAFSCORE at checkout.
At a glance:
- Sizes available: Standard, Queen, King
- Cover: Organic cotton flannel
- Fill: Organic kapok
- Price Range: $129-$159
- Key certifications: GOTS, Greenguard Gold, B Corp, Employee-Owned (ESOP), Carbon-Free (Carbon Fund), Green America Business Gold
What we like about the Savvy Rest Organic Kapok Pillow
The Savvy Rest Organic Kapok Pillow is the perfect vegan alternative to a down pillow. Luxuriously soft, fluffy, and lofty, this squishable pillow is a great choice for back-sleepers and stomach-sleepers.
See: The perfect pillow for however you sleep
Some side-sleepers may also enjoy this pillow, though you’d need to squish it to create more height for proper support of cervical spine alignment.
Kapok is breathable, insulating, lofty, and easily compressed, and Savvy Rest deliberately overfills this pillow, meaning you can remove fill if you find it too tall for comfort. Save the fill to add back later when the kapok needs refreshing, or add the kapok to another adjustable pillow for extra softness and loft.
Savvy Rest’s website has a typo where it says the feel of this pillow is ‘dense and supportive’. Kapok is not at all dense and while it can be supportive, I suspect this descriptive text is meant for the company’s wool or latex pillows, not the kapok model.
Savvy Rest includes a robust brass zipper on the inner case of the kapok pillow. This makes adjusting the fill easy, though kapok is very fluffy, so take care not to get any stuck in the zipper.
The pillow also comes with an organic cotton pillowcase in a sateen weave. This is unbleached and undyed, just like Savvy Rest’s incredibly affordable organic cotton sheets (see our review).
Savvy Rest’s Organic Kapok Pillow is available in three sizes:
- Standard: Length 24-inch, Width 16-inch
- Queen: Length 28-inch, Width 16-inch
- King: Length 34-inch, Width 16-inch.
Downsides to the Savvy Rest Organic Kapok Pillow
Kapok is, like down, quick to compress and likely to lose much of its loftiness over time. This means you’ll want to regularly (i.e., every morning and night) fluff your kapok pillow to keep it in good shape. After a few years of use you may also want to add back any fill you remove when your pillow first arrives, so as to restore lost loft.
Kapok isn’t super supportive, unlike latex. That means you might find this pillow too soft if you sleep on your side or are a larger back sleeper.
Kapok is also very flammable and oxygen-absorbing. So, while it’s great that Savvy Rest doesn’t drench this pillow in toxic flame retardants (or any flame retardants), it’s worth keeping this pillow away from open flames (definitely don’t smoke in bed).
The oxygen-absorbing properties of kapok may also make this pillow a poor choice if you have breathing difficulties, as well as for infants and younger children. There’s no research on this aspect of kapok safety, however, though I’d love to see someone carry some out!
The other main downside of this pillow is that Savvy Rest doesn’t do returns, with the exception of manufacturing defects.
Sustainability at Savvy Rest
We regularly recommend Savvy Rest bedding products because the products themselves are great and because the company is more sustainably run than most. Savvy Rest is:
- A Benefit Corporation (B Corp)
- Owned by its employees
- Charitably minded
- Environmentally engaged.
Savvy Rest offsets its estimated annual carbon emissions through the Carbon Fund, and also donates to American Forests. The company also has a pillow donation program to support people fleeing domestic violence.
We’d love to see Savvy Rest ship its pillows plastic-free, but for now it uses a small amount of single-use plastic for protection.
Final thoughts on Savvy Rest Organic Kapok Pillow
There are very few organic kapok pillows available, and Savvy Rest’s Organic Kapok Pillow is arguably the best. Made with pure organic kapok in an organic cotton cover, this pillow is soft, luxurious, and great for a wide range of sleep styles.
If you’re a side-sleeper, though, I’d suggest a more supportive pillow, such as the Kapok and Latex Avocado Green Pillow (Staff tested; see my review).
Savvy Rest is offering LeafScore readers 20% off their purchase using coupon code LEAFSCORE at checkout.
Savvy Rest Organic Kapok Pillow
Highlights: Pure organic kapok pillow with an organic cotton cover. As soft as down, but animal-friendly and fully adjustable.