Side sleepers ask one thing of a pillow: fill the gap between your ear and the mattress, and keep filling it all night. The Woolroom Natural Latex Washable Wool Pillow is Woolroom's answer for anyone who has had enough of pillows that need punching back into shape. It's a block of natural Talalay latex inside a quilted cover of washable British wool and organic cotton, sold direct by Woolroom, and in a range of wool pillows it's the one with no wool filling at all. Lie down and your head presses in a little before the latex pushes back with a springy bounce. Lift your head, and the dent has gone.
If you like the idea of a wool pillow, Woolroom sells those too, and neither the Deluxe nor the Classic works like this one. The Woolroom Deluxe Washable Wool Pillow is loose wool you add to or take out until the height suits you, which is why it's my wool pillow pick. The Woolroom Classic Wool Pillow is a fixed wool fill, sewn shut. This latex one doesn't adjust at all, and at this height that makes it a side sleeper's pillow. I recommend it to anyone who sleeps on their side. Front sleepers will find it too high, plain and simple: your head ends up propped well above the mattress and your neck spends the night bent back, so buy the Deluxe instead and pull wool out until it's thin.
A latex pillow for side sleepers, too tall for your front
As it comes, the pillow stands 17cm with its cover on, 15cm of that being latex, on the standard UK 48 x 74cm footprint, and owners say it goes into an ordinary pillowcase without a fight. On your side, your shoulder carries your weight and leaves a gap up to your ear. This pillow fills it. The latex gives a little under your cheek and then stops, and because there's no loose fill to drift to the ends overnight, the height you fall asleep on is the height you wake up on.
Talalay is the lighter, airier way of making latex, where Dunlop is denser and firmer, so the feel here is a buoyant medium-firm with none of memory foam's slow sink. One owner sums it up as "Bouncy, so it doesn't sink like memory foam. Good medium firmness." Another side sleeper says "the height is perfect for a side sleeper", and most people who sleep on their side will say the same.
Woolroom sells this depth with back sleepers in mind, and on your back it does suit you if you like a fuller pillow. A back sleeper who likes a flatter pillow should go to the Deluxe, because with this one there's nothing to take out. That's the whole personality of the pillow: it does one height very well and no other.
Standard or Deep: choose by your shoulders
Woolroom also sells a Deep version of this pillow, 20cm with its cover on, so about 3cm taller as sold, in the same 48 x 74cm size. Nothing on either one adjusts, so depth is all you're choosing, and it's the one choice you can't put right later by pulling out a handful of wool.
Buy this Standard if you're average or slight across the shoulders, or your mattress lets your shoulder sink in. Go Deep if you're broad-shouldered or sleep on a firm mattress, where your shoulder stays up and the gap to fill is bigger. One owner who sleeps on their side and back bought one of each height and prefers the taller one, while their husband likes the lower, slightly softer one. Another side sleeper on the Standard found it "not as deep as I thought it would be" and was eyeing the Deep. Couples rarely want the same pillow, and here that's easy to sort, since each of you just orders your own depth.
Washable means the wool cover
The wool all lives in the cover: 300g per square metre of traceable British wool quilted into a 200 thread-count organic cotton shell, sitting between your face and the latex like a thick quilted pillowcase. That cover is the washable part. Take the latex inner out, then put the cover on a wool or delicate wash at 40 degrees with the spin no higher than 800. The latex core stays out of the machine, so give it an airing while the cover dries. If you spot small marks on the latex while the cover's off, Woolroom says they come from the moulding and are cosmetic.
The wool is made washable by bathing it in a chlorine solution, which, in Woolroom's words, "smooths out the natural barbs you find in wool", the barbs that would otherwise felt and shrink it in the machine. The cover is thick enough that owners treat it as the protector, and one calls it a "Fantastic cover so no need for an additional protector."
This is where the pillow pays off if you run warm. Latex doesn't trap heat, whatever you've been told, and Talalay's open cells let air move through the core, while the wool next to your face takes up damp before you feel it. Owners coming off memory foam notice straight away: "It feels cooler than my previous memory foam pillow," says one, and another finds "It always feels cool to land on". Clammy sleepers are exactly who wool helps, and Woolroom does wool properly.
Owners keep comparing it with an old Dunlopillo
Owners buy this pillow to replace a Dunlopillo they've had for years, and that caught my eye. Years of cheap pillows ended for me the day I tried a Dunlopillo, and it has been my pillow ever since. One had been "looking for a replacement for my antique Dunlopillo" and called this "just the perfect texture"; another rates it "As good as, if not better than the original Dunlopillows". That's the comparison I'd want a latex pillow to win, and on its owners' word, it does.
Owners with sore necks write about the difference in the mornings: "I no longer wake with neck or shoulder pain," says one. A good pillow makes an absolute difference to a stiff neck, and with shoulder or neck trouble I change the pillow before the mattress, every time.
Owners who fall out with it mostly found it too tall
The complaints are specific, and most of them come back to height. "My husband loves it but I don't," writes one owner, who finds it "too high and firm", which is the depth question settled the hard way. Another says the height "is just way too much to be comfortable for my neck". If you're unsure whether you want a tall pillow, you don't, and the Deluxe lets you find out without a return.
Some owners say theirs lost height. One loved it at first, then wrote "it's been two months and it's flattened a fair amount. To the point that it is no longer supportive." Another says it began to flatten within six months. Woolroom says the pillow always bounces back to its original height and shape, and that's what owners describe far more often, so if yours sinks early, tell Woolroom straight away rather than living with it.
New latex can smell rubbery out of the bag. One owner likens it to petrol and advises you to "Allow a week in an open air before use it", while others noticed no smell at all, and one gave up because it never cleared. Air it by an open window for a few days before it goes on the bed. And latex allergy exists: one owner had an asthma reaction and sent the pair back, and was sorry to, because "they were definitely what we had been looking for". If you know you react to latex, buy a wool pillow.
Against the Relyon Superior Comfort Deep Latex Pillow
Its closest rival is the Relyon Superior Comfort Deep Latex Pillow. It's natural latex too, 17cm deep, sold for side sleepers, with a removable cotton and polyester cover that washes. The one difference that decides it is the wool. The Relyon has none, it's sold as a firm pillow, and it's smaller at 40 x 68cm. Pick the Relyon if you sleep on your side, want a firmer pillow and have smaller pillowcases. Pick the Woolroom if you sleep warm or want a full-size pillow, because the wool against your face is the part you'll notice every night.
Is it worth the money? You use it every night, you never plump it, and owners who've lived with it are glad they paid. For a side sleeper, yes.
What to buy instead
Front sleepers should buy the Woolroom Deluxe Washable Wool Pillow and take wool out until it's thin enough to keep their neck straight. It has the same quilted wool cover, it's from the same shop, and it's also where I'd send anyone who reacts to latex and any back sleeper who likes a flatter pillow. Front sleepers set on latex should buy the low-profile Relyon Superior Comfort Slim Latex Pillow. And a side sleeper after a firmer push than this one gives should buy the Relyon Superior Comfort Deep Latex Pillow.
