Are Buckwheat Pillows Better? Carolina Morning Designs

Update 2014: New conclusion at the bottom of the article.

A few months ago I got this idea in my head that I wanted to try switching to a buckwheat pillow for a while. I don’t know whether it was because Tim Ferriss suggested buckwheat pillows for “bedroom activities” in his Four Hour Body book, or if I simply wanted to pretend I was a samurai. Whatever the reason, I did a bit of research and ended up trying out a few organic buckwheat pillows from a company called Carolina Morning Designs.

Carolina Morning Designs is a North Carolina based company that produces all manner of “body friendly” bedroom and office items, such as futons, yoga things, and of course, buckwheat pillows. I tried out the rectangular and cylindrical pillows over the course of a few evenings, and the most important thing I want to mention is that there’s a bit of a learning curve with these things. Yes, that’s right, using these pillows take a bit of thought, or perhaps I’m just daft.

My first night using them was an absolute misery, so I’m going to tell you why that happened, what I did to (try) and correct it, and what happened next.

How not to use a buckwheat pillow

My first inclination was to simply treat the two pillows as I would any regular pillow. Place one under your head, close your eyes, sleep… dream of questionable things. The problem lays in the fact that they aren’t regular pillows, and trying to use them as such will probably mean that you have the worst sleep that you’ve ever had in your life.

After hours of attempted sleep and absolute misery, I ended up tossing the pillows on the floor in a rage. I felt like I would have been more comfortable laying on the floor with a pile of stones under my head.

How to use a buckwheat pillow for awesome sleeping

So what did I do differently the next night? Well, for one thing I read the instructions that came on the included packing – a strange idea, I know. I didn’t find them especially useful, but I did eventually clue into the fact that both pillows were designed to be used in tandem. The cylindrical pillow goes under your neck, and the rectangular pillow goes under your head. Amazing!

After switching the configuration around a bit, I started to hate the pillows a lot less. I actually had dreams about normal things – like boobs – instead of simply dreaming of a swift death by smothering myself with the rectangular pillow so I could finally get some sleep.

What I like about the Carolina Morning Designs buckwheat pillows

• Once you learn to use the pillows, they’re surprisingly comfortable. I usually use firm pillows anyway, but these have the added benefit of conforming to your neck and head.
• The rectangular and cylindrical pillows don’t take up very much space, which is important if you’ve got a tiny bed. They also *look* uncomfortable, which means people will think you’re a tough as nails bad-ass.
• You can use the pillows to prop a person’s butt off the mattress, which is useful for… bible study.

The one thing I found disappointing about these pillows, and buckwheat pillows in general, is that they’re exceptionally loud for the person sleeping with you. I tend to move around in my sleep a lot, and at some points during the night I was fairly certain my girlfriend wanted to toss me out the window because of the amount of gravel-like rustling the pillow made as I twirled around my side of the bed.

If you’re tired of your soft wussy pillows and want to try a pillow that not only makes you look like a bad-ass even when you’re sleeping, but that’s also good for your neck and spine, consider giving the Carolina Morning Designs organic buckwheat pillows a try. At $38 for the cylindrical version, and $40 for the rectangular one, they won’t break the bank, and you may even end up preferring them over your regular feathery pillow.

Fast Forward to 2014

It’s been over 3 years since I wrote this review, and I realized that I didn’t really do my job as a reviewer. You see, shortly after I wrote this I stopped using these pillows completely. No matter how much I tried, I just couldn’t make them work for me. Maybe it was my lack of skill, or maybe they just weren’t for me. Either way, I wanted to make that perfectly clear.