How to Wash Your Pillows: The Simple Way

When thinking about being a good host to your holiday guest, we often consider what we would feed them, are there enough towels, bedding, guest room decor and other special needs that they may have. But have you considered washing the pillows??

Pillows are a breeding ground for bacteria and fungi, and placing a clean pillowcase over a dirty pillow is like putting clean clothes on after hours at the gym (gross). Pillows collect things like our drool (don’t act like that doesn’t happen sometimes), dead skin cells, skin oils, sweat and the worst of them all…dust mites. The idea of all of that just makes me cringe.

I was making up our bed one day and placed our pillows on top of our clean white sheets, and noticed how yellowish our pillows were compared to the white linen. Now I personally don’t sleep on pillows since about 3 years now, but it definitely grossed me out, to think that my husband does just about every night, and potentially our holiday guest. So I decided to give these pillows a deep clean.

Now before we get started, if you can’t remember the last time you replaced your pillows, toss the old ones and just start fresh. A good rule of thumb is to replace your pillows yearly.

Now to wash the pillows, I’ll be utilizing my favorite appliance in the house…my new Samsung Flex Wash and Flex Dry from The Home Depot. I love these machines so much because it’s able to tackle heavy loads like pillows and also has so many settings to customize a wash to my needs.

So to get started, You’ll need detergent, fabric softener, bleach, and dryer balls or (tennis balls). You can get the dryer balls from HomeGoods, Marshalls, or TJMaxx for about $4.99.

 

1. Wash two pillows at a time to balance the load (I could of honestly washed 3 pillows since my washing machine is big enough to hold that many).

2. I set my washing machine to normal, temperature to hot, 3 rinses (to ensure all detergent is washed out and won’t leave a residue), spin speed was set to extra high, and soil level was set to heavy. Then start your loads. Optional: You can pre-soak your pillows if necessary.

3. Place your freshly washed pillows in the dryer with the dryer balls or tennis balls to help the pillows fluff up. Set your dryer to “more” dry level, and temperature on medium. I ran the dryer twice just for good measure lol. It’s optional. I wanted to make sure it was really dry.

Note: Make sure to check the tags on your pillows for washing instructions. Synthetic pillows, down stuffed pillows, and foam pillows will have different care instructions. This post is about how to wash synthetic stuff pillows.

You should wash your pillows every 3 months, but if you have allergies you may want to consider washing them monthly, or if you are just recently getting over a cold, you may want to wash your pillows after your symptoms subside.

I hope this post was helpful and simple enough for you to go wash your pillows….like RIGHT NOW! I’m only serious 🙂

Also, Have you checked out my full laundry room reveal on The HomeDepot’s website? Click Here to check out the full reveal.