The picture I linked is of a buckwheat pillow. Had no idea they were a thing before today.
What about silk or bamboo pillow cases?
I've only ever really used cotton pillow cases and cotton stuffed pillows. I recently upgraded to a foam pillow that I'm enjoying.
Eh, I've tried all of them at least once.
For my money, shredded memory foam is the best. It isn't perfect, but I've had the best balance between comfort, durability, ease of cleaning, and cost.
Buckwheat was good at support, and stayed fairly cool, but the breakdown and difficulty of cleaning made it a problem. It just doesn't last as well. Only thing that was worse in that regard was feathers. Feathers get ruined faster than anything else I tried.
Pillow cases, I'm a cotton fan. High thread count cotton has the right balance of softness vs smoothness. Too soft, and you end up with bunching and wrinkles as you move. Too smooth, and you end up with your head moving too easy but your hair not moving well.
Polyfill sucks for everything except ease of cleaning.
Cotton batting is about the same as polyfill, but not as easy to clean.
Solid foam is just begging to sweat heavy, and damn near impossible to clean well. Plus the durability is iffy.
Pillow cases, actual linen isn't bad, but tends not to be as comfy as cotton. Silk is way too smooth. Satin is just uncomfortable. Synthetics tend to run hot, even though they feel nice. Knit cotton feels the best, but damn does it fall into poor condition fast.
What do you think is the coolest? I sleep on my side and find my face can get rather hot.
How long do you find buckwheat and feather pillows lasted you?
Depends on what you mean by last.
I still have one feather pillow from about ten years ago. It's still a pillow, but it's gotten lumpy, less full, and it's really only still around because of a strange nostalgia. It got to the point where it slept poorly at about a year. To be fair, it wasn't the "best" possible.
Buckwheat, I got a little longer before it lost enough filling to break down that it wasn't viable, about two years before I was just done with it being progressively flatter.
you can also just add more buckwheat if it gets too flat too. although fwiw I bought one a couple years ago and took out a bit to make it flatter initially, and haven't needed to add it back yet
That's true, but I found that just adding wasn't great. You still have the smaller particles in there, which changes both comfort levels (not by much tbh) and what you might call aroma. It gets a kind of musty smell as it deteriorates, which doesn't totally go away if you filter out the smaller stuff