And the Pillows Lived to Tell the Tale

Today's tip is either going to function as a major revelation for you, or a complete "duh!"  And I realize that depending on your perspective, this will either make you think I am genius or a little late to the intellectual party.  I'm OK with that.

I just figured out that I can wash bed pillows.

Mr. FC&G and I use a lot of pillows.  I mean, seriously a lot.  We have 6 standard bed pillows, a couple of body pillows, and a couple of specialty foam/bead pillows. We like our pillows. 

But this, of course, means expense.  The six standard pillows take a lot of wear, and even though we have a rotation scheme where the person who likes them the fluffiest (me) gets a set first, and the sets get demoted down to the person who likes to roll pillows into a ball (Mr. FC&G), we still probably replace each of those pillows once a year.  At an average cost of $12 per pillow at our local grocery-and-everything store, this is $72 on pillows each year.

I've always meant to experiment with washing my pillows, but I think I was afraid that they would burst open and spew fiberfill all over my washer. But the other day I finally gave it a try, and I'm super-pleased with the results.  The nasty set of pillows that I was getting ready to toss came out clean-smelling and lofty.  I think the secret was washing them on the "comforter" setting on my machine, then drying them with my dryer balls in the dryer.  I'm happy.  And the pillows lived to see another day.

The Analysis

Fast:  I could wash two pillows at a time in my high capacity washer, so the time invested was only the amount of time it took to run the machines.  And it isn't like I sat there and babysitted or anything.

Cheap:  For the cost of the electricity and water, I extended the life of these pillows.  For each month's extra use I get out of them, I save about $1 in new-pillow cost.

Good:  I'm very pleased with the results; I'll bet they turn out even better when I can line-dry them in the summer, so they have all that sunshiney smell and have received that extra boost of bleaching and disinfecting from the sun.