Silk Pillowcase: Is it really worth the hype?
Updated: Apr 4
While all the lotions, moisturizers, serums, sunscreens, etc. help protect our hair and skin while we are in the waking world, what happens when we sleep? We spend literally 25-30% of our life sleeping. That means our face and hair are constantly touching the object we are sleeping on for the entirety of that time. This makes the material of the pillowcase a very important factor that determines the condition of your skin and hair.
Most people use pillowcases made of cotton. Cotton is, frankly, horrible for pillowcases (in the context of skin care). Cotton fabric being extremely absorbent tends to dehydrate your skin and hair while you're sleeping. As you may already know, the more hydrated your skin and hair would be, the healthier and lesser prone to age-related damage they would be.
Let's discuss some properties of a silk pillowcase that make it an excellent choice for a sleeping partner:
Hydrophobic: This property of silk also makes it the most important one for why it makes a good case for being used as a pillowcase material. Silk will not rob your skin of its hydration and in fact, may actually help it retain whatever you've applied on it before sleeping.
Hypoallergenic: This, slightly difficult-sounding word, means something that is very less likely to cause an allergy. Silk is naturally hypoallergenic. Cotton, not very much so.
Smooth texture: This is probably very intuitive, but to make it even more so, imagine rubbing your face against a pillow made of cotton vis-à-vis that made of silk. Silk feels smoother, doesn't it? This means that you can very easily toss and turn on a silk pillowcase without your hair getting broken or your skin getting creases on it.
I would highly recommend making a tiny investment in getting a silk pillowcase. It would be highly worth it (apart from the benefits listed above, think of all the creams and serums that get wasted by being absorbed by cotton pillowcases).
Here's my suggestion (well, this is what I use) if you are looking for a silk pillowcase: