Coop Original Pillow Review
This clever pillow can be customized to accommodate any sleep position, but it's a bit pricey and not exactly luxurious
By Paul Hope
The Coop Home Goods Original Pillow looks like your typical pillow, but it allows you to remove or add filling, so you can create a cushion that’s tailored to your needs. It comes as a zippered polyester-rayon cover that’s stuffed with shredded memory foam and microfiber, and it’s sold with a bag of additional filling.
As a result, the pillow can help keep your neck and spine aligned, no matter your sleep position—and continue to do so over time, even as your sleep preferences change.
Coop Home Goods Premium Adjustable Loft
Notable Features
Adjustable: One of the biggest selling points for the Coop pillow is its ability to adjust its firmness and height by adding or removing filling. This allows the pillow to support people of different sizes, and with different sleeping styles.
Hypoallergenic: The Coop Original is filled with a blend of shredded memory foam and microfiber, not down. This is a plus for allergy sufferers.
Machine-washable: The Coop comes with cleaning directions, for both the cover and the pillow itself, and because it has a double cover, you can clean the outer cover as often as needed without worrying about the filling.
How Well Does the Coop Original Pillow Work?
Because the Coop adapts to users of any size or sleeping style, it aces almost all our lab tests, earning top marks for both side- and back-sleeper support. Side sleepers with broad shoulders might consider adding more filling, while back sleepers may get the best support by removing some.
I lie on my back, side, and stomach, sometimes all in one night. And yet, I’ve slept comfortably on the pillow, stuffed with about 90 percent of the original factory-added filling. What’s more, as someone who sleeps quite hot (I’ve been lovingly compared to an oil-burning furnace), the Coop stays cool enough that I don’t wake up sweaty. And while I’ve had the pillow for only a year, it feels exactly as it did when it was brand new. It comes with two cases, inner and outer, with sturdy stitching on both. The inner cover holds the filling, while the outer is easily removed for periodic cleaning.
Some users, including a colleague, have noticed that the Coop off-gases more than usual, but this hasn’t been the case with the two I’ve purchased.
Who Is the Coop Original Pillow For?
It’s rare to say a certain product is right for almost everyone, but the Coop is the exception. Adaptability is baked into its design, and as a result, our lab testing finds that it’s the best pick for the broadest swath of users. It’s sold in two sizes, queen and king.
That said, the bulk of the filling is made from memory foam, which may feel a little less soft than down. So if you’re looking for a pillow that feels “luxurious,” this one isn’t it. You don’t get quite the same level of plushness when your head hits the pillow as you might with a premium down pillow.
This pillow is also best for people who don’t sleep extremely hot. While it certainly sleeps cooler than some of the competition, our lab tests found that it can still retain some warmth. Really hot sleepers may be better off avoiding memory-foam pillows altogether.
Lastly, at $72, the Coop Original is rather expensive. If you’re fairly content with a pillow from the discount bin, there probably isn’t any reason to justify buying it. But if you’re constantly waking up with a crick in your neck, the Coop is worth trying. While some other pillows in our ratings allow you to add or remove fabric layers to adjust support, the Coop allows you to mold it by adding or remove the filling itself. It comes with a 100-night in-home trial.
How Consumer Reports Tests Pillows
In the lab, we poke, prod, and pound every pillow using carefully calibrated machinery to assess how well each one supports the head and neck of people of various sizes—petite, average, and large/tall—whether they sleep on their side or their back. We also use a pressure mat to analyze roughly 1,600 pressure points, focusing on the area of contact between the head and the pillow. Last, we evaluate how well pillows hold their shape over time, by placing an evenly distributed 225-pound weight on each one in a room set to 98.6° F (to mimic body heat) for 96 hours.
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