How a Viewstar pillow is made

This page is about construction. It is written from the figures in our own specifications, and where a figure is not published it says so rather than filling the gap with a word like premium.

The fill, and what down alternative actually means

Down alternative is polyester microfibre spun fine enough to behave like clusters of down: it traps air, it compresses under weight, and it springs back when the weight comes off. What it does not do is what real down does over years, which is break down into smaller and smaller fragments until the pillow is flat. It also does not carry the allergen load that a feather fill can.

Firmness in a fibre pillow is not a different material. It is the same microfibre at a different density: more of it in the same shell makes a firmer pillow, less makes a softer one. That is the whole of the difference between our firm support and our soft & fluffy, and it is why we state a support level rather than a fill weight, which would mean nothing without the shell dimensions beside it.

The gusset, and why a side wall matters

A gusset is a strip of fabric sewn between the top and bottom panels, so that the pillow has a wall rather than a folded edge. It sounds decorative and it is structural. Without it, the fill under a head migrates outward until the middle is thin and the edges are fat, which is how most pillows fail and why people wake up hugging a doughnut.

With a side wall the fill has somewhere to be. The pillow keeps a consistent height across its width, and for a side sleeper that height is the whole point: it is what fills the distance between the mattress and the ear.

The shell

The shells across the range are woven polyester. Two finishes: a plain one on most of the catalogue, and a tone on tone sateen stripe on striped hotel. The stripe is woven rather than printed. It survives washing without fading into the ground colour, and from a distance it reads as texture rather than pattern.

Edges are double stitched on the lines whose specification states it, and the piping that runs the gusset is both a finish and a seam reinforcement.

The foam pillow, which works differently

Shredded memory foam does not spring back. It holds the shape pressed into it and releases it slowly, which some people find supportive and others find unresponsive. Because the fill is loose rather than a single block, the casing unzips and the loft becomes something you set rather than something you accept, and most people who like the pillow take some foam out on the first evening.

What the CertiPUR-US mark on the foam covers

CertiPUR-US is run by the Alliance for Flexible Polyurethane Foam and applies to the flexible polyurethane foam inside a product rather than to the finished product. Certified foam is made without formaldehyde, without ozone depleters, without mercury, lead and other heavy metals, and without the phthalates regulated by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. It is screened for flame retardants and other chemicals classified as carcinogens, mutagens or reproductive toxins, and it is tested for volatile organic compound emissions with a limit of 0.5 parts per million for indoor air quality. What the mark does not do is describe how the pillow feels or how long it will last.

This is a description of what a certification programme covers, not a health claim about a product.

Alliance for Flexible Polyurethane Foam, CertiPUR-US certification programme read 10 August 2026

The textile certification, and what it does not mean

Every fibre pillow in the range carries OEKO-TEX STANDARD 100 certification. It is worth knowing exactly what that is, because the label is often waved about as a general quality mark and it is not one.

What OEKO-TEX STANDARD 100 certifies

STANDARD 100 is a testing and certification system for textiles, run by OEKO-TEX, in which every component of an article, from the thread to the trim, is tested for harmful substances against a list that runs to over a thousand of them. Articles are placed in one of four product classes according to how much skin contact they have, with the strictest requirements applied to class 1, which covers products for babies and children up to three years old. Bed linen sits in class 2, for articles with direct skin contact. A certificate is issued for one year and has to be renewed, so a valid mark means the article was tested recently rather than once.

This describes what a textile certification tests for. It is not a statement about health outcomes.

OEKO-TEX, STANDARD 100: the original safety standard read 10 August 2026

What it certifies is the absence of harmful substances. It says nothing about how well a pillow holds its loft, how it washes, or whether it suits your neck. Those are separate questions, and the rest of this site is about them.

How it arrives

Pillows ship vacuum sealed, so the box arrives at a quarter of the size you expect. The pillow inside needs about a day to reach full loft, and a first impression formed in the first ten minutes will be of a pillow that is flatter and denser than the one you actually bought. It is worth opening the bag the evening before you plan to sleep on it.

The limits of what we will say

A founding date, a factory address and photographs of a workshop are not published here; what is published is what each pillow is filled with, how firm it is and how it is checked. No pillow treats, prevents or cures anything, including neck pain, and where a page touches health it cites the agency it came from. We do not recommend any pillow for a baby, for reasons set out on care and washing.

What we will state is anything that appears in a specification, and we will state it in the same words on every page of Viewstar pillows.