Is a Shredded Memory Foam Pillow Better?

Traditional memory foam pillow filling is pretty neat! If you’ve ever felt it, you know what I mean. It has a magical sort of texture that uniquely conforms to pressure. This magical memory foam characteristic is called visco-elasticity.

Memory foam has the viscous properties of water, but the elastic feel of traditional poly foams. These unique characteristics are what makes memory foam pillows so popular. If you rest your head on one, the memory foam will compresses and conform perfectly to the shape of your body. When the pressure on the pillow is released, the memory foam slowly resets itself and changes back to its original rectangular shape.

This makes memory foam very good for:

• Providing even, comfortable support and
• Distributing your body’s weight, eliminating pressure points.

Traditional shredded memory foam pillows are unfortunately NOT moldable.

Most mass-produced memory foam pillows consist of a single piece of foam. This is considered a substantial disadvantage by many users, myself included. No matter how you fluff, smoosh, squash, scrunch or sculpt this solid piece of memory foam, it will always revert to its original rectangular shape. If it feels uncomfortable, you can’t alter its shape to better accommodate your sleeping style like you can with other pillow types.

Shredded memory foam pillows, however, ARE moldable.

As its name implies, “shredded” memory foam filling is simply torn into tiny pieces. The individual pieces of foam move independently, allowing the pillow to be moldable. You can sculpt it much like a down pillow—it will shift and change into whatever shape you desire.

Note: Shredded memory foam pillows are often marketed as “bamboo pillows.” Why? Because bamboo sounds like an environmentally responsible, safe component to use in a pillow. Marketers love to use the word bamboo in their product descriptions; it appeals to Eco-conscious consumers. So where’s the bamboo? The truth is in the fine print: apparently their rayon fabric case is derived from bamboo.
The shredded memory foam looked like candy-coated popcorn.

My shredded memory foam pillow filling came tightly compressed inside a plastic cylinder to reduce shipping charges. When I opened the bag it expanded to twice its volume. The multicolored pieces all varied in size.

I opened the bag and my nose quickly reminded me of my previous experiences with memory foam — you might say it jogged my memory (foam).

The strong synthetic odor associated with memory foam is powerful. I’ve tried memory foam pillows before, so this unique chemical smell was something I was very familiar with. Although this shredded memory foam’s stink wasn’t as ridiculous as the pillows I’d tried previously, it was very hard to ignore.

What is this smell? Memory foam is manufactured using polyurethane and several other chemicals. Because of the volatile organic compounds contained, memory foam unfortunately stinks to high heaven. This is often referred to as “off gassing.” It is a common and well-documented issue and is the most frequent complaint that consumers have with memory foam. The off gassing issue isn’t limited to the smell; there are various reports and studies which indicate that memory foam may be somewhat toxic.