Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Upon receiving these pillows we noticed they had horrible chemical odor. Curiosity about what I was subjecting my family to led me to months of trying to track down the answers to several questions such as where the hulls for this pillow were grown, how they were cleaned, and if they were ever fumigated upon importation (a very common practice for hulls grown outside the US). I contacted the manufacturer regarding this and worked my way up the line to the factory that makes these pillows, what I found is that they are a product imported from China, the hulls are roasted/heat treated as their method of cleaning, and the hulls ARE FUMIGATED! Apparently, buckwheat grown in other countries organically can be, and usually is, fumigated upon importation but when it arrives in the USA it can still be labeled as and sold as organic. If having a chemical free pillow is important to you then I would recommend looking elsewhere. If you are sold on buckwheat as a pillow filling I did some more research and found 3 companies that assured me that their hulls are never fumigated. One is called The Original Buckwheat Pillow Company. This company uses only U.S. grown organic buckwheat and reviewers of their product say that they have very well made, high thread count cases. The other company that I considered is called l-oma. They use non-fumigated organic buckwheat hulls imported from Canada. They only make two sizes of pillows though, Japanese size and standard twin. You can view their pillows at l-oma.com. The third company is the one that I ended up purchasing pillows from, a company called The Pillow Company. All their buckwheat is U.S. grown and they assured me that it is never fumigated. The buckwheat is very nice and clean and smells so much better. Their pillow cases are composed of unbleached cotton but it is a thinner material so I wonder if it will hold up as well long term. If you sew you can purchase their buckwheat separately and make your own cases. If you don't particularly care about chemicals in your pillow these buckwheat pillows by Zen Chi (manufactured by SCS Direct Inc.) are reasonably priced and fairly well made. However, put some thought into it, do your own research and be sure that you will be happy with this choice. I hope that this review is helpful to you. Thanks for reading!