It seems unlikely that that the fabric you sleep on can have an affect on how your hair looks and feels. And yet silk isn’t known as the most beautiful fabric in the world for nothing.
The Many Benefits of Silk Pillowcases
How do you sleep at night? It’s a question that has more to do with your beauty routine than you might think. Even beyond the idea of “beauty sleep,” the National Institutes of Health posit that skin cell regeneration peaks during slumber, and a good eight hours is sure to show on your face.
But it’s not just what happens beneath the skin that matters. Skin can dehydrate more quickly while you’re sleeping, which is why a good night cream is essential. And it might be wise to reevaluate your bedsheets, too. Have you heard of the benefits of silk pillowcases?
Switching to a silk pillowcase is a small change that can lead to lasting benefits for skin and hair. Read on to learn more.
Why use a silk pillowcase?
Silk is a natural fiber woven from the cocoons of domesticated silkworms. (An amazing statistic from George Washington University: About 1,000 yards of fiber can be pulled from a single cocoon.) The fabric also known as silk is woven together from these fibers on a loom. It’s superlatively smooth, almost liquid, and usually gleams in the light.
We all know silk; We all love silk, in different areas of our lives. Some people wear silk blouses and others prefer silk ties. The idea of silk bed sheets may sound like an overly decadent concept, but there’s no textile that feels better to sleep on. And that feeling can translate to skin and hair health. Opting for a silk pillowcase, as opposed to a full sheet set, is an easy way to capture the benefits of sleeping on silk. And speaking of those:
What are the benefits of using a silk pillowcase?
For minimizing wrinkles: The benefits of a silk pillowcase cannot be overstated, but chief among them is their gentleness on skin. There is almost no friction against the face when sleeping on silk, unlike other fabrics that alternatively tug and wrinkle skin. Have you ever woken up from a particularly good night of sleep with red marks on your face from fabric bunches? A silk pillowcase would simply never.
Aestheticians and dermatologists both agree that silk considerations can help prevent wrinkle formation in the long run. Another recommendation: A silk sleeping mask, which can gently protect the delicate skin around the eyes.
For boosting your skin barrier: It sounds slightly outrageous to claim a pillowcase can make your skin healthier in the long run, but there’s a scientific basis to this silk benefit. Silk doesn’t absorb as much moisture as other fabrics we sleep on, so it’s ideal for helping skin retain necessary moisture overnight. Keeping hydrated supports your skin barrier’s function, which in turn can help protect against acne and inflammation related to dry skin. (If you’re prone to sweating at night, silk can also keep you cooler, which may help acne from proliferating.)
For smoothing hair: The silk pillowcase hair benefits are some of the best of all. There is simply no fabric that is gentler on hair of all types. Many fabrics can cause hair breakage, or are generally incompatible with keeping hair smooth (hello, bed head!). Silk, by contrast, is much kinder. It’s especially great for coarse-textured or color-treated hair that often needs more moisture than other hair types, but any head of hair is sure to look silkier, literally, the morning after a night on a silk pillowcase. Women with afro-textured hair have used silk to protect their strands for decades. (Some have even claimed that a good silk pillowcase can extend a blowout’s life cycle.)
What is “good silk”?
How do you know that you have good quality silk?
Mulberry silk is one of the best silks on the contemporary market. If a pillowcase you’re eyeing is 100% mulberry silk, it’s probably a safe buy. But there are other metrics for silk that can be found right on the product packaging. There’s a grade system from A to C, with A being the best quality. Each letter also breaks down into number codes. (2A is considered better than 6A, for example.)
There’s also momme, pronounced “mommy”, which is a unit that denotes the weight of a particular silk. (One momme is nearly 4.5 grams.) Some silk experts say the higher the momme, the higher quality the silk, but a good range for a pillowcase or sheet set might be between 10 and 25 momme. By contrast, raw, unfinished silk might clock in at around 35 momme or up.
Are there really benefits of using a silk pillowcase?
Switching to a silk pillowcase alone will probably not overhaul your beauty routine. But they are a great supplement to your existing regimen, by helping skin and hair retain essential moisture while you sleep. Silk’s superlatively soft qualities can also reduce the appearance of breakouts and the formation of wrinkles.
Dermatologists seem to agree that sleeping on silk can be better for skin than other fabrics. As one dermatologist told the New York Times in 2020, “The bottom line is, any product that helps reduce the strain on the skin is beneficial.” Experts are more unanimous in their praise of silk pillowcase hair benefits. There is an undeniable link between silk and hydrated, healthy hair.
In Japanese culture, there has always been a link between the fabric and healthy skin. An old saying in Kyoto regarding apprentice geishas goes: “If you look closely at a maiko’s skin, it is made of pure silk.” Inspired by this connection, Tatcha offers a set of 100% pure silk face cloths that both nourishes and gently polishes skin during your usual cleanse.
Personal care is cumulative. It’s not one or two choices that will make a major difference, but the sum of small gestures. And the best part of using a silk pillowcase? All you have to do is fall asleep.
*Based on a study (clinical grading and consumer perception) of over 100 women aged 35-65, who were regular users of cotton or synthetic (non-silk) satin pillowcases. Clinical grading showed statistically significant improvement. Individual results may vary.
