Beans72 Organic Buckwheat Pillow - Japanese Size (14 inches × 20 inches) Made in USA

Interesting little pillow; I've been sleeping on it for about a week now. At first, it does take some getting used to, and it does take some work in order to make it as comfortable as possible, but once I got it just right I find myself falling asleep almost immediately after I lay down. When I received the pillow, it was stuffed entirely too much with buckwheat, which is both a good and a bad thing. Good, in that the amount of buckwheat I removed from the pillow is enough to fill two more pillows for me comfortably, I would just need to find appropriate pillow cases; bad, in that I spent a good few hours just scooping out buckwheat and re-adjusting the pillow to find my optimal size. I placed the scooped out buckwheat in a ziplock bag and keep it high in my closet. The first night I went to sleep with it (after adjusting the buckwheat amount), I woke up the next morning with a bit of a sore neck. It may have been just my body adjusting to the pillow, because the nights since then have been phenomenal. I found that once you lay your head on it, it helps to bunch the buckwheat under your neck and almost push them up against your shoulders. As as I am a back sleeper, I found this to provide excellently comfortable support. I also sometimes sleep on my side, and I should note that this pillow is perfect for that too; given the nature of the pillow, moving to the side (despite the pillow's relatively small size) is a super smooth adjustment, as the pillow does not bunch up on its own and smother your face when you move. For stomach and face sleepers, however.... I imagine the pillow is far too firm for that to be comfortable. Why would you sleep that way in the first place? It should also be noted that if you tend to worry about your face and complexion, as well as wrinkles caused by aging, then this pillow will be perfect for you. Scientifically speaking, wrinkle creams and lotion do very little to help fight age wrinkles; that particular battle begins with your sleeping pattern. It you sleep with your face smooshed into a pillow every night, the skin on your face is pulled and pushed (without you being conscious of it) all night long, distorting the natural lines of your face and causing your wrinkles to become more and more pronounced over time. This is particularly true for side and stomach sleepers. While I don't think this pillow will help stomach sleepers (it is very hard to breath into a pillow stuffed full of buckwheat), for side sleepers it's great; the pillow never rides up to meet your face, allowing your skin to be free from impediment all night long. One last thing; this pillow is somewhat noisy at first. I don't mind, but for people who want an entirely silent night's rest it is something that need to be taken into consideration. Recently I don't even notice the noise; I assume as the buckwheat becomes "polished" from further use, the noise will become less pronounced. --- Strange 林全德

This is my second lavender aromatherapy pillow that I have purchased. The first one lasted many years and is still being used. I purchased the traditional Japanese sized pillow as I have gotten used to this smaller pillow and find that it is perfect for me. As these pillows arrive too firm for my comfort, I removed about a gallon of buckwheat hulls (saved in a ziplock bag to be used to "refresh" the pillow over the years). It is now able to mold to the contours of my head and neck, providing a smooth, supportive surface cradling the head/neck, and allowing my spine to remain aligned during the night. Since I have been using these pillows, I no longer have morning headaches or neck pain due to lack of support or misalignment. The neck arthritis is not a problem either since using these buckwheat pillows. Yes, there was a little "crunchy" noise when I turned and readjusted the pillow during the first couple of nights, but I no longer hear it (perhaps because the hulls are a bit smoother and "polished" from use, or perhaps because I sleep so soundly with my new pillow). The scent of the lavender is a lovely, relaxing, soothing, luxurious addition to this wonderful pillow and helps send me off into blissful slumber. The pillow is well made, and of quality materials. To me it is worth it to pay a bit more for a product that isn't filled with toxic materials and is made in Texas, USA. As I had purchased from this seller before, I knew what I was getting and enjoy using a quality product. Truly, not a night goes by that I don't think "I love my pillow." That may sound extreme, but it is true. It truly is the little things in life which can improve the quality of our lives. For me, getting a good night of sleep has a major impact on my well-being, mood, and productivity. This pillow helps me achieve that. I will never go back to

Beans72 Organic Buckwheat Pillow - Japanese Size (14" x 20") : This is a quality product. I would recommend for those sensitive to odors to let it air-out for a week or more in fresh air if possible; the odor is very, very faint and a natural byproduct of the pillow et al. As others have mentioned, and Beans72 also mentions with their enclosed literature you receive with the item, the pillow is more than amply filled with buckwheat hulls. In our case about six cups were removed making the pillow quite adjustable and comfortable; these hulls can be added at a much later date as the hulls 'smooth out' over time. We have a [slightly heavier] buckwheat hull custom made pillow, about the same size, that is thirty five years old!, and it still functions fine as it was used often enough, but needs to be opened (it is a sealed system, no zipper) and put into a new pillow case. Relative to that pillow, the Beans72 feels quite firm, which is as it should be, the same as the above one was when new. I only mentioned this longevity element as a testament to the use of buckwheat hulls for pillows. For those unaccustomed to 'firm' or 'very firm' pillows -which is a subjective call- along with added 'crinkling' noise of the fresh hulls, all I can say is to be aware, buckwheat pillows are in their own category and nothing like a ‘standard’ common pillow, nothing whatsoever. They support the body in a completely different manner and do it well for those that like them. Newcomers ought to consider doing their own research and avoid being disappointed which happens sometimes. Apparently some people are quite unaccustomed to the ‘crinkling’ sound of the hulls –which diminishes over time- they simply can’t adjust to this ‘noise’; it is difficult to hear then when asleep!, and this becomes a moot point down the road. Anyway, to each their own. The pillow comes boxed and enclosed in the handy 'carry-all' that Beans72 shows in the description, the pillow case appears to be a good quality [beige] cotton thorough out and well sown, it has a very convenient hidden type of zipper centered on the 20" seam. The slightly confusing clear circle Beans72 displays in the description is simply a picture of the buckwheat hulls; in other words there is no clear (plastic) cut-out in the pillow case, for those that might of wondered. We recommend using an additional pillow case to place the Beans72 pillow within, in order to protect it as well as for hygienic purposes.

We just came back from spending 2 weeks in Japan; that's was the starting point for this purchase. My husband has only slept on this pillow 2 nights so far and is still adjusting the amount of buckwheat inside. His "4-star" rating might change to "5-stars" as time progresses. Our initial reaction to this type pillow in Japan, was like holy cow, these things are so hard, how could anyone sleep on them? As the days passed we were like ... well, I kinda like them. By the end of the trip we were asking about them and wanting one. It does take a period of adjustment but here's what my husband liked in particular: they sleep cooler than any pillow he's had, and he's had A LOT. His so-called "Cool pillow" from Costco turned out to be a big disappointment and yet he couldn't find anything better. He thinks this pillow is harder than what we slept on in Japan ... but we'll see over time. I am waiting to try his before ordering one for myself. What I liked about them in Japan is that they don't flatten and collapse. I seem to toss and turn less. This is just a hunch on my part, but I think they might create less wrinkles on one's face cuz the great support allows one to keep their face from sinking into the pillow if so desired. I think this is a good size (we went with it because it's similar to what's used in Japan, because I think the larger sizes would be too heavy. It seems well made and much nicer than the "As Seen On TV" version we got years ago and tossed out. In Japan, I felt as though I could almost give myself a neck/head massage by pushing my head into the pillow because there was something there to push back, if you know what I mean. Anyway, this does not fit the mold for any U.S.-type pillow, but there must be a reason it's so popular in Japan. Every single hotel had this pillow on top of a larger, softer pillow; I'm assuming it was so hotel guests could choose which one they wanted. We used this very firm pillow for the whole trip.

I've got to tell this story. I have had trouble with the discs between my cervical vertebrae, especially C7, slipping out of place on a daily basis for the last 10 years. , probably due to a lifetime of heavy shoulder bags, poor posture, because of my dental assiing job, and the wild 60s dances, I did when I was young. 😃 To avoid surgery, which has horrible consequences, I've used therapy balls to unkink the horrible knots in my shoulder, neck and upper back/shoulder blade region (right side mostly), and to gently press the discs back in place. For years, at night, I have slept with a king size pillow on each side of me to get my body in an optimal position [ I'M A SIDE SLEEPER ] . But also, I brought to bed with me each night, five different pillows : latex, memory foam, sobakawa, down and a medium firm fill. I sleep on my side, mostly the right side. Each night was filled with swapping out pillows all night long, as no pillow was perfect to keep my neck vertebrae in place. THEN, I ordered this PILLOW, exactly one year ago. I had to remove at least half the buckwheat. So yes there was a little smell for a couple of nights.. not a big deal. But the *hardness* of the pillow made me regret having paid so much for it. So I ordered another pillow that had shredded foam, that you could remove and adjust the fill as needed and mush it around to give support. The hardness of the buckwheat pillow hurt the blood vessels in my temples and it was compressing my jugular veins. I tried the soft pillow and it was *dreamy*, but after a couple of nights, I had to bring "Mr. Buckwheat" back, because my neck was screaming for support! So I would sleep on the buckwheat and do a lot of adjusting to take the pressure off sensitive areas. During the night, when I couldn't take the hardness anymore, I'd switch to "Mr. Softee". So I kept on trying with the buckwheat and LISTEN TO THIS!... As the weeks and months went by, my head and neck veins either became used to the hardness or the buckwheat became not so hard.. or both. I used the buckwheat (pillow) more and more, until I no longer used the Softee at all... NOR ANY OTHER Pillow, EVER! Also, you become very adept at the adjusting of the pillow, you just know how thick it needs to be and how to lie on it right away, instantly. I usually like my pillow to be fairly thin, so the part I'm not lying on is thicker. However, sometimes I really need extra support on that C7 vertebra, so I flip it over and voila!.. .. instant support and relief and back to sleep I go. I now sleep soundly and solidly through the night, seldom changing position ... for the first time in decades (I'm 66)! Oh.. also the pillow is very cool and seldom heats my neck, if it does, I just flip it over. And something else, no one else might mention is, the PILLOW NEVER SMELLS!! IT NEVER gets stinky! How does that happen?! Now, I would never go off ANYwhere to stay without it. I look SO forward to going to bed every night now, knowing when I lie down on my pillow, I will have instant comfort and relief if I've had a bad neck day. I have the smallest pillow ( I'm 5' 1") and it's plenty big for me, more than enough. This little bag of seed hulls has made a HUGE, HUGE difference in my life. It is the PERFECT PILLOW! So DON'T GIVE UP on it. Keep working with it. Pretty soon you'll be a pro at maneuvering it and you will benefit greatly with how your neck stays in place and the extra sleep you get because you are not waking up at all hours of the night. ONE PILLOW!.... That's all I use now, except I still have my two king size pillows I use as body pillows, for my lower body. I almost never take the time to write a review, especially one this detailed, but this pillow has helped me soooo much, that I want others to have the same relief I've experienced. It's such a little thing and makes such a big difference. Just don't get discouraged at the initial hardness. It took about 2 months to become accustomed to it, and about 6 or 7months before it was the ONLY pillow I wanted. It is more than worth it to stick with it. You WILL get used to it, I know because I'm extra sensitive, and although it never loses its support, I do believe the hulls get a little more supple. I saved the other half of the hulls in a gallon ziploc bag, just in case these hulls ever wear down. After a year, it doesn't seem like that is going to happen. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS PILLOW! Have a wonderful Christmas and SWEET DREAMS! 💕 ps. Poor Mr. Softee pillow now just takes up space in my closet. ;D

I have to have my head perfectly horzontal when I sleep on my side. I have a loud snore, like being next to a chain saw, and if my head tips down or slides forward when i'm sleeping, my snore can be loud and disturb my wife. Usually I have to stack a set of towels to get my head into postion, but the towels become very hard and can chafe on my face at night. I am happy to report that this pillow helped solved my snoring/comfort problem. This pillow forms around my head, and helps me keeps my head in place as I sleep. AND it is very comfortable. I would expect it to be hard like using towels, but suprisingly not. I still stack 2 towels to help get the righ height, and that works fine. TIP: 1) When you get your pillow, get a ziplock bag and remove 3-4 cups of buckwheat hulls out of the pillow. The pillow is over-stuffed, and the pillow will be very hard and rounded if you don't do this. Also, it will not have much "give" or ability to adjust. Found that out the first night. Also, you simply save the extra husks, and can then use it to plump up your pillow when the hulls start to grind down. 2) This pillow is smaller then a standard pillow!! If you think this will be the size of a single, you are wrong. This size works for me..as I don't move much at night, but when you put it down, you basically have room for your head in the middle of the pillow and thats it. If you like your pillow bigger then smaller..then definitely get a bigger pillow. 3) if you like to fold your pillow. This is not for you. 4) Many have commented about the noise. I have not notice any noise after I get settled. To deal with this, I have the pillow and it's cover, then I put another zip-enclosed cover on it to protect it, then a pillow case. That muffles the noise well. Another positive is this pillow is much, much cooler then a foam pillow, specially a tempurpedic-style pillow. Very important to me when sleeping in the hot Summer months. I would recommend this to anyone who wants a great, cool firm pillow.

First off, I want to be clear that there are a lot of reviews complaining about how stiff and uncomfortable they are, but it must be understood that this isn't a typical pillow for people who want something luscious and squishy. For most years of my adult life I went for stretches of weeks or months where I woke up with a horrendous headache more days than not. I finally went to my doctor for fear there may be something really wrong with my brain. (My wife insisted because we'd just gotten pregnant with our first child.) After a bit of discussion and examination, Doc explained it seems likely they are tension headaches and after talking about my routine activities, it was probably from the way I slept. That was the first time I realized how flat and badly-performing my pillow was. From that moment I was on a mission to find a better pillow. I finally came across buckwheat pillows and read how well-reviewed they are for people with head or neck pain, so I decided to give one a shot (without ever having seen/felt one first-hand previously). Without knowing what such a pillow is like, it's a bit surprising at first because it is very dense and solid. The wonderful thing about it compared to a traditional pillow (or even a newer Tempurpedic pillow) is that 1) it will NEVER go flat and 2) you can adjust its form and it will stay. As some reviewers state, it's also good that it stays cool I guess, but I've honestly never had a problem noticing my pillow is too hot before. Anyhow, the pillow worked wonders. For the first time in my life I started waking up without a headache every day of the week. It was really a life-changing thing for me. That was maybe 5 years ago and I purchased directly from the Beans72 website (which is really off-putting and unprofessional, especially on the About page which greets you with, "Hi, my name is Beans72..."). I bought a "Japanese size" pillow and also one of the long body-length pillows for my wife to use. The body-length pillow wasn't a great purchase because it was a great length, but it was impossible for her to move around due to its heavy weight. Alas, both of those pillows got a good coating with baby vomit into the buckwheat, so I decided to toss them after a couple of years of great sleep. After my replacement squishy beanbag pillow (from Brookstone) died recently, I tried a new firm faux-down pillow from Macy's and it was great, but only for about 2 months before it started flattening down and my headaches started to return. Immediately, I started searching for good old Beans72 again and I was glad to find their products available on Amazon with Prime shipping, and I just got my new "Japanese size" pillow a couple of weeks ago, and it's even better than I remembered. A couple of notes about Beans72 and the other Amazon reviews I've skimmed: Yes, Beans72 does seem very unprofessional and all about making a buck and not at all about customer service, but if don't mind dealing with a business like that, the product speaks for itself. (Their compassion and customer service might only be important if you have a problem, but I haven't.) I was scared by the reviews proclaiming bugs were found in the buckwheat. I can't imagine that it'd be impossible because it is a crop and I'm sure it could happen that a batch isn't cleaned thoroughly enough or something, so as soon as my new pillow arrived I rifled through the buckwheat (outside my house, in case any bugs did come out) and it all looked very clean. I've also seen reviews stating that the pillow smelled of chemicals, but none of the 3 pillows I've bought from them have ever had any kind of smell whatsoever. To me everything seems to be as clean and natural/organic as they claim. To summarize, if you have any kind of recurring head or neck discomfort when you wake up in the morning, I'd highly recommend a buckwheat pillow from Beans72. If the bug or smell problems have actually occurred, it seems like the odds of that happening to every customer are very low.

This pillow is excellent. I have not previously slept on buckwheat pillows before, but I can highly recommend this pillow. Since I began sleeping on it, I have not experienced lower or upper back pain, even when sleeping in adverse conditions such as on my friend's 5 year old couch or on a steadily deflating air mattress that hits the floor overnight. The small size means it can travel around with me conveniently as well. A few notes: -You need to adjust the fill of this pillow. They purposely overstuff the pillow with buckwheat, and you will destroy your neck if you try to sleep on it as is without prior adjustment. I used a small glass bowl and a gallon ziplock bag to extract and store the excess buckwheat. I extracted buckwheat until the pillow was slightly over half-full. -I assume buckwheat pillows operate on the principle of jamming of granular material. See the first 40 seconds of the following video for a sense of how this principle operates, only imagine that instead of a vacuum engaging the jamming action, the pressure from the weight of your head is doing so. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OjhoVuAQkQ This means that these pillows provide absolute stability to your head over a wide range of positions (you just fluff the pillow to an appropriate shape), allowing everything to relax, at the cost of being extremely firm (see reviews comparing them to bricks). -With the above principal in mind, when settling on the pillow, shake your head very slightly before fully settling in ("nestle or nuzzle" into it), this will conform the pillow to your head before it solidifies from the pressure, resulting in greater comfort even before the halls are "polished." For side sleepers, if it is hurting your ear, just use a small circling motion with your hand to hollow in a small indention on the pillow where your ear is. This action will form a cup around your ear and take the pressure off of it (think donut pillow for your ear). I have heard people complain about the loudness of this pillow. I have not experienced problems with this, mainly because I do not shift around crazily after "locking" in my head on the pillow to fall asleep, but I could see movement with the pillow bothering extremely sound sensitive individuals.

My stiff neck is now a thing of the past. It needs fluffing every day and is heavy. Beans need to be adjusted for individual use.

sale Price is not justified.

Good

I slept on a buckwheat pillow when I visited a friend in Japan. It had a fresh smell and even though it was firm, I found it to be supportive, but not uncomfortable. The Beans72 Buckwheat Pillow does not have a fresh fragrance or any fragrance and it is too firm. I tried sleeping on it each night for a week and decided it wasn't for me. I gave it three stars as it has the firmness for support, but little give.