If you’re standing in your bedroom right now holding a slightly funky-smelling buckwheat pillow, wondering how to get it clean, I want to save you from making a costly mistake most people make. Cleaning a buckwheat pillow isn’t hard, but it does follow a different rulebook than every other pillow you’ve ever owned, and the exact steps depend a little on which style of pillow you have. Here’s exactly how I do it, why each step matters, and what I have learned so far.

Why Buckwheat Pillows Can’t Be Cleaned Like Regular Pillows

Before we get into the steps, you need to understand why the rules are so different. A regular pillow is filled with foam, fiber, or down, materials that are either water-resistant or designed to be machine-washed and tumble-dried.

A buckwheat pillow is filled with the actual outer hulls of buckwheat seeds, a natural, organic material, not a manufactured one. Buckwheat hulls absorb moisture quickly, and once wet, they cannot be dried effectively inside a sealed cover. That’s the whole problem in one sentence.

The EPA and CDC both confirm that wet materials must be dried within 24 to 48 hours to prevent mold growth. If a buckwheat pillow gets fully soaked and stays that way, it’s exactly the window mold that needs to take hold. Soaking buckwheat hulls with water will ruin them, and saturating them with any liquid causes the hulls to lose their supportive, three-dimensional shape.

Here’s the good news, though, and something I think more people should know: buckwheat hulls are naturally an inhospitable environment for dust mites. Their hard, dry, non-organic-debris structure just doesn’t give dust mites anything to feed on or burrow into the way fiber and foam fills do. So while we still want to keep the hulls dry and fresh, you’re not fighting the same allergen battle you would with a traditional pillow.

That brings me to the actual cleaning method, and I want to be upfront that there are two approaches here, depending on which style of pillow you own.

Cleaning Pillows Without a Zipper (My Cumberland Pillows)

Here’s something that surprises people: every pillow I make at Cumberland Perfect Sleep is sewn closed, with no zipper. I did this on purpose. A sewn seam means there’s no opening for hulls to slowly leak out over the years, no zipper to catch or break, and one less thing that can fail on you after a decade of nightly use.

Because there’s no zipper to unzip and empty the hulls, the cleaning approach is a little different and, honestly, simpler. Here’s exactly what I do with my own pillow, in the order I’d recommend trying them.

1. Air It Out in the Sun

This is your baseline maintenance, and it should happen whether or not anything’s actually wrong with your pillow. Take the whole pillow, hulls and all, since there’s nothing to remove, and set it outside or in a sunny window for a few hours.

Sunlight naturally sanitizes the hulls and pulls out trapped moisture and odor without a drop of detergent. I do this a few times in the year, and once or twice a year I’ll leave it out for a longer stretch, three to four hours, for a deeper refresh. Flip it partway through so both sides get equal sun exposure.

2. Spot Clean for Everyday Marks

For most day-to-day messes or a small spill, spot cleaning is all you need. Dampen a clean cloth with cold water and a small amount of mild, unscented detergent, gently blot the spot (don’t scrub or saturate it), then go over it again with a cloth dampened with plain water to rinse out the soap. Let it air dry completely, ideally in the sun, before using the pillow again, or you can use a hairdryer if you have to use it almost immediately.

This is the method I reach for ninety percent of the time. It’s quick, it doesn’t involve removing anything, and it handles the kind of everyday wear a pillow naturally picks up.

3. Vacuum the Cover for Dust and Surface Refresh

If you want to go a step further between deeper cleans, you can vacuum the outside of the pillow cover using the upholstery attachment on your vacuum. This pulls up surface dust and any loose particles sitting on the fabric. It’s a quick five-minute task, and I’ll often do this right before I put the pillow out in the sun, so it gets a dust pass and a sanitizing session in the same afternoon.

4. The Dishwasher Method, for a Genuine Deep Clean

This is the one that surprises people every time I mention it, but it works, and it’s the method I personally use when a pillow needs more than a spot clean. Place the pillow on the top or bottom rack (or both racks if you have two pillows) of your dishwasher, empty of dishes, obviously, and run it through the longest, hottest cycle without detergent. The water and the mechanical action clean the cover thoroughly without you needing to take anything apart.

Once the cycle finishes, shake the excess water from your pillow, put it outside, and flip it every couple of hours until it dries completely. Because the hulls are sewn inside rather than removable, this drying step matters even more than it would with a zippered design; don’t put the pillow back into use, or stack anything on top of it, until it’s fully dry all the way through. Choose to do this on a hot sunny day so it can dry in time.

I’ll be honest, when the original owner of the company told me she’d washed her pillow in the dishwasher, I was amazed, but it made sense after trying it myself. It’s become my go-to for an actual deep clean, especially compared to the fuss of unzipping, emptying, and refilling a traditional design.

Cleaning Pillows With a Zipper (Other Buckwheat Pillows)

If you own a different brand of buckwheat pillow, one with a zippered cover, which is the more common design across most of the buckwheat pillow market, the process looks a little different, since you can actually separate the hulls from the cover. I think it’s worth knowing this method too, both for that age-old design and in case you ever come across an older pillow that uses it.

Step 1: Empty the Hulls Into a Dry Container

Unzip the cover and slowly pour the hulls into a large, clean, dry container. Work over a sheet or towel, because hulls scatter easily. While they’re out, do a quick check: a little dust at the bottom is normal, but a musty smell or soft, crumbly texture means moisture has reached them, and they may need a sun treatment or partial replacement.

Step 2: Give the Hulls a Sun Bath

Spread the hulls in a single layer in direct sunlight for three to four hours, stirring once or twice so every hull gets exposure. This dries out any lingering humidity and deodorizes naturally.

Step 3: Refill and Reassemble

Once the cover is bone-dry and the hulls have had their sun session, pour the hulls back in, zip the cover closed, and pat the pillow to redistribute the fill evenly.

What to Do If the Hulls Get Properly Soaked

Regardless of which style of pillow you own, this rule is the same: if the hulls get fully saturated, not just damp, but soaked through, like a spilled glass of water or a knocked-over coffee mug, they need to be replaced, not just dried out.

Water exposure can break down and degenerate the structure of buckwheat hulls, and once that three-dimensional shape collapses, no amount of sunshine brings it back. With a sewn, non-zippered pillow, a serious soak usually means it’s time for a new pillow rather than a hull swap, which is one more reason I always recommend keeping a pillow protector on hand; more on that next.

How Often Should You Wash Your Buckwheat Pillow?

Here’s the maintenance rhythm that works for my own pillow, and it’s a lot less demanding than people expect:

• Weekly: Use a pillowcase. This one habit does more to keep your buckwheat pillow clean than almost anything else, since it’s a barrier between the pillow and your skin, hair oils, and sweat.
• Once in a while: Just give the pillow a sun airing, even if nothing smells off. Prevention is easier than rescue.
• As needed: Spot clean marks as they happen, and vacuum the cover whenever it’s due for a quick refresh.
• A few times a year, or whenever it genuinely needs it: Run the dishwasher deep clean (sewn pillows) or the full wash-and-refill process (zippered pillows).

That’s it. It sounds like a list, but in practice, it’s maybe twenty minutes a few times a year, far less effort than I expected when I first made the switch to buckwheat.

Why I Still Think Buckwheat Is Worth the Slightly Different Care Routine

I get asked sometimes whether this routine is “too much work” compared to a regular pillow you just toss in the wash. Here’s my honest answer: no, and it’s not close.

A well-maintained buckwheat pillow can last a decade or more – most synthetic pillows go flat and get replaced within two years. Add in the fact that the hulls themselves naturally resist dust mites, and you’ve got a pillow that’s both lower-maintenance and more hygienic over its lifetime than most people assume. The few minutes of care a couple of times a year buys you a decade of the kind of supportive, cooling sleep that got me through my own worst nights of neck and back pain. That trade has been more than worth it for me.

If you ever feel the need to change your pillows, maybe out of loss of pillow support, personal hygiene, or pain prevention, mypillow collection comes in three cover options, depending on what you’re after:

• The bamboo cover is softer, malleable, and cooler beyond your imaginations
• The cotton cover is even cooler if you are particularly hot
• These covers, if you prefer white beddings 

Every one of them is sewn closed rather than zippered, built around the same easy-care philosophy I’ve walked you through here: sun it, spot clean it, vacuum it when needed, and run it through the dishwasher when it’s time for a proper deep clean.

The One Thing I Want You to Remember

If you forget every single step above, just remember this: keep the hulls dry, let the sun do the sanitizing, and a deep clean is always followed by a full, thorough dry before you sleep on it again. That single rule has kept and will keep my own pillow fresh and mold-free for years, and it’ll do the same for yours, no matter which style you own.

Your pillow has been quietly supporting some of your best sleep for months, maybe years. A few minutes of proper care every so often is a small thing to give back for that.

Have questions about caring for your buckwheat pillow, or wondering if it’s time for a fresh one? Reach out – I’m happy to help you figure out exactly what your pillow needs.