<p>I have a couple of down pillows that I sleep on every night. They are looking and feeling rather tired. The tag on them says they can be machine washed or dry cleaned, but I didn’t know which would be better. Would machine washing give them a new feel again, or am better off replacing them? I am looking for them to be fluffy again and didn’t think dry cleaning would give me that new pillow feel again.</p>
<p>Definitely machine wash.</p>
<p>Best bet is to take them to a laundromat and toss 'em in a large front-load commercial washer – unless you’ve got a big front loader at home. Use a special down wash or Woolite.</p>
<p>The key is to buy a can of three tennis balls and throw them in the dryer with the pillows. The tennis balls break up the clumps of wet down and make them super fluffy. It’ll probably take multiple cycles to get them dry. If it’s just one or two pillows, drying them in a home dryer should work fine.</p>
<p>Dry cleaning ruins down. I would never do that.</p>
<p>Wash on delicate with cold or warm. Dry on low. Check the dryer often and fluff any clumps you find so it dries evenly without any burning.</p>
<p>I wash down comforters and pillows all the time. I use the large load, gentle detergent, dry hot with tennis balls method, works great.</p>
<p>I can vouch for the tennis ball method. That is what we do and it seems to work great.</p>
<p>Here are a couple of down specific washer cleaners. These are typically sold by outdoor retailers for down sleeping bags and so forth, but they work fine for pillows and comforters. There are also matching DWR rinses that rejuvenate the water/stain repellancy on down jackets or sleeping bags. I think the wash alone would suffice for pillows that are in zip up pillow protectors. Although the water resistant rinse stuff certainly wouldn’t hurt anything. it just makes moisture bead up.</p>
<p>[NikWax</a> DownWash](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Nikwax-191-Down-Wash/dp/B000V6BVT2/ref=sr_1_1?s=sporting-goods&ie=UTF8&qid=1357236987&sr=1-1&keywords=nikwax+down+wash]NikWax”>http://www.amazon.com/Nikwax-191-Down-Wash/dp/B000V6BVT2/ref=sr_1_1?s=sporting-goods&ie=UTF8&qid=1357236987&sr=1-1&keywords=nikwax+down+wash)</p>
<p>[Grangers</a> down wash](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Grangers-09030-Granger-Down-Wash/dp/B005EQMNB4]Grangers”>http://www.amazon.com/Grangers-09030-Granger-Down-Wash/dp/B005EQMNB4)</p>
<p>I’ve used the various NikWax products and it’s pretty amazing how it restores the water repellancy of older jackets, gloves, and hats to “like new” or even better than new.</p>
<p>Here are Marmot’s down care instructions. They recommend a second rinse to get all the detergent out of the down before going to the dryers and the tennis balls. That’s a good idea. They also say that a sleeping bag may take 4 to 6 hours to dry. That’s been my experience with down pillows as well. It takes a long time to thoroughly dry all the down and leaving it damp is definitely a bad idea!</p>
<p><a href=“http://marmot.com/faq#12[/url]”>http://marmot.com/faq#12</a></p>
<p>You can do a pillow in home top load washer. The problem is that they float like a balloon, so you end up having to basically hand wash it in the washing machine because the agitator can’t pull it underwater. I would round up all the down stuff from around the house (jackets and so forth) and go on one big Laundromat expedition. Knock out the pilllows and a couple of old down jackets or sleeping bags in one fell swoop.</p>
<p>This is all great help, thanks. I have a top load machine without a spindle, but I agree that the pillow with end up floating to the top. My mother has a front load machine, so maybe I will take the pillows over there and wash them; I am not fond of laundromats as I find my items have an odor afterwards. Before my large machine, I use to take the comforters to the laundromat, now they fit in my machine!</p>
<p>As far as drying time, I might go crazy listening to the tennis balls roll around for 4+ hours ;)</p>