The complete guide
How to Choose a Mulberry Silk Pillowcase That Actually Lasts
The small problem that nobody talks about
You wash your hair, you brush it out, you go to sleep, and in the morning it looks like you lost a fight. Or you wake with a crease across one cheek that takes until mid-morning to settle. Neither of these is a crisis. But both of them come from the same place: friction between your face, your hair and the cloth you spend eight hours pressed against.
Cotton is a brilliant fabric for many things. It is absorbent, it is tough, it washes well. But cotton fibres have texture. Under a microscope a cotton weave looks like a field of tiny ridges, and hair catches on those ridges every time you move your head. Multiply that by a few hundred turns a night and you get tangles, frizz and sleep creases.
Silk is a different kind of fibre. It is a continuous filament rather than a short staple, and the surface is smooth. Hair slides over it. Skin slides over it. That is the whole mechanism, and it is why silk pillowcases have gone from a luxury-hotel oddity to something a lot of people now keep on their everyday bed.
What mulberry silk actually is
Mulberry silk comes from silkworms fed exclusively on mulberry leaves. The controlled diet produces a long, even, pale filament, which in turn produces a smoother and more uniform cloth than wild silk. When a listing says mulberry silk, it is telling you about the source of the fibre, not the weave.
Grade is the next thing you will see. Silk filament is graded on a scale, and 6A sits at the top of it. The grade reflects fibre length and consistency. This pillowcase is described as Grade 6A, which is what you want to see on the label if you are comparing options.
Then there is momme. This is the figure that matters most and the one shoppers skip past. Momme measures the weight of the fabric. Silk pillowcases generally run from about 16 momme up to 25. A 16 momme silk is light, cheaper and feels lovely at first, but it is thinner and shows wear sooner. A 25 momme silk is dense and luxurious but costs more and takes longer to dry. This case is 19 momme, which lands in the sensible middle of that range. It has enough weight to drape properly over the pillow and enough substance to take regular hand washing.
The thread count here is given as 600. With cotton, thread count is the headline figure. With silk, momme is the more honest measure, because you can weave a very high thread count from very fine, very thin yarn. Use the momme figure first and treat thread count as supporting information.
Double-sided matters more than you would think
A lot of pillowcases sold as silk are silk on one side only. The underside is cotton, polyester or a blend, which keeps the price down. In a shop photo you cannot tell the difference. In use you can, because the moment you flip the pillow over in the night you are back on an ordinary fabric.
This one is double-sided silk. Both faces are the same material, so there is no wrong side. For anyone comparing the best double sided silk pillowcase against a cheaper single-sided one, that is the difference worth paying for.
Getting the size right
This is where most returns come from, so take two minutes with a tape measure.
A standard South African pillow is roughly 45 x 70 cm. Many silk pillowcases, including this one, are cut to American sizes. The American standard is about 51 x 66 cm, queen is 51 x 76 cm and king is 51 x 91 cm. This case is listed at 75 cm long by 50 cm wide, described as queen, 20 by 30 inches.
What that means in practice is that a typical South African pillow will slip into this case with a little room at the ends. That is fine. A slightly relaxed fit lets the silk drape instead of pulling tight, and it takes strain off the seams. What you do not want is a pillow larger than the case. Silk will not stretch, and forcing an oversized pillow in is the fastest way to split a seam.
So: measure the pillow, not the old pillowcase. Pillowcases are cut with ease built in and will give you a misleading number.
The zipper question
Silk pillowcases close in one of three ways. Envelope flaps tuck the pillow behind an overlapping panel. Open ends have no closure at all. Zippers run along one edge and seal the pillow inside.
This case uses a hidden zipper, set into the seam so it does not sit against your skin. The practical advantage is that the pillow stays put. If you are a restless sleeper, an envelope closure tends to work its way open and by morning half the pillow is out. A zipper solves that. The trade-off is that you need to be a bit careful when you wash it, closing the zipper first so the pull does not catch on the fabric.
Colour and how it fits a room
Iron grey is a cool, deep grey. It is not charcoal and it is not a soft mist grey. It sits somewhere between, which is what makes it so easy to live with. It works against white bedding, against navy, against natural linen tones and against most patterned duvet covers. It also hides the faint marks that show up on pale silk long before they would show up on a darker cloth.
The maker states the dyes are colourfast and resist fading with washing. Any dyed fabric holds its colour better when washed cool and dried out of the sun, so follow the care instructions and the grey should stay grey.
Looking after it
Hand wash only. That is the instruction given, and it is worth following.
Fill a basin with cool water and add a small amount of detergent made for delicate fabrics. Normal laundry detergent is often too harsh for silk. Swirl the case through the water for a minute or two, then rinse in clean cool water until the water runs clear.
Do not wring it out. Twisting silk stresses the fibres and leaves creases that are hard to shift. Instead, lay the case flat on a dry towel, roll the towel up and press gently to pull the water out. Then dry it flat or hang it in the shade.
Keep it away from direct sunlight, radiators and tumble dryers. Heat and UV are the two things that age silk fastest. If you want to iron it, use the coolest setting, work on the reverse side and do it while the fabric is still a little damp. Most of the time you will not need to, because the creases fall out once the case is back on the pillow.
Wash it every one to two weeks, same as any pillowcase. If you use heavy night creams or leave oils in your hair overnight, make it weekly.
Who this suits
People with long hair, who are tired of waking to tangles. People who sleep hot and want something that does not feel warm against the face. People who have cotton everything and want one small upgrade that they will actually notice every single night.
It also makes a straightforward gift. Silk is something plenty of people are curious about and few buy for themselves, and a solid iron grey sidesteps the problem of guessing someone's colour scheme.
The short version
This is a queen size mulberry silk pillowcase in iron grey, 75 x 50 cm, made from Grade 6A silk at 19 momme with a 600 thread count. Both sides are silk. A hidden zipper keeps the pillow in place. It weighs almost nothing and it washes by hand in cool water.
Measure your pillow before you order, wash it gently, keep it out of the sun, and it should stay smooth and grey for a very long time.