When you buy a pillow with a name like the TEMPUR-Cloud Dual Cooling Pillow, you probably have a pretty good idea of what you expect when your head hits it: cold.  That was certainly my expectation.

After sleeping on the Queen-size TEMPUR-Cloud Dual Cooling Pillow for four nights, however, I’ve discovered something interesting.  This isn’t the coldest-feeling pillow I’ve owned.  In fact, if your definition of a cooling pillow is one that provides an immediately obvious cool-to-the-touch sensation, you might initially find the TEMPUR somewhat disappointing.  But I’ve also come to believe that’s the wrong way to judge this pillow.

The TEMPUR-Cloud Dual Cooling Pillow isn’t particularly remarkable because it gets cold. It’s remarkable because it rarely gets uncomfortably warm.  And those are two very different things.

What Does “Dual Cooling” Actually Mean?

The name itself probably contributes to some unrealistic expectations. “Dual Cooling” sounds as though Tempur-Pedic has combined two different cooling technologies into one pillow.  That’s not actually what the “dual” refers to.  The pillow incorporates cooling technology on both sides, allowing you to sleep on either surface and receive the same thermal-management benefits.  More importantly, the cooling layers are intended to absorb excess heat.  That distinction—between creating an immediate cold sensation and managing accumulated heat—became increasingly important as I spent more time sleeping on the pillow.

Stop Chasing the Cool Side

I’ve owned several pillows incorporating surface cooling technologies, particularly cooling gel. They can make a fantastic first impression.  Put your head down and—ahhhh—the pillow feels wonderfully cold and refreshing.  Unfortunately, that sensation can be remarkably short-lived.  After a minute or two, your body begins warming the surface. That wonderfully cold pillow becomes neutral and eventually starts feeling warm. So you do what generations of hot sleepers have done before you:  You flip the pillow.  There’s the cool side!  Except now you’ve moved your head, changed position and interrupted the process of falling asleep. In my case, flipping the pillow can essentially reset that process. I’m wide awake and back to square one.

And there’s an unfortunate feedback loop involved. The longer it takes me to fall asleep, the longer my head remains against the pillow. The pillow gets warmer, I become increasingly conscious of it, and eventually I’m tempted to flip it again – I’m chasing the cool side.  I’m pleased to report The TEMPUR-Cloud Dual Cooling Pillow has largely broken that cycle for me.

Ironically, it doesn’t provide nearly as much of that dramatic, refreshing initial cooling sensation as some other cooling pillows I’ve used. But after a week, I’ve rarely found it becoming warm enough that I feel compelled to flip it.  And I’ve come to value that quality considerably more than other “cooling pillows” I’ve tried.  The best cooling pillow may not be the pillow that feels coldest during the first minute. It may be the one you’re not thinking about several hours later.

Cool-to-the-Touch vs. Thermal Management

I think there’s an important distinction here that gets lost when manufacturers use the word “cooling.”  There is surface cooling, which creates that immediately refreshing sensation when your skin first contacts a material.  And then there is thermal management, which is about preventing accumulated body heat from making the sleep surface increasingly uncomfortable.  The TEMPUR-Cloud Dual Cooling Pillow seems much more impressive at the latter.

When I first put my head on it, I wouldn’t describe the pillow as particularly cold.  But as the minutes and hours pass, it doesn’t seem to develop the uncomfortable warmth I’ve experienced with other pillows.  I can probably count on one hand the number of times I flipped the pillow in my week of testing.  That means I don’t need to think about it.  And when you’re trying to fall asleep, not thinking about your pillow is a surprisingly valuable feature.

Does a Pillow Protector Defeat the Cooling Technology?

I had another variable to contend with.  I use a dust-mite pillow encasement (my wife has a dust-mite allergy), which creates an additional layer between my head and the cooling surface of the TEMPUR pillow. Naturally, I wondered whether I was defeating the very cooling technology I’d just paid for.

So I tested the pillow both ways – with and without the encasement.  The difference was surprisingly small.  Without the dust-mite encasement, you could perhaps convince me that the pillow feels a few degrees cooler for the first 30 seconds or so after I put my head down.  Maybe.  But I noticed very little meaningful difference in the overall sleeping experience.

That result further reinforced my belief that the strength of the TEMPUR-Cloud Dual Cooling Pillow isn’t the initial surface sensation. The additional fabric layer may slightly diminish whatever cool-to-the-touch effect exists, but in my experience it hasn’t meaningfully compromised the pillow’s ability to remain thermally comfortable throughout the night.  That’s particularly good news for anyone who, like me, needs or prefers to use a protective pillow encasement.

Then There’s the TEMPUR Material

Cooling may be in the name, but it isn’t necessarily my favorite thing about this pillow.  That distinction belongs to the TEMPUR material itself.  When you first put your head down, you begin sinking into the pillow. The material slowly conforms around your head and shoulder rather than simply compressing beneath them.  And then something interesting happens.

Once my head and shoulder have settled into the TEMPUR material, I reach what feels like an optimal spinal alignment. At that point, I’m no longer particularly conscious of lying on a pillow.  The best description I can come up with is that it feels almost as though my head is being suspended by an invisible force.  There’s no single point where I feel the pillow pushing against me. Instead, the material seems to distribute the support around me until my head and neck simply settle into a natural position.  It’s an unusual sensation—and an exceptionally comfortable one.  In some ways, the TEMPUR material and the thermal-management technology accomplish the same thing:  They make the pillow disappear.  Which is why I can confidently say that this pillow is easily the most comfortable I’ve ever owned.

Be Warned: This Thing Is Heavy

There is one characteristic of the TEMPUR material you’ll notice before you ever sleep on it:  This is a surprisingly heavy pillow.  The dense TEMPUR material gives it considerably more heft than a conventional fiber-filled pillow. Personally, I don’t consider that much of a negative. If anything, the weight contributes to the pillow’s substantial, premium feel, and once it’s positioned on the bed it tends to stay put.

There is, however, one important safety consideration.  Get smacked in the face with one of these babies during a pillow fight and loss of consciousness may be experienced.  Consider yourself warned.

So, Is the TEMPUR-Cloud Dual Cooling Pillow Actually Cool?

That’s a more complicated question than I expected when I bought it.  If you handed me this pillow and asked me to evaluate its cooling performance after lying on it for 30 seconds, I probably wouldn’t be particularly impressed – I’ve used pillows that feel substantially colder.  But after sleeping on it for a week?  My opinion is very different.  The TEMPUR-Cloud Dual Cooling Pillow has taught me that I’ve probably been evaluating “cooling” pillows using the wrong metric.  A dramatic cold sensation when your head first hits the pillow feels wonderful, but it isn’t particularly useful if that sensation disappears two minutes later and you’re soon searching for another cold surface.  I’d rather have a pillow that starts relatively neutral and stays comfortable.  That’s what the TEMPUR has done remarkably well for me.

THE PRICE

The retail price of the TEMPUR-Cloud Dual Cooling Pillow is $149.00.  Don’t.  Pay.  That.  Tempur-Pedic frequently (we’re talking every week) runs a different promotion that impacts the price of the pillow dramatically.  When I first placed my order, there was a 15% discount when buying one pillow, or a price of $250.00 when buying two.  Days later, a new promotion hit the website – two pillows for the price of one, or $150 for two queen size pillows.  Fortunately, after placing a call, Tempur-Pedic was very good about honoring the new promotion on the pillows I’d ordered just one week prior.

Final Thoughts

After a week of use, the TEMPUR-Cloud Dual Cooling Pillow has become one of those products that impressed me differently than I expected it to.  I expected cooling technology to be the star of the show.  Instead, I’ve found an exceptionally comfortable TEMPUR pillow that happens to manage heat extremely well.  I need it to stay comfortable long enough for me to fall asleep—and remain comfortable enough that it doesn’t wake me or tempt me to start flipping it during the night.