THERE'S nothing quite like the feeling of your head hitting a fluffy pillow after a tough day. That satisfying sink is one of life's small pleasures.
But being enveloped in a luxuriously squashy pillow – one that's just the right level of softness, not too high and not too flat – can be difficult to get right.
Having a restless night's sleep because of a pillow that's way too tall, or worse, one that's as flat as a pancake, is an all too familiar story.
But that's where Simba come in with its masterfully clever Hybrid Pillow, £109, and Hybrid Firm Pillow, £159 which contain NASA-inspired technology.
Designed to be fully adjustable with a filling that can be tailored to suit your sleeping preference, the brand promises that with the help of these space-age pillows you'll have your best night's sleep ever – and a swathe of awards go some way in backing the claim up.
We've reviewed the Simba pillows to see if they lived up to these promises and to answer the question: is a customisable pillow exactly what your bedtime has been waiting for?
- Simba Hybrid Pillow, £109 from Simba – buy here
- Simba Hybrid Firm Pillow, £159 from Simba – buy here
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Simba Hybrid Pillow review
- Simba Hybrid Pillow, £109 from Simba – buy here
Words by Sianade Curry. Tested: February 2022
Pros
- Customisable height
- Temperature regulating
- Breathable
- Cover is machine washable
- Luxuriously soft and spongey
Cons
- Expensive
Simba Hybrid Pillow review: quick summary
I'll get it out of the way first: the price. At £109, the Simba Hybrid Pillow is not cheap. If, like me, you're used to market-leading brands like Silentnight offering four of its Bounceback pillows for just £22, spending a little over £100 on one pillow might feel like a stretch.
But after wincing at the price, I decided to give it a go – I plopped the pillow on my bed, had a lie-down and I begrudgingly couldn't believe the difference. My head had genuinely never known comfort like it.
The technology that's packed into the Simba Hybrid and the sheer comfort it provides puts it leagues ahead of other cheaper synthetic pillows.
And once you compare it to other luxury down pillows that can cost hundreds, the Hybrid starts to feel more affordable. My now-gone neck twinges would also argue it's an essential investment.
The beauty of Simba's Hybrid Pillow is twofold – firstly, its interior, which is filled with hundreds of so-called 'Nanocubes' and surrounded by a hypoallergenic microfibre layer, blends the sumptuous softness of a feather pillow with the assured support and gentle firmness of memory foam.
Hence the 'hybrid' name – it's a deluxe combination of the two.
The second major selling point is its clever adjustability. Known by aficionados as the pillow's loft (front sleepers often like a low loft, while side sleepers prefer a taller position) the Simba Hybrid can be tailored to your exact spec. In this way, it's suitable for everyone, no matter how you sleep.
To change the height, you simply take out a handful or two of the nanocubes that hide inside a zipped bag within the pillow. There's even a small bag to hold any cubes you don't need.
Putting technology and innovations aside, the Simba Hybrid Pillow is seriously comfortable. Once I tweaked the height to get it exactly right (initially it was too high), it was frankly glorious to sleep on – the outer material feels thick and plush and my head sunk nicely into it without disappearing.
There's a good level of support that made my head and neck feel at ease and the squishy outer layer is an instant sleep-inducer. The breathability of the design can be clearly felt too – despite being surrounded by plush fabric, it feels airy and I never got too hot during the night.
Crucially, I slept in a way that felt deep and restful.
The Simba Hybrid Pillow might stretch your pillow budget to its limit, but considering its quality, adjustability and ability to induce a good night's sleep, it's worth every penny.
- Simba Hybrid Pillow, £109 from Simba – buy here
Delivery and unboxing
The delivery of the pillow was straightforward – I was allocated a time window and it arrived on schedule.
The box was larger than I thought it would be, but that said, when I opened it to dig out the Hybrid Pillow, it was also much more sizeable than I imagined and it looked pleasantly puffed-up.
First impressions
Aside from its overly plump appearance, the main thing I noticed was how soft and thick the exterior fabric is.
The pillow's two sides are made from different materials and this is where the space-age technology comes in. One side is constructed with cotton that's embedded with what Simba calls Stratos, which is inspired by the materials NASA uses to make spacesuits.
Stratos helps with temperature regulation by absorbing, retaining and releasing body heat depending on how hot you are. The other side of the pillow is made from cotton that's sustainably produced.
The Simba pillow's two-part construction is joined together by a grey mesh stripe along the middle, which aids airflow. The overall impression is a pillow that looks unlike any other – it's hefty, but technical and reassuringly doughy.
Despite being packed with tiny cubes on the inside, you wouldn't know it from the outside – when pressing and squeezing it, it feels springy and full, with a nice level of firmness and I couldn't detect any cubes at all, which reassured me it wouldn't feel like lying on a bean bag.
- Simba Hybrid Pillow, £109 from Simba – buy here
Performance
I'll begin by saying I don't like tall pillows. I'm a die-hard side-sleeper and previous to trying the Simba Hybrid, I slept on one pretty lacklustre pillow.
When I saw the height of the Simba, I knew the full loft of it would be too big for me and after spending a night on it at full capacity just to see, I was proved right; it felt too high for my sleep position and neck.
The interior of the pillow comprises three layers: a fibre at the top designed to dissipate heat, a bottom hypoallergenic, microfibre layer and the star of the show, the middle layer of teeny blue open-cell foam Nanocubes, which are super lightweight and breathable.
It's within these dinky cubes that the Simba Hybrid Pillow carves out its major selling point as they can be removed (or even added if you want to buy more, although they're currently unavailable) to create the sort of customisable sleep experience you can't get anywhere else.
Getting the right height for your personal preference is a journey and it took a few nights for me to get it exactly right. Simba offers some guidance for this and suggests removing a certain amount of cubes based on how firm you like your pillow (the more cubes, the firmer the feel), and your sleeping position.
I took out around four handfuls of cubes to hit my sleeping sweet spot – and after I'd found it, it's fair to say I was in heaven.
It feels utterly luxurious to sleep on – more comfortable than a memory foam pillow, with superior support to a feather-filled product. It's plump, squishy and truly comfortable.
Over the month I've been testing it, it hasn't lost shape or sagged in the slightest. Simba recommends giving the filling a shake every couple of weeks to make sure the Nanocubes retain their oomph, but this hasn't felt necessary yet.
Another triumph in design is the temperature regulation properties – forget flipping to the cool side of the pillow, the Simba Hybrid feels breathable on all sides at all times.
Simba Hybrid Pillow review: the verdict
Excellent at regulating heat and seriously comfortable to sleep on, the Hybrid works very hard for its premium price tag.
Its construction is quality and it feels like it's built to last, the materials made to use it are vegan-friendly and the cover is washable, so it's practical to boot.
But where it shines is in its ability to be tailored to suit your exact needs and preferences. The idea of customising the sleep experience is a surprisingly simple one, but it's a game-changer when you've tried it.
There's no denying the Simba Hybrid Pillow is an expensive product, but if you're looking for the next level in pillow design, comfort and innovation, you've found it.
- Simba Hybrid Pillow, £109 from Simba – buy here
Simba Hybrid Firm Pillow review
- Simba Hybrid Firm Pillow, £159 from Simba – buy here
Words by Kieran Ahuja. Tested: July 2022
Pros
- Super breathable and temperature-regulating
- Supportive
- Adds another dimension of adjustability compared to the standard Hybrid
Cons
- Very expensive
- Might be too big for some pillowcases
Simba Hybrid Firm Pillow review: quick summary
As long as you're a firm fan of firm pillows and you're willing to part with a hefty bit of cash, this could be the answer to your sleep problems.
The Simba Hybrid Firm Pillow is, without a doubt, the most comfortable pillow I have ever slept on. That's thanks to its extremely hi-tec cooling properties and its adjustability, which allows you to alter both its firmess and height.
I will admit it took a couple of nights to adjust to how hard the pillow is, but that's only due to the fact that my now-sidelined former pillows were soft, acquiescent bargain buys from Amazon, meaning there was a stark contrast; It's certainly a tougher form of love that this pillow provides, but once you've adjusted it's certainly more satisfying.
It's certainly not for everyone, the Simba Hybrid Firm Pillow, thanks to its firmness and a price tag that can only be described as prohibitively high. In fact, I imagine the standard Hybrid Pillow will be a more popular product for the brand. But if you're looking for a hardcore headrest, you'll struggle to find a better bedtime companion than this.
- Simba Hybrid Firm Pillow, £159 from Simba – buy here
Delivery and unboxing
The Hybrid Firm Pillow arrives in an identical box to the standard Hybrid, and in an identical way: my items were dispatched the morning after I placed the order, and the day after that, my items were delivered by DPD within a one-hour time slot. It honestly could not have been smoother.
It does arrive in a bigger box than you might expect, but as we said in our Simba Hybrid Pillow review, the pillow itself is a big beast, so there's not much to be done about that.
First impressions
I'd like to make a bit of an odd comparison here.
You know when you go into a fast food chain, and you see the pictures of the food plastered above the tills? It always looks amazing — plump burger buns, verdant lettuce, shatteringly crispy streaks of bacon — but, at this point in life, we're all clued up enough to know that what will actually arrive is just a shadow of that (albeit still extraordinarily tasty).
Comparing a normal pillow you might buy for a tenner on the high street to a Simba Hybrid Firm Pillow is like comparing the meal you receive in a fast food restaurant to the pictures of the food above the tills.
It's huge and almost impossibly plump, and you can immediately see the price difference between it and a normal pillow thanks to a smart, techy geometric pattern and blue piping. It's an extremely well-designed bit of kit, for something that is going to spend most of its time hidden by a pillowcase.
On that note, it might be prudent for me to mention that I think some smaller pillowcases would struggle to house this pillow. Most of mine fit fine, but I have one or two that struggle to completely envelop it.
- Simba Hybrid Firm Pillow, £159 from Simba – buy here
Performance
As you might expect, there are a number of similarities between the standard Hybrid pillow and the Hybrid Firm, and a few key differences (hence the £50 price jump between the two models). I'll start with the similarities.
On the outside, the two pillows are largely identical. They both have non-identical sides: one is a breathable cotton cover, which Simba stresses is made using cotton from sources approved by the Better Cotton Initiative.
The other is one of the pillow's party tricks: the NASA-inspired Stratos Cotton Cover, which regulates heat using fancy-sounding phase change technology.
In simple terms, what this means is that at a certain temperature, molecules in the cover turn from solid to liquid, at which point they begin to absorb heat. When the temperature drops again, the molecules resolidify, distributing the heat they absorbed in their liquid state.
That might sound fancy, but the important thing is that it works — and it does. I was lucky enough to get this pillow just before the biblical heatwave we experienced in July, and it absolutely made a difference to my sleep.
Of course, it's not a miracle worker, and I still needed a light sheet and a fan, but the surface of the Simba pillow was noticeably cooler than that of the cheaper pillows on the other side of my bed.
- Simba Hybrid Firm Pillow, £159 from Simba – buy here
Now for the differences between the standard Hybrid and the Hybrid Firm.
The starkest is in the filling. Whereas the standard Hybrid is stuffed with nanocubes that can be added or removed in order to adjust the height (and the firmness, to a point) of the pillow, the Hybrid Firm contains three individual pillows: two soft fibre pillows and one layer of firm Aerocoil springs.
These inserts can be combined and arranged to not only adjust the height of the pillow but to radically alter its firmness.
On an instruction card that comes with the pillow, Simba goes through the five recommended combinations of the inserts. Back sleepers are advised to take one of the soft inserts out; side sleepers, meanwhile, are given the choice of three combos, which create medium, medium-firm and firm hardnesses respectively.
I'd recommend trying out a few of the combos over the first week you have the pillow, but you're sure to find one that is perfect for you. For me personally, the solution was to take out one of the soft inserts and put the other on top of the Aerocoil spring layer, creating a medium firmness.
The only people who might not be able to find a favourite combo are those who prefer soft pillows — my girlfriend, for example, struggled to sleep on it comfortably even at the medium firmness. If you're similar, you might be better suited to the standard Hybrid (I suppose you could take out the firm insert and just have the two soft pillows in there, but that feels like a bit of a waste of money).
Simba Hybrid Firm Pillow review: the verdict
- Simba Hybrid Firm Pillow, £159 from Simba – buy here
Admittedly, it's a bit hard to look past the astronomical price tag of this pillow. At £159 for just one, it's easy to dismiss it without a second thought.
However, if you're fortunate enough to be able to spend that on a pillow, you will be making a worthwhile investment in your sleep. The Hybrid Firm's Stratos tech means that it's as good as any pillow can be at regulating your temperature while you sleep, and its adjustability is even better than that of the already-impressive standard Hybrid.
This is definitely made for people who are serious about their sleep — but it's seriously good.
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