Blackroll Pillow Deal Breaker

We have been using the Blackroll Recovery Pillow for two and a half years and, I don’t like it anymore, and I do not recommend it. Here’s why.

I am a fan of the Blackroll rollers, especially these little ones, this one I use every single day, so when they brought out a recovery pillow with four sleeping positions and it’s portable, I thought sweet! This is the video when I unboxed it and you can see how excited I was. I even said in that video that I have been enjoying using it for a few weeks.

But after two and a half years it very suddenly failed on me. I started waking up every day with a sore neck. Now I’m a physio, I know my body well, when I get a sore neck is either because I have overdone something or I’m stressed, even then I don’t wake up with a sore neck, that’s just not how my neck rolls. After assessing my own situation, the only reason I could attribute it to was the fact that I just wasn’t getting enough support when I sleep.

Let me show you. This is the Blackroll Recovery Pillow without the pillowcase, and look, look how floppy, squishy it is. Now it still does bounce back up but where is the support?

I got sick of waking up with a sore neck so I aired out an old pillow, a cheap fibre-filled pillow that this fancy pillow replace and guess what? I woke up without a sore neck the very next day.

We have since bought microCloud pillows I share why I chose microCloud in this video and we will do a size comparison shortly.

Having gone back to a standard size pillow, I realised even though I said in the unboxing video that I got used to the size already, now I realise I actually never did. When I want to switch side now all I have to do is roll over, whereas with the recovery pillow I had to do wiggle and then aim to turn so I stay on the pillow, which isn’t really conducive to restful sleeping now, is it?

Also because of this small size I never felt like I had enough pillow under me. Now I’m a petite person, if I think this is a bit too small, what about a regular size person or athletes? Blackroll has a very strong sports and fitness focus, what about athletes with much broader shoulders, bigger chest, with more space to fill? Will they find it supportive enough? I don’t know.

Let’s have a look at the size. This is my microCloud standard pillow. It’s a standard pillow, I can’t even fit it in the frame, let me back it up a bit. So this is a standard pillow and this is the Blackroll pillow. Look at the difference! This one is literally half the size of a standard pillow. Now one of the reasons that I chose the microCloud pillow is how fat and plump it is, and to be fair pillow size and fatness is a personal preference thing, my husband didn’t care so maybe you wouldn’t either.

Now the small size does make it very portable and I have travelled with this. All you have to do is to roll it up like so and then you fit it into the little bag that it came with, and it’s definitely compact enough to take with, when you get to your destination I would suggest opening it up as soon as you get there so it has time to plump back up.

Now having just done this I noticed that it is a lot easier to roll up now than it was then, so I wonder whether the portability, the fact that you can roll it up contributed to it losing its structural Integrity, but I doubt it though because it’s German engineering and they are known for their precision and quality.

Speaking of quality, I don’t mind paying for good quality but when I pay for quality, I expect it to perform and last. For $140 Australian dollars I expected much better than this.

Speaking of price, I have already complained about this in the unboxing video but what is with the exorbitant pillow cases? Because of the unique shape and size you’ve have to buy their pillowcases, and their pillow cases are outrageously expensive. Yes it comes with one but for hygiene, you really need at least another one, right? And $40 for a pillowcase? Ridiculous!

Again, I don’t mind paying for quality but these pillow cases are not worth $40. They both pilled after the first wash, this one wasn’t so bad, but this one, was awful, that fluffy stuff, it tickles your nose. Nobody wants that!

To overcome the tickling of the noses and really for hygiene we prefer to have a protector and the outer pillow case, because frankly, everybody drools and sometimes there’s snots, so we used to put the Blackroll pillow with the pilling pillowcase in an outer pillowcase, and I even said in the unboxing video how this work perfectly for us, like just tucking the ends in like this, but you know what? After 2 years of having flapping around pillowcases every single day that needs to be tucked back. It got old.

So this has been a disappointing experience for me. The cost added to the sting, sure. But really, it was the user experience, and ultimately the fact that the support just disappeared, that was the deal breaker for me. It is a pillow. It has one job, to support you when you sleep, and it failed! And because of that, I do not recommend the Blackroll Recovery Pillow and now that I have finally filmed this video, these guys are going, to the bin.

I’m Selina, a physio and a singer. If you’ve found this useful, please let me know with a thumb up. My channel is about helping singer move better to sing better, so if that is your vibe, subscribe! And until next time, Be Free In Your Movement.™