TL;DR The Leesa Hybrid Pillow is like the Swiss Army Knife of pillows, and will fit almost every single need. It’s cool, comfortable, and helpful. Though, the more you complicate a pillow, the more that can fail, and it’s an investment to boot.
Disclosure: We were sent a Leesa Hybrid Pillow for free, along with a Standard Leesa Pillow for visual comparison. They did so in exchange for our unfiltered and personal review, which is all our own without any influence.
When Leesa reached out to me to see if I’d try out the new Leesa Hybrid Pillow, it was perfect timing. My own pillow — my tried and true pillow — is a memory foam pillow that’s over six years old. It’s probably more of my own skin cells than it is memory foam at this point.
I loved it regardless of how gross it probably was, and I knew I could always sleep better if I had it with me.
Now I love a new pillow.
DESIGN
The brand new Leesa Hybrid Pillow is extremely well designed, but borders on almost over-engineered. For a $125 pillow, you better be getting bang for your buck, so are the customizations worth the investment? Let’s take a look.
On “top” of the pillow is a down-like quilted pocket side that looks like a collection of soft mini-pillows all sleeping on top of the main pillow (pic above). On the “bottom” is a cooling side, which, we all agree is the best part about flipping any pillow in the middle of the night — especially in the summer.
That sounds like a good enough pillow, right?
Well Leesa didn’t stop there — they put another, smaller pillow, inside of the Leesa Hybrid Pillow. You can unzip the side and take it out to customize the height and firmness. You can also cuddle the tiny pillow if that’s your thing, too.
But this begs the question: if my favorite pillow for the past 6+ years had none of those options and served me extremely well, do we actually need any of it?
Yes and no.
IN USE
Here’s the honest truth: I like having options, but flipping a pillow over is about as much customization as I need. Taking that little pillow out of the center of the Leesa Hybrid Pillow didn’t do much noticeable difference for me and my quality of sleep. Meaning I could take it or leave it.
And if that’s the case, removing that ability and getting a cheaper pillow for the real stars of the show — the quilted top and the cooling bottom — would be awesome.
Because, with or without that tiny insert, the new Leesa Hybrid Pillow has become my new favorite pillow. It has all the support I need, and man they are not kidding when they say it’s cool to the touch. It’s soft, it has a nice weight to it, and everything about it is luxury.
That being said, I’ve only had a little more than a week with it, and I don’t know how it will stand the test of time. I’ll be keeping my other pillow in the closet, just in case, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I forget it’s there for a while before cleaning out my closet and ultimately tossing it.
DOWNSIDE
The more you complicate something, the more things there are that can go wrong. I’m talking about losing inserts, having to wash different pieces in different ways (for the most part it’s machine washable, except the gel insert), and you’ve got an extra zipper that might break someday.
The only other downside I can think of is the price tag, which is hefty for parents on a budget. But here’s the thing:
You should be investing in the things you use all the time.
A nice bed, a nice pillow, a nice couch, a nice TV, a nice computer, a nice phone, and nice shoes. All of it will impact your life, and when things get hectic with kids, at least the quality of the products you’ve invested in will be there for you when you collapse from exhaustion at the end of the day.
FINAL THOUGHTS
At $125 dollars, it’s hard to fully recommend the Leesa Hybrid Pillow despite how well it helps me sleep. Investments matter, but so do budgets. The mini-pillow insert just doesn’t have enough impact to warrant its own existence, at least for me, but you might be sensitive enough to notice.
That being said, we do recommend it if your budget allows, because it’s a damn nice pillow that will help you sleep.
When you have kids though, you need all the help you can get when it comes to sleep. We loved the Leesa mattress, and we do love the Hybrid Pillow. We’re just not in love with the price tag.
If you’re looking for the right pillow and budget isn’t a huge concern, you can snag a brand new Hybrid Pillow from Leesa right here. And if budget is a huge concern, you can grab one of Leesa’s original pillows for $75.
I know those two-for-20-dollar pillow deals at Costco might seem great, but sometimes just spending that little extra will be worth it for years to come.