Is that silk pillowcase too good to be true?

All over the internet (and I’m looking at you TikTok…) you can see silk pillowcases advertised for £5 that will change your skin, your sleep, your entire life! But how likely are you to actually receive a real silk pillowcase for £5?

So many people don’t realise they are falsely advertising by parroting the same lines and are assuming silk and satin are interchangeable words. Often when you search for silk pillowcases, the results are riddled with polyester satin advertised as silk. And why would you pay £50+ for a silk pillowcase when you think you can buy one for £5?

With silk and satin being used interchangeably or with polyester turning up even when you searched for silk (often because silk has been added as a key word or silky has been used in the product description)

So what should you be looking at to check?

Words matter

Satin is a type of fabric weave which can be made from different fibres including silk and polyester. Only silk should be referred to as silk while polyester satin can still be referred to as satin. It’s not true that any use of the word satin means synthetic fabric. Silk or silk satin should only be used to describe silk. Vegan silk is often a way to market polyester satin in a…more appealing way! Ice silk is another rebranding of polyester.

Price

My silk pillowcases use around a meter of silk. That meter of silk costs me more than £5 so a silk pillowcase for less than the price of the silk fabric is an instant red flag! And that’s before you consider labour costs.

Fibre content

Some brands will hide the word polyester further into a product description or under a drop down header a subtle mention of polyester or not giving the fabric content makes it less likely to be real silk. I use a stretch silk for durability and have the fibre content (94% silk, 6% spandex) listed in all my product descriptions.

100% satin is an utterly meaningless term as it does not tell you the fibre content. A weave is or isn’t; there are no percentages for the weave of a fabric. It would be like saying 100% chair without saying if it was a chair made of wood or plastic.

Details

Of course there will always be some unscrupulous brands happy to lie but if the description mentions details such as Mulberry Silk, the silk grade or momme (this is the weight or thickness of silk and is not used for any other fabric) then it is more likely to be real silk.

Shine

This is a bit harder to spot through a screen as lighting, photo editing and camera settings can affect the shine. Polyester will generally have a harsher, whiter shine while silk should have a softer sheen. The weave can be more visible with polyester although.

The shinier scrunchie on the left is polyester while the scrunchie on the right is polyester

Slip

Silk should be smooth but not slippery while polyester can feel almost slick.

Burn test

This can only be done with the physical product and should be done safely! I’m always happy to include free swatches of fabric either for colour matching or if anyone wants to do a burn test (as you don’t really want to cut into that pillowcase!)

When silk burns, it crumbles to ash and smells of burnt hair as it is also made of protein. Polyester will melt when burned and can form little plastic beads.