Are Silk Pillowcases Really Better for Your Skin?

As the cult of skincare grows and more people religiously slather themselves with serums and lotions before bed, beauty obsessives are embracing silk pillowcases. Although sleeping on silk isn’t anything new (silk head wraps have long served to protect labor-intensive hairstyles), skincare enthusiasts have latched onto silk pillowcases as a supposed way to prevent wrinkles and protect against acne. Here at Wirecutter, we’ve spent a lot of time considering what sheets we sleep on, but we haven’t yet taken the plunge into reviewing specialized pillowcases. So we had to find out: Does silk really help your skin?

There are two arguments for why a person might want to switch to a silk pillowcase. One is that silk’s smooth surface can supposedly limit the amount of friction that the skin is exposed to during sleep, preventing the “sleep creasing” you might find on your cheek after hours in bed. The theory is that switching to a textile that pulls less on the skin helps to prevent morning wrinkles from becoming lifetime wrinkles. The claim is not completely unfounded. “The bottom line is, any product that helps reduce the strain on the skin is beneficial,” says Manhattan cosmetic dermatologist Dr. Dendy Engelman, who receives revenue from her skincare line as well as drug companies. The decreased friction benefits those who sleep on their side or stomach the most, though. If you’re truly concerned about wrinkles, Engelman recommends sleeping on your back to avoid “compression lines and squishing your face.”

For anyone who invests in nightly skincare, however, silk does have one additional benefit. The fabric absorbs less moisture than cotton, so your skin stays more hydrated on silk than it does on percale cotton. For those who suffer from especially dry skin or who live in seasonally dry climates, that bit of extra overnight hydration can mean waking up with a less tight, dry face. Less absorption by your pillowcase means those pricey serums stay put, too. “Our skincare isn’t doing much good on our pillowcase,” says Engelman, “so limiting that absorption and friction allows our skincare products to work harder for us.”

Another claim about silk pillowcases—that the material is antimicrobial and can help prevent acne—is a bit more dubious. Although silk fibers have antibacterial properties at the microlevel, there’s no clinical evidence confirming that a silk pillowcase stays cleaner or transfers less bacteria onto your face than standard cotton. If you’re worried about bacteria on your pillowcases, changing and washing your pillowcases regularly is a much better idea than investing in silk, which in addition to being expensive often requires hand washing or machine washing on the gentle cycle.

We haven’t tested silk pillowcases as standalone items, so we can’t give an official recommendation, but this machine-washable option from Fishers Finery is the best-reviewed silk pillowcase we’ve found. In the end, if you’re curious about silk pillowcases, there are good reasons to try them. For stomach- and side-sleepers, they do crease the skin less and don’t absorb as much skincare product off the face. If you’re worried about acne, though, silk pillowcases most likely won’t help, and compared with cotton, silk pillowcases are expensive and more finicky to care for. That’s why we recommend that anyone interested in a lower-friction cotton pillowcase consider sateen—it’s smoother and less absorbent than cotton percale, but it’s cheaper and more durable than silk. A two-pillowcase set from the JCPenney Home 400 TC Wrinkle Guard sateen sheet collection we recommend comes in at $20. It’s luxurious-feeling, inexpensive, and nothing worth losing sleep over.

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