Pure Down natural goose down feather pillow with white cotton case: 75 ppm Antimony in the brown piping.

When tested with an XRF instrument, this “Pure Down” brand (www.PureDown.com) feather pillow with a white cotton case (no zipper), model PD-16020 was positive for 75 ppm Antimony in the brown piping [and negative for any heavy metals everywhere else].

Note: if you are interested in a non-toxic mattress brand I recently became an affiliate for my favorite mattress brand – Naturepedic, and they are offering a discount to my readers. Click here to read more about that!

Where did this pillow come from Tamara?

The pillow that I tested is my pillow that I sleep with on most nights. I purchased a set of two of them on Amazon in November of 2018 (here’s my affiliate link for this exact pillow: https://amzn.to/2tItnzt) While I was disappointed to find Antmony in the piping, the fact that the main fabric and body of the pillow were negative for Antimony is consistent with my testing of similar down pillows I have come across in homes around the country. In fact, down pillows with cotton cases are so consistently free of any heavy metal toxicants that I often use them as a surface to prop up small things that need to be held in place for testing, because after testing thousands of pillows, I know they are likely to be a neutral surface to test against [Note: whenever I do this I always test the pillow first to make sure it is free of toxicants – as I always do with any background that I test against.]

Tamara, are you going to keep using this pillow now that you know it has trace Antimony in the trim?

I will likely keep using this pillow (covered in an Organic cotton pillow case) for the time being, although I will continue to be on the lookout for an entirely Antimony-free pillow (perhaps a holy grail, along the lines of a truly Lead-free mug!)

To see more pillows I have tested, click here.

It seems that even companies who make natural alternatives (like this one, made primarily with undyed cotton and natural goose down) tend to use synthetic fabrics or other materials (like plastics and painted metal) for the trim and zippers and those synthetic components tend to be the element of the pillows that most likely to test positive for at least some level of Antimony.

The pillow was tested multiple times on each component to confirm the levels of all metals detected. Testing was done with a high-precision Niton XRF instrument in “Consumer Goods” mode. Test results are science-based, accurate, and replicable.

Continue reading below the image. This image is a close up of the brown piping of the trim, taken from the advertisement for these pillows on Amazon.

Below are the full XRF readings for this pillow
#1) Brown piping on trim of pillow (100-second test):

• Lead (Pb): Negative / Non-Detect (ND)
• Cadmium (Cd): Negative / Non-Detect (ND)
• Mercury (Hg): Negative / Non-Detect (ND)
• Arsenic (As): Negative / Non-Detect (ND)
• Barium (Ba): Negative / Non-Detect (ND)
• Chromium (Cr): Negative / Non-Detect (ND)
• Antimony (Sb): 75 +/- 23 ppm
• Selenium (Se): Negative / Non-Detect (ND)
• Bromine (Br): 24 +/- 3 ppm
• Zinc (Zn): 70 +/- 8 ppm
• Copper (Cu): 26 +/- 13 ppm
• Iron (Fe): 167 +/- 23 ppm
• Titanium (Ti): 1,498 +/- 248 ppm

#2) Test on white main body of pillow (100-second test):

• Lead (Pb): Negative / Non-Detect (ND)
• Cadmium (Cd): Negative / Non-Detect (ND)
• Mercury (Hg): Negative / Non-Detect (ND)
• Arsenic (As): Negative / Non-Detect (ND)
• Barium (Ba): Negative / Non-Detect (ND)
• Chromium (Cr): Negative / Non-Detect (ND)
• Antimony (Sb): Negative / Non-Detect (ND)
• Selenium (Se): Negative / Non-Detect (ND)
• Bromine (Br): Negative / Non-Detect (ND)
• Zinc (Zn): 113 +/- 9 ppm
• Copper (Cu): 37 +/- 12 ppm
• Nickel (Ni): 15 +/- 8 ppm
• Iron (Fe): 159 +/- 22 ppm
• Bismuth (Bi): 7 +/- 4 ppm

As always, please let me know if you have any questions.

Thank you for reading and for sharing my posts.

Tamara Rubin
#LeadSafeMama

*Amazon links are affiliate links. If you purchase something after clicking on one of my links I may receive a small percentage of what you spend at no extra cost to you.