Foam Pillow

Foam pillows at one point were relegated to the realm of novelty item, something of a niche filler (like the airplane pillow, or a gag gift. The release of memory foam drastically altered the landscape and created a real market for foam, if only of a particular type.

Memory foam was, as the purveyors of such will tell you, pioneered by NASA researchers who were investigating ways to improve the safety of aircraft cushions. The dense foam they created had a heat memory, such that it would adapt readily to the body's form, and when the body heat was removed, the foam would revert to its original shape. The path from experimental product to foam pillow was a convoluted one.

One of the biggest barriers to the commercialization of memory foam was the manufacturing process, which was complex, and initially unreliable. It took more than a decade from the time that the technology was released into the public domain for items such as a memory foam pillow to be successfully marketed. Recent manufacturing advances have further lowered the cost of production, and while the foam is still a high end bedding material, it is no longer reserved for the ranks of the excessively wealthy as it was even a decade ago.