The complete guide
Silk pillowcases in a hot bedroom, and what colour has to do with it
Start with the pillow, not the pillowcase
This case is 51 cm by 76 cm, which fits the standard pillow size sold here. If your pillow is a king, or a contoured memory foam shape, measure it before you order. A silk case that is stretched over a pillow it was not cut for wears at the seam first, and that is the one failure that is not the fabric's fault.
Then decide what you want the colour to do
It is the colour that shows a stain soonest, so it suits a bed where skincare goes on well before lights out rather than at the pillow.
The number to look at is momme
Momme is a weight, not a count. Silk thread is too fine to count usefully, so a standard piece is weighed instead. This case is 22 momme, which is the weight we settled on for pillowcases: 19 is fine but wears through sooner, and much heavier than 22 starts behaving like furnishing silk and loses the drape.
Know what you are buying, silk or satin
Satin is a weave and silk is a fibre, so a fabric can be one, the other, or both. This page is silk. The Satin Silk Pillowcase elsewhere on this site is a satin weave in 100 per cent polyester, which glides in much the same way and costs a good deal less. Both are worth owning and they are not the same thing, so we price and describe them separately.
Wash it the boring way
Cold water, 30 degrees or below, hand wash or a gentle machine cycle in a mesh bag. Use a detergent with no enzymes and no bleach. Air dry out of direct sun and keep it out of the dryer. Iron on the lowest setting if you iron it at all.