The standard the silk is held to
Silk Meets Science: SILVADUR® Technology
We didn’t choose an antimicrobial finish. We chose the one that actually belongs next to your skin, night after night, city after city.
The invisible reality
Every hotel pillow holds a history you can’t see.
The human face sheds around 30,000 to 40,000 skin cells every hour. Sweat, natural oils and residual skincare products transfer onto pillow fabric within minutes of contact. In hotel environments, laundering cycles reduce bacteria, but they don’t eliminate them. What remains includes Staphylococcus aureus, E. coli and common skin flora from previous guests.
This isn’t a reason for alarm. It’s a reason to bring your own.
PillowWrap™ was built around one question: what is the highest level of protection we can engineer into a piece of silk that touches your face for eight hours?
- Average contact time between your skin and a pillow surface each night
- 8 hrs
- Bacterial reduction achieved by SILVADUR® in independent testing
- 99.9%
- Commercial washes SILVADUR® maintains efficacy through, versus coatings that fade after 20
- 50+
- Years silver has been used for its antimicrobial properties. Science refined what nature provided
- 2,000+
How it works
Not a coating. A controlled release system.
Most antimicrobial treatments work by saturating fabric with silver and hoping it lasts. SILVADUR® uses a polymer matrix to bond silver ions directly to the silk fibre, then releases them on demand, only when bacteria are present.
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Bonded
Locked to the fibre
A proprietary polymer matrix binds SILVADUR®’s silver ions directly to the silk fibre during fabric finishing. This isn’t a surface spray. The silver is integrated at a structural level, which is why it persists through wash after wash.
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Sensing
Released only when triggered
The polymer responds to moisture and the conditions created by bacterial presence. Only then does it release Ag⁺ silver ions, a smart-release mechanism that preserves the silver reservoir and prevents unnecessary exposure between uses.
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Acting
Disrupting bacteria at the cell level
Silver ions (Ag⁺) penetrate bacterial cell walls, disrupting enzyme function and interfering with DNA replication. Bacteria cannot develop resistance to this mechanism, making it effective against a broad spectrum including S. aureus and E. coli.
Built to last through your travels. Because SILVADUR® is polymer-bonded rather than surface-sprayed, it maintains efficacy through 50+ commercial washes. A spray-on antimicrobial finish begins degrading with the first wash cycle. SILVADUR® doesn’t.
Why not nano silver?
Safer. Smarter. Stays put.
Not all silver antimicrobial treatments are equal. Nano silver involves microscopic silver particles dispersed through fabric: particles that can detach with washing, potentially absorb into skin, and aren’t classified under the same safety frameworks.
SILVADUR® uses ionic silver bound in a polymer, not loose nanoparticles. The silver remains in the fabric. It’s released as ions, at the molecular level, only in the presence of moisture and bacteria.
This distinction matters when the fabric is touching your face, eyes and lips for eight hours.
The decision
Why this specific technology, for this specific product
The PillowWrap™ spends more time in contact with your skin than almost any other product you travel with. It touches your face. It’s near your eyes. It’s there while your skin barrier is at its most vulnerable: during sleep, when your body is in recovery mode.
The bar for what goes into it had to be different. We tested against a simple standard: would we be comfortable with this touching our skin, every night, in every climate, for years?
Eight hours. Your face. Repeated across every city you’ll ever sleep in.
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SILVADUR® is the only silver-ion system with this combination of polymer bonding and smart-release. We didn’t find a comparable alternative.
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OEKO-TEX® Standard 100 certification independently verifies the absence of harmful substances. This wasn’t optional for us.
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It works quietly in the background. Silver ions are released only when moisture and bacteria are present, so your PillowWrap™ stays fresher between washes with no extra steps.
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The durability profile matched how our customers actually use the product: frequent travel, regular laundering, diverse climates and water qualities.
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It performs on silk. Not every antimicrobial system is compatible with delicate protein fibres. SILVADUR® was engineered to bond effectively without degrading the fabric.
Credentials
SILVADUR®
The world’s leading polymer-bound silver-ion antimicrobial technology for textiles. Independently tested and certified for safety and efficacy.