HOMBYS Lumbar Support Pillow Review: A Cushion for the Recliner

My MCombo is a good chair and I have said so since February. But a lift recliner is built to tip you back, and when I sit up straight in mine to read the Gaston Gazette on my tablet or work a crossword, there is a gap at the small of my back about the size of my hand. That is not a defect. It is just how the chair is shaped. For a few weeks I rolled a throw pillow off the couch into that gap, and by Tuesday it had gone flat as a pancake. In July I bought the HOMBYS lumbar support pillow, the memory foam one made for recliners, and it has lived in that gap ever since. Four months now, every day, on the same chair. I am 72, I am 5 feet 4 inches, and I sit in that chair most of the afternoon.

I am not a nurse and I am not a physical therapist, and I am not going to tell you what a cushion will do for your back. I can tell you what this one did in my living room, for a woman who is 5 feet 4 inches and sits most of the afternoon. I can tell you how it held up, what I have to fuss with, and who I think should walk on past it. If you want to talk about your own back, ask your doctor or a physical or occupational therapist before you spend money on anything, especially after a surgery or a fall.

How I've Used It

The pillow goes behind me only when I am sitting upright. Coffee and the paper in the morning. The crossword or the TV in the afternoon. Evening television with Walt until about ten. When I lean the chair back for a nap I take the pillow out and set it on the couch, because a cushion behind your back while the chair is already reclined just pushes you forward off the seat. It took me two days to work that out and now it is automatic. Pillow out, nap. Pillow back, sit up.

Before I bought anything I sat down with a tape measure, because that is how I am. From the seat of the MCombo to the point where my back met the chair back was a bit over four inches, and I could fit my flat hand in there sideways with room to spare. That measurement is the reason I went with a five inch cushion instead of something thinner. If your own gap measures two inches, five will push your knees toward the edge of the seat and you will not like it. Measure it. It takes one minute and it saves you guessing wrong.

It arrived compressed and flat, and it took the better part of a day to puff up to its full five inches. Nobody had prepared me for that, and I nearly decided I had been sent a thin one. Give it overnight before you make up your mind about it. I opened the box on a Thursday afternoon, left it on the kitchen counter, and by Friday morning it was a different cushion than the one I had pulled out of the plastic.

The chair sits by the front window on carpet, next to the TV, which is where I have done most of my sitting since February. Walt is on the couch and has never once asked to borrow the pillow, so this is a one person item in this house. The 20 inch width runs from one side of my lower back to the other without curling up at the edges the way a smaller cushion does, and that width is the part I did not expect to care about and now would not give up.

What the Five Inches Actually Do

The number that matters is the thickness, and it is five inches. A recliner seat is deep and the back leans away from you, so when you sit up, there is a hollow behind your waist. Five inches is enough to fill that hollow on my chair without shoving my knees toward the edge of the seat. I expected to feel like I was perched on the front half of the recliner. I did not. My back met the cushion and that was the end of it.

The width is the other half of the story. The HOMBYS listing gives the size as 20 inches by 13.5 inches by 5 inches, and the shape is a rectangle rather than the round-ish lump a throw pillow makes. What that means in a living room is that it covers my whole lower back and waist at once, not one spot in the middle. A throw pillow cannot do that. It wanders.

The fill is memory foam, the material is listed as polyurethane foam, and the cover is polyester. It is contoured rather than being a plain slab, and the thickness runs to five inches at the part that sits in the hollow of your back. Memory foam does what memory foam does. It takes the shape of whatever is pressing on it and it comes back slowly. The trade-off, and I will say it plainly, is that it holds warmth. On a warm afternoon in September I noticed the small of my back felt warm. Not uncomfortable, but noticeable. That is the nature of the material and a cover is not going to change it.

At 0.88 kilograms, which the listing gives as the item weight, it is light enough that I lift it out with two fingers when I want to nap. That sounds like a small thing. It is not, when you are moving something four or five times a day for four months.

The first week I had it, I kept reaching back to check it was still there, the way you do with a new pair of glasses. By the second week I had stopped noticing it, and that is the highest compliment I can pay a piece of furniture. A cushion that keeps announcing itself is a cushion you will quit using by August. This one disappeared into the routine, which is what I wanted from it.

One thing I cannot tell you is whether five inches is right for your chair. Mine is a MCombo lift recliner, and the seat is deep. If your recliner is shallower, or if you are much taller than I am, five inches may push you further forward than you want. Sit in the chair first and look at the gap with your own eyes, the way you would measure a doorway before buying a piece of furniture.

The Cover, the Washing, and the One Annoyance

The cover on the HOMBYS comes off. That was the reason I chose this over a plain foam wedge, because I have spilled coffee on this chair before and I know myself. The listing says the cover is machine washable and the fabric is 100 percent polyester, and I have run it through the machine about once a month since July. It goes back on without a fight, which is more than I can say for the slipcover on the chair itself.

I do the wash on Mondays, so the cover goes in with the towels on the gentle cycle and then over the back of a kitchen chair to dry. It has been through that four times now. The first time I was braced for it to come back shrunk, and it did not. The zipper is the part I watch, because zippers on cushions are where things go first, and this one still closes clean. I have not had to fight it once, and I am not gentle with a zipper.

Here is the annoyance, and it is the only real one. The pillow does not attach to anything. There is no strap and no elastic and nothing at all holding it to the chair. When I stand up out of the MCombo, the cushion comes with me a little and slides down into the seat. I have to push it back up into the small of my back when I sit down again. It takes one second and after four months I do it without thinking about it. But if you are the sort of person who wants a thing to stay where you put it, know going in that this one will not.

The other thing I would tell a friend is that this is a sitting cushion, not a napping cushion. I left it in for a nap exactly once. It pushed my chin toward my chest and I took it straight out. It is not made for the reclined position and it does not pretend to be. If napping is most of what you do in your chair, that is a different purchase, and I would not spend the money on this one.

How It Compares to the Throw Pillow I Started With

For about five weeks before I bought this, I used a throw pillow off the couch. It was free and it was right there, and for the first two days I thought I had solved the problem. By the end of that first week it had flattened into a lump. Throw pillows are stuffed to look good on a sofa, not to hold a shape behind a person who leans on them for two hours at a stretch.

The difference is not subtle. The HOMBYS holds its five inches because the foam is dense enough to push back. The throw pillow gave up and stayed given up. Beyond that, the throw pillow was too small in every direction. It covered about half of my lower back and the corners poked at me. The width on this one is what makes it feel like part of the chair rather than something I am balancing.

To be fair to the throw pillow, there are two things it did better. It was already in the house, and it went into the wash with the towels without a second thought. So if you are not sure a cushion back there is going to help you at all, start with what you own. Give it a week. If you find yourself rolling it back up every morning, then buy the thing that was shaped for the job in the first place.

Four Months In, What Changed and What Didn't

The HOMBYS foam has not gone flat. That is most of the review, really. Four months of daily use, most of the afternoon and most of the evening, and it still comes back to five inches when I get up out of the chair. The cover has been through the machine four times and the seams are fine. The zipper still works. Nothing has torn, nothing has stained, and nothing has taken on a smell.

Late October I did something I had not done since spring. I sat in the chair for most of a Saturday, from after breakfast until the evening news, with the pillow in the whole time. Walt brought me a sandwich and I ate it right there. My back was not the thing that complained that day, my knees were, and that is a separate matter entirely. But it told me the cushion was not going to be the reason I had to get up.

What has not changed is the chair. When I take the pillow out to nap, the gap is right there waiting for me. The pillow did not fix the recliner, it filled in for it, and I think that is the honest way to put it. If your chair already fits you well in that spot, you do not need this. Mine did not, in one specific place, and now it does.

One more thing, and then I will get off my soapbox. I asked Dr. Patel about the lift chair before I bought it back in February, and I would say the same to you about any cushion you wedge behind your back. Ask first. If you have had surgery, or a fall, or you are working with a physical or occupational therapist, that person knows your body and I do not. I am telling you what worked in my living room in Gastonia. That is the whole of what I am telling you.

Four months of daily sitting and the foam still comes back to five inches. The throw pillow off my couch lasted about a week.

Who This Is For

This is for someone who sits upright in a recliner and feels a hollow behind the waist. Reading, crossword, tablet, television, a long quiet afternoon. It is for the person who has already rolled a throw pillow into that hollow and watched it flatten by the end of the week. It suits a smaller frame too, since 5 feet 4 inches and about 165 pounds is not a large person and the 20 inch width is still generous on me. And it is for anyone who wants to be able to wash the thing, which matters more to me every year.

Who Should Skip It

Skip it if your chair already fits you and you feel no gap at all. Skip it if you spend most of your chair time reclined, because you will be lifting this out every single time. Skip it if you want something that stays put without a hand, since this one will not. And skip it if you are expecting a medical device, because it is not one and it does not claim to be. It is a cushion. If you need more than a cushion, that is a conversation for your doctor or a physical or occupational therapist, not for a retired woman in Gastonia with a tablet and an opinion.