Everlasting Comfort Lumbar Pillow vs a Rolled Towel: Which Holds Up?

I ran a rolled bath towel behind my back in the truck for years. It was already in the house, it never had to be ordered, and it did a fair impression of support for about the first fifteen minutes of any drive. Then it slid down behind me and I spent the rest of the trip leaning forward against the wheel. In March 2025, after a run up to Chattanooga left me stiff as a board at the Calhoun stop, I bought an Everlasting Comfort lumbar pillow and strapped it to the driver's seat of my 2016 Ford F-150. My name is Warren Tillery. I spent 31 years bent over engines in a county bus garage in Macon, Georgia, and my lower back has been sore since about 2014. Twenty months in, I have a fair opinion on both setups.

Here is the short answer. The Everlasting Comfort pillow holds its place and holds its shape, and 20 months in a truck seat has not flattened it. A rolled towel is easier to tune to your own back and it is already in your linen closet. If you sit in the same seat every day, the pillow earns its spot. If you take one long drive a year and the rest of your driving is five minutes to the hardware store, a towel is plenty and you can close this page.

One thing before we go further. I am not a doctor and I am not going to tell you a cushion fixes a back. Mine is better managed than it was, not fixed, and mornings are still the stiffest part of my day. If your back pain is new, sharp or getting worse, that is a conversation for a doctor or a physical therapist.

	Everlasting Comfort pillow	Rolled bath towel
Stays where you put it	Dual adjustable straps with extension pieces reach around the seat back	Slid down on nearly every drive and had to be re-wedged at stops
Firmness and height	One shape and one foam firmness, adjusted only by moving the straps	Roll it tight, roll it loose, add a second towel for more height
Shape after a year	Softened a little in the first month, then held. No flat spot at 20 months	Packs down into a lump, then into a lopsided lump
Packing it for a trip	1.5 pounds, but the straps and a 13 by 3.5 by 12.6 inch cushion take up seat space	Rolls into a duffel and there is nothing to lose
Cleaning	Removable cover comes off for washing	The whole towel goes in the wash in one piece
What you already own	One more thing to buy and store	Already in the linen closet
Lifespan	Memory foam with a lifetime replacement guarantee from the manufacturer	Eventually wears thin and gets retired to the rag bin
Best for	A daily driver seat and long highway runs	Trying the idea out, or a seat you use twice a year

Where Everlasting Comfort Wins

The straps are the whole story, and I did not expect that. This pillow has two adjustable straps with extension pieces that reach around the back of the seat, so it stays where I put it when I get in and out. The towel never did. I would wedge it in behind me at the start of a drive, and by the time I merged onto the interstate it had worked its way down and left me sitting against bare seat. The seat back in my F-150 has a curve to it, and a towel has no way to hold against a curve. The extension pieces are what let the cushion wrap that seat back instead of perching on top of it. In 20 months I have tightened the straps exactly once.

Here is the test I keep coming back to. Before the pillow, the drive to Chattanooga went like this: two hours up I-75, pull into the Calhoun stop, swing my legs out, and stand there with a hand on the door frame until my lower back caught up with the rest of me. After the straps were sorted, I got out at that same stop and walked to the restroom without the hand on the door frame. Nothing dramatic about it. I just did not have to wait for my back before I could walk. That is the whole difference, and it is the reason the thing is still strapped to the seat 20 months later.

The second thing is the foam. It came firm, it softened a little in the first month, and then it stopped changing. Twenty months of a grown man getting in and out of a truck has not put a flat spot in it. I press it with the heel of my hand and it comes back. A rolled towel does the opposite. It packs down into a hard ridge, then it packs down crooked, and you are straightening it at a red light on I-75. The pillow also weighs 1.5 pounds, so on days I am not driving I carry it inside and drop it in the recliner in the den. A towel stays in the truck because a towel is not worth carrying.

Where a Rolled Towel Wins

A towel is the only thing in this comparison you can shape with your hands. Roll it tight and you get a hard ridge. Roll it loose and you get something softer. Need more height? Roll a second one, or fold a hand towel inside it. The pillow gives you one shape and one firmness, and your only adjustment is where the straps sit. That matters more than it sounds, because the right spot is not the same for everybody. It took me about a week of moving the straps before I found the height that landed at my belt line. If the pillow's curve had come to rest somewhere my back did not want it, I would have been stuck with it.

For the record, my towel setup was one worn white bath towel folded in half lengthwise and rolled tight, and for a while I held the roll together with a rubber band. The rubber band popped somewhere south of Perry and the towel unrolled itself across the seat while I was at highway speed. I gave up on the rubber band after that and went back to wedging the roll in with my shoulders against the seat back, which works for about the first twenty minutes and then does not. If you have a towel arrangement that stays put, you are already ahead of where I was, and I mean that.

The towel also packs. It rolls into a duffel, it goes in the bottom of a suitcase, and if it disappears you are out a towel. The pillow is 13 inches long and 3.5 inches thick, so it takes up real room on a seat, and a strap can go missing in a bag. The towel washes in one piece while the pillow's cover has to come off first, which is a step, not a hardship. Mostly, though, the towel's advantage is that you already own one. That is the argument that kept me on a towel for years, and it is a good argument. I am not going to pretend otherwise.

What the Pillow Actually Is, In Plain Terms

It is a rectangular memory foam cushion, listed at 13 inches long, 3.5 inches wide and 12.6 inches tall, and 1.5 pounds. The fill is memory foam, the cover is breathable and comes off for washing, and it is latex free. The manufacturer lists the size as Large. There is a lifetime replacement guarantee in the listing. I have not had to use it, so I cannot tell you how that goes.

On the seat it sits against the lower back rather than the whole spine, which is what I wanted. It does not need inflating, pumping or tying on. I set it where I wanted it, ran the straps around the seat back, and that was the installation. The same cushion has spent plenty of evenings on the recliner in the den, which tells you something about a house with one truck and two people in it.

Twenty Months In the Truck Seat

The first week was fiddling. I moved the straps maybe half a dozen times, in the driveway, before I found the height that put the cushion at my belt line. Too high and it pushed my shoulders forward. Too low and it did nothing at all. Once I got it, I stopped noticing it, which is the highest compliment I can pay a piece of gear. The first long trip after that was the drive up to see the grandkids in Chattanooga, and I got out at Calhoun without the usual lean forward and groan.

April was the real test. I spread eleven bags of mulch that spring, and every bag of it came home in the bed of that truck. Three separate trips to the landscaping place on the north side of Macon, twenty-five minutes each way, in and out of the driver's seat at both ends of every one of them. The pillow never moved. The brace did the lifting work that week and the pillow did the sitting work, and neither one confused itself with the other. I mention it because that is the week I stopped thinking of the cushion as a thing I was trying out.

The foam changed a little in that first month. It came out of the box firm enough that I wondered whether I had wasted a Saturday, then it gave a bit and settled. It has not changed since. I am careful with that claim, because foam does break down and mine eventually will. But it is not broken down yet, and the towel it replaced was finished after a few months of daily use.

Where it earns its keep is repetition. The value is not in one heroic drive, it is in the thing already being there when I get in. I do not have to remember to bring anything, re-roll anything, or think about it. Gear that requires remembering gets left in the garage. Gear that is strapped to the seat gets used.

Once I found the height, I stopped noticing it. That is the highest compliment I can pay a piece of gear.

What Neither One Fixes

Neither of these is treatment, and I want to be plain about that. The cushion supports. It eases the sitting. It does not strengthen anything, it does not loosen anything, and it does not make a sore back go away. My physical therapist, Anita, gave me a stretching program back in 2022 and that is the thing that has helped the most. The pillow is what makes the sitting part of the day less of a chore. That is the whole of the claim, and it is enough for me.

Anita asked me once whether I was sitting with my feet flat and my hips back in the seat, and I had to admit I was not. A cushion cannot fix a slouched seat position and it cannot make you take a break. What it can do is take the pressure off one spot long enough that the drive does not wear you down. I still stop at Calhoun. I still get out and walk a lap around the truck. The pillow makes that stop shorter, not unnecessary.

There is also a fit question nobody can answer for you over the internet. A cushion that is exactly right in a truck seat can be wrong in an office chair, and the other way around. The only way I know to sort that out is to sit with it for a week and move it around. If a rolled towel is what you have, start there. If the towel is the thing that keeps sliding down behind you, you now know what I know.

Who Should Buy Which

Buy the Everlasting Comfort pillow if you drive the same vehicle most days and you are tired of re-wedging something behind your back. It suits a truck seat, a desk chair at home, or the recliner, because it moves easily and it straps down. It is the better pick if what you want is a fixed shape you can stop thinking about. It is not the pick if you want to fine-tune thickness, because you cannot. One shape, one firmness, and you adjust by moving the straps.

Stay with the towel if your long drives are rare, if you want to test the idea before you commit to anything new, or if you have already found a way to roll one that your back likes. Roll it tight, put it low, and see whether you are still happy with it at the two hour mark. If you are, keep it and forget this page. If you find yourself hauling it back up at every stop, that is the point where the pillow starts to make sense.